Tourniquet

[Ravynlee]

Am a bit speechless at the end there - what the hell was Fox thinking?! I understand her motives but seriously... hope they'll be okay. For that matter what the hell was Bella / Ravyn thinking too? I understand about having to plant the virus but they could have just as easily been shot (or at least Bella could, Ravyn has some ties with Joanna there to barter with, Bella has none) but still that's a fine line they all tread knowing regardless what Joanna wants Sarah is still the boss and Sarah wants Ravyn's head on a platter for what happened to her mother. Risque indeed.

 

What surprises me is despite the horrendous conditions the Old Worlders still have it relatively easy. In the context of the story, knowing of course its not historical fact but still, the old worlders still have too much fighting spirit and still speak with too much sarcasm for my likings, or would, if I were a supreme ruler. Their spirits haven't been broken enough, that's the idea of the camps? What about FORCED mind control? Forced experiments? The Narcissi Extraction program or w/e would be a great place to start, utilizing the failures of the past to improve it now on living subjects - now THAT would be evil. Sarah is losing her lustre here and slipping back when she should be out there ruling with an utter iron fist. You don't stand along side her anymore, you bow or you die, period. Having Joanna exert 'control' in such an arena to me was a really dumb move on Sarah's part. True she has to groom her protege but not at the risk of losing control herself. People without fear are impossible to control. If she needed to groom Joanna in the ways of New World Order (haha awesome) then surely she should generally take Jonnna aside to the experimentation chambers or torture chambers to be more specific (lets face it, Hitler and Gehring and Mengler etc were well reknown for it - Mengler or however it was written is the expert in wartime torture historically, maybe Sarah should be looking him up in Spyro's database) and literally force Joanna's hand away from the sceptical eyes of the mob. Just my two cents anyway.

 

As for just how Ravyn got the chip in I shudder to think. When I read the bit about the glass I almost expected someone to start hacking into themselves with it. Thank heavens I was wrong. But again somewhat surprised. Am not telling you how to write it by any means, but again, to be true to the real horrors of war and genocide, especially when drawing reference from the past, it can't be shied away from.

 

My advice - Sarah needs to find her back bone. She just lost her dearest friend. The people she needs to control are rising up against her. She's got people snapping at her heels (the likes of Draven) to take her place. She also has her father's lofty reputation to live up to. The world is looking to her to lead, at the moment she's not giving them rage or power or tyranny that she's supposedly famous for, instead she's giving them... Joanna. See my point?

Again just thinking aloud is all.

 

Aside from that am loving the description. Especially the squallid conditions inside the 'barracks'. My heart went out to Fox especially in this update. Poor kid has been shoved around by everyone and everything her entire life. If anyone's going to show their true potential in this war I reckon it's going to be her

 

Very good. As always. And considering you were ill when you penned it, not bad at all. Keep it up.

[woodyloveslinkin]

Chapter 26

 

(2 posts)

 

Chapter 26 - Cartoon Heroes

 

****

Mike laid there on a makeshift bed that was someone’s couch in their dank basement that was highlighted by a lantern that the rest of his friends had scavenged. He laid there with his eyes closed, twitching at the memories of the night’s battle that he had been injured in, his hands where placed neatly on his chest, and a blanket that was pulled up to his waist. Mike looked like a corpse almost, without the twitching eyes. Chaz sat down next to him with his head down and with his eyes closed, praying to himself secretly that Mike will wake up, as Rob and Viking were sitting in the corner, with their head on an angle against the wall, trying to get some shuteye.

Mike was too busy in the state that was classified as R.E.M; Rapid Eye Movement, to be even remotely aware of what was happening around him.

A dagger came at Mike but missed him, scraping just past his waist as a delusional New Worlder took another swing at him with the weapon that Mike’s opponent held. The New Worlder had been through many fights that night and the blood that smothered across his face, was not of his own blood, but of the Old Worlders that he had helped to slaughter. Mike grabbed the man’s wrist, trying to force him to drop the knife to the ground. Mike frowned as the physical strain was getting too much for him.

“You dirty Jap, you don’t belong here! You don’t deserve to be alive for defying New World order!” yelled the New Worlder, as Mike was still trying to make his opponent drop the weapon in his grip. Mike tightened his grip on the New Worlder’s wrist as the he shrieked with pain.

“What were you saying before?” asked Mike, as another New Worlder ganged up on him and stood next to their fellow New Worlder and pulled out another knife. “This isn’t fair, two against one. Hold for a sec while I even this score out and get my other friends.” The second one went at Mike with the blade pointing towards directly Mike’s heart. “This isn’t playing very nice.” Mike let go of the knife, took a couple of steps back, as the second New Worlder raised the weapon, getting ready to throw it at Mike, while the other one stabbed thin air in front of Mike. Mike started to walk backwards picking up a piece of wood and held it against his chest as the flames behind him glowed furiously and illuminated his sweat and his frustration. The second New Worlder that held the knife in his hands threw the knife at Mike but the only thing it penetrated was the wooden barrier between Mike and society. Mike smiled as he thought he was safe and lowered the piece of wood that hadn’t been set alight by the Spyral guards, as he pulled out the knife. The instant that he looked up at the pair of New Worlders, the first one of that generation that had originally attacked him threw his knife at Mike as Mike was still walking backwards, and they were walking forwards. Mike dropped the knife that he had just pulled out of the piece of wood and raised the piece of wood again. Mike heard the knife penetrate the timber. He looked over to see where it would’ve gone if he didn’t have any form of protection, it was stuck in the place where the timber protected his heart. “Thanks for that death wish.”

“You don’t deserve to live, your kind, you should be dead already!” yelled the second Old Worlder, as Mike dropped the piece of wood, not caring about the second knife that was thrown at him and picked up the first knife off the ground. “You think you’re the best, you think you are better than us all, don’t you, Jap?”

“Catch me if you can, that’s all I’ve got to say to you,” smirked Mike, as he turned around and started to run. He looked back at the pair of New Worlders that had given chase to the half-Japanese blooded man. Mike smirked as he held the knife firmly in one hand.

He looked forward to see where he was going and suddenly, out of nowhere, there was this massive bulky human guard that looked like Marvel Comic’s The Incredible Hulk almost. Mike skidded to a stop as the guard had his eyes fixed on the traitor, with his massive boulder like fists raised ready to strike. Mike decided that this might be the last stupid thing that he’s going to remember before the guard decapitated him, but he was going to do it for all the Old Worlders who had now found themselves fighting for their lives suddenly all around him. Mike started to run at the guard with the knife raised in the air over his shoulder as he ran at the guard.

“Come and get me, Jap!” yelled the guard, as the guard cried a war cry, as Mike approached the guard not thinking about the pair of New Worlders that were barely on his tail because he knew originally that they couldn’t keep up with him. Mike knew he couldn’t spend too much time on this guard if he wanted to try and find the rest of the group.

Mike came out him, running up a plank of wood that made a ramp of itself as it had been placed over a burning log. The ends of the plank were alight and that was the point were Mike jumped off, his boots kicking the air as Mike dug the knife into the guard’s forehead. Mike landed not so softly on the ground, as he had to roll to land not so properly, several times in the dirt and the shattered glass from the surrounding stalls that had their glass products smashed all over the ground. The guard cried in agony as he tried to remove the knife from his forehead as blood started to spurt out from the wound. Mike got up and crouched with his hands on the ground, as he tried to catch his breath at the same time. The guard stumbled around for a couple of seconds as dark red blood ran down the guard’s face like Niagara Falls used to over those cliffs everyone saw on those cheesy tourist postcards. The guard knocked over several things as he tried yet again, to remove the weapon that was obviously doing a lot of damage to the guard. He fell suddenly to his knees, and fell face first into the glass covered ground.

Mike rushed over to the guard, turned him over (that took several attempts to do) and started to take all the weapons that the guard had an option to use against Mike in the first place, but didn’t. There was a grenade and there was another knife, but it was more of a dagger with serrated edges. Mike got up, shoved the grenade in his pocket, careful not to move or touch the pin on it, and held the jagged edge knife in his hand firmly. He started to continue running like there was no tomorrow, for he feared that there would be tomorrow for him, right now.

He kept running around sharp corners and jumping over things, trying to avoid any more injury to himself as he had been badly hurt with the list of injuries starting with the sprained wrist that he kept cringing in pain because of it. He came to a standstill as he saw her. It was Sarah, and he knew it, the one that had continued this world into what it was. She stood there in front of him, looking directly at him, and looking very angry by his presence, holding what Mike realised what it was, a Japanese tachi sword.

Blood had been spilt in its gallons so far that night and yet, she hardly had any on her white Chinese dress that she wore.

“Why do you dare to come to this world and not expect to be killed, Japanese traitor?” she asked.

“Because, I want to make your day and surprise you,” answered Mike. “Have I made your day?”

“You will be making my day soon, with your blood on my hands and your death on my most recently killed list,” she answered. Right now, all that it mattered to Mike is that she was a New Worlder, because of the New World pendant that was illuminated and was shining brightly in the reflection of the fire that filled the sky of the night and leaked its smoke all over the black velvet sky as the snow white full moon glowed brightly with its black craters on its surface, over buildings.

Mike smirked as he ran towards Sarah with the serrated edged dagger. Sarah raised her sword and met Mike in the middle. Metal was heard hitting one another, as Mike realised that he should’ve just thrown the grenade to conclude this drama. Sarah cut Mike’s hand, as Mike wasn’t so quick to retreat his hand from another blow from the ancient blade. Blood seeped out of the wounds. He retreated away from Sarah, a couple of steps backward, cringing in pain, dropping the knife in his hands.

“You know that blade you’ve got there, isn’t really that good,” commented Mike, holding his wound in his hand as he thought the comment he was about to come out with was a bit too bold for someone who was weapon deprived. “You should’ve proved yourself more of a hypocrite and doubled up with a katana. I know now that you aren’t that smart and that you don’t know everything.”

“I have more backbone then you Japanese will ever have in your lifetime,” retorted Sarah, swinging at Mike again, but Mike dodged, getting on all fours as he swung his leg around and brought Sarah to the ground by tripping her over. Mike rushed to get Sarah’s weapon, as both of them was fighting against time to see who would reach the weapon in time to use it against their opponent.

Both of them knew how to use this weapon to their advantage and both of them were liable to inflict death on their opponent. Despite how fast Sarah’s hands were crawling along the ground to reach the weapon, Mike had gotten to it first. He picked it up, stood over Sarah, and smiled.

“And you thought you were coming out of this one alive, I hate it when people tell lies,” remarked Mike, as he held the blade horizontally underneath her throat. Sarah didn’t look down at the blade in fear but looked at her opponent with no fear but with strength.

Mike tried to rearrange the blade so the tip of it would eventually pierce her throat, but as much as Mike wanted to see the blood spurt out of her throat like a water fountain, Sarah was too quick for him. She grabbled hold of the blade with both hands and started to push it away from her, as blood seeped our of her hands and started to drip onto her dress below the sword. She pushed it away from hers so that she slid along the dirt, and tried to get to her feet, but Mike stopped her, by kneeing her in the stomach. She cringed in pain, as she rolled over quickly, taking the sword with her (creating more of a bloody mess of her palms) and tossing Mike onto the ground next to her, as it was the only moment that Mike was off his guard. Mike rolled over a couple of times, as Sarah got to her feet, held the sword properly in her hands, looked down at her dress and frowned at the bloodstains on it. She diverted her attention back to Mike, who was trying to get up. She ran over to him and started to try and stab him with the sword pointing downwards. But every stab meant another miss, as Mike kept rolling over as he saw the blade come down to try and kill him.

He caught one attempted stab with his hands, in which the blade was inches away from his stomach, and tried to pull it away. Sarah’s hands were getting sweaty and they were starting to lose grip as she struggled to continue the sword’s passage into Mike’s stomach, but Mike was resisting as blood bled out some more onto the blade and out of the wounds that were made by it in his palms.

Sarah lost grip and then Mike eventually tossed it aside, getting to his feet suddenly, as Sarah almost lost her balance, as she stumbled backwards as she, wiped her bloody hand on her dress. Mike went for the throat, as Sarah was futile and a bit out of co ordination to resist, as previous Old Worlders would’ve been dead by now, but this was no ordinary Old Worlder, this was a stubborn one. Sarah gasped for air, as Mike pinned her against a board of wood that had its edges alight with piping hot flames. Sarah kicked Mike in the crouch and head butted him as he stumbled back in pain.

“You’re not so tough now, are you?” asked Sarah, smiling a little bit. She soon stopped talking, picked a piece of thin metal sheet, and started to cut the back of his neck with it.

Mike stood up, as he snatched the metal sheet out of her hands, tossed it aside and started to pound her stomach with his fists, as he re-pinned her against the same wooden board as before.

“You’re not so tough, now that I think of it,” retorted Mike, as he was still in a lot of agony from being kicked in the place where it hurt for men. Sarah started to repetitively head butted him again, until blood was oozing out of both of the opponent’s foreheads. “That’s it.” Mike pulled out the grenade from out of his pocked. Just one problem, there was no pin on it. Mike noticed this very quickly, as Sarah started to take steps back away from Mike. Mike smirked as he threw the grenade into a nearby stall, as he didn’t want to go down killing Sarah and himself as well, he wanted to live through this ordeal.

It exploded as everyone ducked for cover, sending corpses of both generations of people left, right and centre. However, Sarah just simply disappeared from the site, as smoke and dust started to smother the small area of the marketplace. Mike was about to give chase to Sarah who had obviously disappeared because of the lack of the presence of a white dress that was now stained with its wearer’s own blood. Mike cussed underneath his breath as he realised that she wasn't going to come back.

[woodyloveslinkin]

Mike started to stir as Chaz detached himself from closing his eyes and looking down at the floor from in between his legs, where the latest Spyral Daily newsletter was wide open on an article that Chaz never thought would happen to this society. Chaz opened his eyes and looked at the stirring Mike who had been injured the most out of all the people in the group that he knew of and had befriended. Next to Chaz, was the normal alcoholic beverage, which it was a half empty bottle of pure blend whiskey. Chaz wasn’t the only one who had drunken it, Viking had some too, and they had startled to nurse Mike’s wounds with it. But Chaz was the one that was the most intoxicated.

A tear ran down Chaz’s cheek as he thought the worse was going to happen to Mike. He was going to die from disease or something and the last thing that Chaz wanted to do was to attend a funeral of his friend’s. Chaz sniffled as his hand reached for another sip of the whiskey. Chaz felt so relieved when the taste of the whiskey reached his dry and dehydrated lips. He wiped the tear away with the other hand that wasn’t busy pouring the whiskey down his throat.

Viking opened one eye, and looked at Chaz from the corner of this random basement of a stranger’s house that no one had any idea who owned the place or where they had gone to. The whole house upstairs was silent and empty, like a shoebox. Like Chaz, Viking had been topless all evening and was starting to get a bit cold. He looked at his friend now staring back down at the newspaper that Rob had smashed into a newspaper box to get. Viking was still had that James Dean look about him, despite the fact that he was covered in scratches and scars from the Third World War all over him.

“He’s going to be alright,” Viking croaked, as Rob slept through Viking’s speech, who was right next to him. Rob was buggered to the point where he was going to sleep through anything. He just wanted to find a good hiding place and sleep; he would worry about the food and the rest later. Good for them as they had found a place where the owners had stacked the back cupboards and the freezers that were now dead with food. Chaz turned around on his seat and looked to Viking. “Don’t worry about him.” Chaz was a little bit too drunk to take Viking seriously. Viking could plain well see the whiskey bottle in Chaz’s hand. “You better have not been drinking that whiskey, because that would’ve just screwed up your sobering up plan completely. No need to go back and hit the bottle, really, there’s no need for it. Learn to devour your emotions another way. Just don’t resort to that Ivna stuff, anything but that.”

Chaz ignored Viking as Chaz turned back around and put the alcoholic bottle down back on the ground where it had been originally stationed. He sighed as he picked up the newspaper that glorified the mass offensive on the Old Worlders.

“Half of Project Tourniquet is either dead or missing,” Chaz managed to say, thinking about Bella and the rest that had disappeared. “My army of nerds vamoose! What a brilliant plan we had going there for a while, and now look at this, it’s decayed into something so not worth trying for anymore.” Viking frowned at Chaz’s attitude as Viking tried to tell himself that Chaz didn’t mean anything because he was too drunk to mean anything that he was saying. “You know what the newspaper is saying?”

“Why are you believing anything that that newspaper has to say for itself?” asked Viking, as he lifted himself with his arms to his feet and started to walk over to the food supply in the back of the room.

“Because…I don’t know, it sounds too awful to be true what they are saying in this today,” answered Chaz, skimming the headline of the newspaper article that glorified the deaths of a couple of hundred Old Worlders, and that was just in Los Angeles. “Listen to this.” Viking came to a standstill as Chaz cleared his throat and began to read. “Los Angele’s Spyral headquarters have successfully exterminated roughly about three hundred or so Old Worlders in that singular attack that took place in the central marketplace. While Los Angeles still remains in tracking down the survivors and punishing them with brutal and merciless force, Moscow and Paris headquarters are happy to announce that between there two headquarters they have freed the world of over two hundred Old Worlders. So that’s a hundred between the two countries, right?” Chaz turned around and looked at Viking as he replied with a nod. “Hear more of this but before you judge, it gets worse. Even though Los Angeles is having great difficulty tracking down all of the supposed three hundred Old Worlders still on the run, two out of the assumed five hundred or so Old World inhabitants have been captured and now they are going to work until exhaustion and ultimately death, as New World farmers have been majorly affected by the civil unrest. If you know of an Old Worlder that has not got a bullet wound in it and is still walking, please report to Spyral immediately. As we seek not to punish the good but only punish the bad. What the hell?”

“Work until exhaustion and then death?” repeated Viking, trying to comprehend what he had just heard, as he turned around and started to raid the cupboards for a quick snack. “Sounds like Hitler’s stupid idea to get rid of the Slavs and Jews in the Second Great World War.” Chaz shrugged not knowing what to say or do, for the first time ever. “This doesn’t sound right.” Viking picked out a small can of tinned peaches in syrup and started to hack into the tin of the can with a small pocket knife, making a large amount of noise that woke Rob up. “If I recall my Old World history right, the Germans had some retarded ideas about Aryans and the perfect world….” Viking stopped as he realised something, as he started to ask himself questions. Why were they trying to kill every Old Worlder the previous evening and why were the New Worlders also involved? “Oh holy of mother of something I don’t want to say, they’re doing what Hitler never managed to achieve. Complete genocide.”

“Way to bring up good conversation topics when I just woke up,” Rob grumbled, as Chaz and Viking looked back to the waking figure in the corner. “I take you don’t know what religion I belonged to before it got banned and all religions were considered to be the work of the devil or some absolute garbage like that?” Viking and Chaz shook their heads simultaneously, looking clueless, well, in Chaz’s case, looking brainless, dazed, and confused. “The one religion Hitler wanted to send to hell and off the face of this planet.”

“You were, Jewish?” asked Viking, as Rob smiled faintly with wiriness and nodded softly. “Damn man, I didn’t know. You should’ve said something before.”

“Don’t treat me like I am a child or an alien, been there done that, it’s in the blood, hated it, I wasn’t in The Holocaust though, but got grandparents who were once alive to tell me the stories of the regime and how they managed to get away from Old World Europe,” replied Rob, softly, as he wiped his sleep deprived eyes clean of the water that was building up. Then he realised. “Oh no, I couldn’t have…. I left my glasses on the window sill of my place before we came down to help everyone else.” It wasn’t anything major it was just those glasses had been damn expensive and the thought of arriving back in his old apartment to only see the first thing that he had to see was the pair of glasses that he needed, laying smashed on the floor with large chunks of glass missing from the frames. Rob shrugged as he tried to stretch his arms. “Oh well, got better things to think about.” Rob yawned, as Viking and Chaz nodded.

“But didn’t The Holocaust do all sorts of things to its victims, like experiments and crazy shit like that?” asked Viking, a bit confused about historical facts. “I heard there were some crazy doctors and professors working for the regime. Better call the mental asylum, if we ever had one in the first place if Spyral is thinking about reinventing The Holocaust.”

“That’s a generalisation,” retorted Rob. Chaz and Viking were at the point of feeling uncomfortable about talking to Rob, who had now proclaimed that had belonged to the victimised religion of the historical event that they were talking about. Rob felt their awkwardness. “They didn’t immediately start torturing them and doing all that crazy stuff to them. They started off with the ideal that they were going to work camps and that The Final Solution would start with labour until exhaustion and then eventually death. Then it got into the scary and vomit material, Doctor Who meets Doctor Zoidberg stuff.”

“So…is that why you’re so dead on getting back the Old World, is because you were once Jewish?” asked Viking, looking still uncomfortable about the topic but the subject had gotten the better of him.

“No, this might sound harsh, but that isn’t the reason,” answered Rob, remembering the day that he picked up Fox from the rubble that was once her home. He also remembered what he had told Fox at one of the meetings of Project Tourniquet’s. He was doing to for solely her and now that she was now separated from Rob that gave him more of a reason to carry on to try and find her. “I’m doing it for other reasons. I’ve learnt to live without religion, that’s how much the New World has affected me that I’ve turned into this crazy anti-religious person, like an android almost. I lost my faith long ago and the only thing I can really try is to be try and gain it back through other mediums, somehow and someday.” There was a slight pause as Rob was trying to maintain his focus on the actual topic. “I can’t believe what the Germans put my ancestors through; they are going to do it our people. Is this what we have come down to, as a human race? We’re repeating mistakes of the past, and we are improving on them, as though the atrocities meant utter shit to anyone who experienced such torment?” Viking looked at Chaz in an awkward manner, as Chaz didn’t catch onto Viking’s drift so quickly. Rob was quick to pick up Viking’s glare. Rob looked back to Chaz, who was still looking at him. “I think Viking wants you Chaz.” Rob tried to remain calm but was too horrified by the thought of another version of The Holocaust happening.

“Oh,” said Chaz, as he looked to Viking’s painful glare. “What do you want this time?”

“The newspaper, didn’t it just say precisely that?” asked Viking. Chaz shrugged. Viking dropped the tin of peaches in syrup and ran over to Chaz who was still holding the newspaper in his hands. Viking snatched the newspaper out of his hands and started to look for the lines that Chaz had read out to him minutes before Rob work up. Chaz had been drinking too much and the whiskey smell around him surrounded him like alcoholic air. “Blah blah blah, here it is.” Viking found the line. “They are going to work until exhaustion and ultimately death…” Viking looked up at Rob whose facial expression had now changed dramatically from sleepy to fearful and angry. “They’re going to repeat history, Spyral are, they are going to bring the Holocaust to every country they are stationed in, and it has only just begun here and in France and Russia, so there are going to be no Old Worlders to threaten the stability of the New World society.”

“This cannot be, but how are they going to do it?” asked Rob, getting to his feet. “There aren’t many places they are going to hide the camps just like that. And there are going to be experiments as well…I think…”

“What do you mean, you think?” asked Chaz, laughing as he picked up the whiskey bottle and started to drink more of the alcoholic beverage. “That’s what The Holocaust was about silly, perverted experiments and humiliation. Of course there are going to be experiments, and now that I think of it, since the Dark Hills aren’t real, they’ve got to be hiding the camps somewhere near one of the stations, well, I would think Winter Station because that’s the only station that it really out of reach from the Dark Hills, but yet, it draws a question, why would you want to build a concentration camp so close to Spyral’s actual building?”

“You know what Chaz, you should just shut your drunken ass trap from now one,” Viking reprimanded, trying to consider that Rob was once Jewish and that it would indeed be a touchy subject for him. “Don’t speak unless you’ve got something constructive to say from now on okay?”

“Ignore Viking right now,” ordered Rob, as an objection flew straight out of Viking’s mouth. But Rob ignored him for a second. Rob looked at Chaz with stern eyes as he tried to piece together what Chaz had turned a laughing face to, not feeling like Rob had been insulted one bit. He knew what Chaz was like when he was drunk. “You’re right on some levels.” Another objection flew straight out of Viking’s mouth, but like before, Rob ignored him and his objections. “That’s the only place that they could hide such a camp. But a question arises, why did they particularly take the women of the Old Worlders and not so many of the men? I mean, I saw a shitload of Old World men when I was fighting and at the end of the night, compared to what I saw at the starting of the night, there were hardly any women left at all.”

“Because women are historically and stereotypically weaker and easier to control,” replied Chaz, as Viking couldn’t believe it, the drunk was actually right about something. “That’s why all of my angels are most probably there right now. They are going to be experiments… twisted and sick experiments of Spyral’s.”

“Did we really need the exaggeration, Chaz?” asked Viking, folding the newspaper in his hands back up and placing it on the floor just in front of his feet. “We know what The Holocaust was and reading it up as part of my high school project on the internet and presenting it, was gruelling enough without being told the fine details of how twins were sewed up and mutilated.”

“But we can’t do anything with Mike being the way he is right now,” said Rob, looking to the figure on the couch that was still twitching his eyes and sweating in the process of reliving memories. “It’s more than a one man job.”

“We are not, well I’m not about to start playing Spiderman and Batman in this case,” ordered Chaz, shaking his head. “It’s bad enough I know how to get past those stations and not be caught. The last time I did it, my virus didn’t work properly.”

“Wait!?” yelled Viking and Rob, in a choir together. “You’re the one that planted that virus Spyral’s been bitching on about for how many days now?”

Chaz nodded, a bit confused.

“Why is that a bad thing?” asked Chaz, innocently.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Viking, as the questions came rolling in. “How did you do it?” Rob shook his head, not in disbelief but more in something else.

“Stop with the questions, it’s not a one man job and now that we both know that Chaz is the one responsible for the virus and its outbreak, he’s sure damn well coming with us, to get us both past the Dark Hills, Dark Knight Station and then eventually to Winter Station,” Rob said to Viking, as Chaz was still a little confused about what was so big about him bringing half of Spyral down several times so far. “We need to get going now. Enough talk and we need some action happening.” Rob faced the pair that were listening to him eagerly. “I will wake Mike up; you two pack whatever food we’ll need. I don’t know how long it will take us to get past the obstacles but we need to start facing them soon. Understand?”

“I think so,” answered Chaz, as Viking nodded. “What am I doing again?”

“The same thing we do every night, Pinky, we’re taking over the world,” answered Viking, make an allusion to an Old World cartoon that he used to adore. Chaz missed it while Rob smirked at his comment, as he walked over to Mike and past both parties as Chaz nodded with confusion. “We’re packing food in other words, that is not alcoholic.”

“Oh okay,” replied Chaz as he moved out of the way for Rob to wake Mike up.

“Just grab anything,” ordered Viking, as they started to pull the cupboards apart together as Chaz was a tiny bit confused about the Pinky comment still.

Rob started to shake Mike, as Mike started to stir even more. Rob whispered a couple of words that would strike him as waking up material. Rob felt bad doing this, Mike was still injured and yet, Rob couldn’t leave him behind. He was a vital asset to the crew with his survival tactics and the things that Mel had taught him in their short meetings.

“What? Huh?” asked Mike, as he sat straight up, almost knocking Rob’s head. But Rob moved away quickly enough not to suffer from more damage then already he had encountered from the battles with the New World generation. “What’s happening?” Mike looked to Rob for answers as sweat beads glistened in the brilliance of the lantern.

“We have to go and find the girls, before horrible stuff is done to them, and I mean inhumane stuff,” answered Rob, shortly, not wanting to go into the whole Holocaust business that had been previously discussed. “I can’t leave you behind.”

“I fought her, the other night,” Mike rambled on, as he remembered his dream. “I fought the ruler, Sarah.”

“I’m sure you did,” Rob replied in disbelief. “In other words, keep on dreaming. You’ve heard the rumours hardly anyone who battles her directly doesn’t live to tell the tale.” He knew Mike had suffered a lot from the fight and he knew there were going to be mental delusions. “We need to get up and go.”

“Give me a second,” replied Mike, as he tried to control the dizziness around him.

“Have you gotten enough food for at least three days?” asked Rob, as he turned and faced Chaz and Viking who now were holding three bags worth of random food that they had just quickly shoved into some dull green bags that they had found laying around the cupboards. Viking nodded as did Chaz. “That’s good.”

“Alright, I’m up, but mind me, I’m a but out of it though, you couldn’t blame me,” said Mike, as he got to his feet, as Rob offered to aid him up the steps and walking in general but Mike refused as he looked to his bandaged wrist. “I wonder why that had stopped hurting.”

“Because we’re good friends,” replied Viking, with a smile, as Chaz and him threw the bags of food over their shoulders and carried them from now on. Mike put his hood over his face not wanting to have more pain inflicted on him just because he was Japanese, like he had learnt during the first stage of the conflict.

“Oh no…” was the first thing that escaped Mike’s mouth when he was the first person to leave the outside steps of the house that they had randomly crashed in the basement of for the night.

“No…this can’t be happening…” Chaz muttered to himself as he saw the figure standing high on a mounted platform, which had a bunch of New Worlders giggling and laughing in front of it.

“Who would do this to…?” Viking trailed off in his sentence as the figure came into focus. He was that shocked and saddened by what he saw in front of him that he dropped the food bags that he was carrying onto the dirty sidewalk. He frowned as he realised who would do such a horrid and humiliating thing to a person, especially one from the Old World generation. “Spyral!”

Rob didn’t say anything, he was too stricken with grief and now anger, as he saw the naked corpse of Melissa’s body nailed to a wooden cross that was held up on a mounted platform in the middle of what was once a local park but now was a desert for death and destruction. The image replicated itself over his glazy eyes, as they all read aloud the large golden encryption above her sliced throated body – Here is the enemy of the state, Enemies of the state beware. The nails had held her up showed no sign of glistening blood from the surrounding glow of the neon billboards, as they realised that the slit across her neck was real and was the cause of her death and not the nails that penetrated both hands, feet and held her forehead up to the world, so she could show her face to the world. Her eyes were deathly blank; her skin was blue, and white enough to send shivers down someone’s spine like it did to Chaz.

They were all shocked, seeing that they were under the impression that Mel had been incarcerated and not killed just yet. They all bowed their head automatically, in silence as they took a minute to remember Mel and her brilliant and positive attitude that she had brought to Project Tourniquet.

For the first time since the project had started, everyone in the group had been stricken down with grief and sorrow where it hurt the most, right at the core of the heart. They knew what they had to die for now and they had another thing to fight for, to avenge Mel’s death. Even though Rob was not one for revenge, but enough was enough as proved by his dedication to the project and his push for a better society and there was only so much everybody else could put up with. Spyral had just crossed the line, on a personal level.

They thought of the times where Mel’s mouth had gotten her in trouble, and how she had helped Viking out about telling him about the guard’s allergy to metal. The people that her death had affected the most were Chaz and Viking, the two Tourniquets’ that had known Mel the longest. Chaz had known Mel for a long while as well, while Viking served her the noodles that she regularly and almost daily shoved in her mouth.

The last man who stood there in grief to last see her was Rob and that was when she had left the first meeting when the project had been given its name, while the last Old Worlder in the actual project to see Mel was Ravyn and that was right before she got caught.

The minute was suddenly up; Mike limped over to a surprisingly alive patch of purple rhododendrons that grew oddly in the middle of a now barren wasteland. The New Worlders that had been there laughing and giggling at Mel’s naked dead corpse had disappeared by now as they had their giggle and left.

Mike bent over and picked a flower for Mel as Mike remembered that Mel used to love the type of flowers coincidentally that he held in his hand now. Mike walked over to the corpse that had been nailed to the cross and been placed to in the middle of the town to humiliate Melissa herself, and to scare off the Old Worlders. He bent down as he placed the purple rhododendron at the bottom of the cross. He bowed his head again, closing his eyes.

“Rest in peace Melissa,” whispered Mike, as memories of Mel swarmed into his head like a pack of killer bees. He bit his lower lip, trying to withhold the tears. He told himself that he had to be strong, for her sake. “Rest in peace, my dear.”

 

 

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[Ravynlee]

Poor Mel. Murdered and humiliated. And there's nothing her friends can do about it. Have to admit that would be hard to confront let alone just sort of 'deal with.' Given they, PT have so much to do they really have no time or faculties left to grieve as they should. That would be tough enough. I guess that's the idea, right? Surpress your emotions either with drugs or by force, that's the Spyral way. Sucks though, for the Old Worlders I mean.

 

Well... not much to say on this update. The historical references were good. This pause gives the rebels (the guys) a chance to focus now, not so much get back on track as it was to catch a breath. They cant afford to rest and in doing so in a kind of blind panic to save their friends they're going out at less than able-bodied. Something I bet Sarah is counting on.

 

All in all good. Rob's not so much renouncing his faith as he was using it in the past tense was amusing. Surprising. I thought his inner struggle was carrying the heart of the Old World. At the heart of that I would think would be his faith. Like the African American slaves were denied their heritage so they adapted it to fit into the mainstream. Rob and his Jewish bretheren would more than likely still be Jewish, just not open about it (closet Jews? 0_o Wow. Offensive without trying. I didn't mean it the way it sounded!) But you know what I mean. On a critical note as we discussed last night, if Rob is the heart and his vulnerabilites lay with keeping the Old Ways alive I would have expected more emotion from him. Even if it was obvious he was being macho and trying to suck it up. He still seems too rigid. But each to their own I suppose.

 

Mike's flashback was a bit hard to read. Again in a few sentences slightly repetative. Try and avoid repeating the same word over and over and try and eliminate where you can saying in three lines what you can say in one. For example things like 'Sarah swung out hard with the knife, and when the knife struck him in the arm, it lodged in hard.' Overly too much description when you've already stated she's swung hard, get the picture?

 

Not trying to pick for no good reason, you know I mean it in the most constructive of ways. I know you want to get published. I'm just throwing my opinion in. You don't have to take it, but if it helps *shrugs*

 

Anyway yes good as usual. And I still appreciate the fact that in all this turmoil Chas and Viking can still have their playful little banter back and forth. Sweet

[woodyloveslinkin]

edited. just like i promised. *this is where i say go nuts about commenting*

 

haha. comments are always appreciated

plus if i wanna get this publish you can go hard down on me about anything (well you know what i mean :-P ), i'm going through now and editing out old chapters.

 

And oh hello Kahlil, if you are appearing as a guest in this thread and you see this message

[woodyloveslinkin]

I'm going to give everyone a warning about this as its contents are a bit gory, don't eat while reading this. You may throw up due to gory mental images.

 

Chapter 27 - Air Versus Heir

 

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Draven and Joanna walked down the hallways together this evening, as they were in deep discussion about the activities of the Comet’s Eye. Joanna had pieces of paper in her hands with statistics written over them while Draven had other pieces of paper in his hands with numbers and scientific formulas printed on them. Spyro had been a help today in collaborating all of this information for them as they needed to get this new plan that Sarah had chucked the biggest of tantrums over. It was Joanna’s idea for the Old Worlders to volunteer conversion while Joanna had gotten away with defying a direct order from Sarah, Sarah still wanted her way, and she was going to get it.

Draven was now fearful of Sarah regaining her backbone as the death of Brad had shaken her up a lot and the last thing that Sarah wanted to be was an Ivna-induced drug addict that sat around and smiled at the war. Ivna was for the rest of the world not the people who worked at the global based corporation. Draven knew, as he walked alongside Joanna in his black suit, black tie, black shiny shoes and a white shirt that looked too clean to be real, that Sarah was not only planning another massive attack on the Old World generation, but she had already lined up a million artificial Spyral guards to invade Japan and implement Sarah’s real plan, that Joanna had misinterpreted at Camp David that day. There was no volunteering when it came to conversion, there was forced conversion, and that’s what Sarah was aiming to do now. Draven feared Sarah even more now that his bullying tactics weren’t working on her, and that yet again, she was finding her backbone.

Draven had never feared Sarah until now. Draven tried to tell himself that she was going to fall hard like Hitler fell smack down onto his face when the invasion of Berlin occurred. Draven was no historian to recall precise dates of events, but even with the common knowledge that Hitler fell hard, just like how Sarah was going to do soon (he hoped). He hoped to gain heir to the throne and do the same job as Jonathon.

Draven and Joanna were also trying to multi task and make sure that all of the weapons that Jonathon had safely kept in the weaponry room were still intact and safe to use. The invasion of Japan was to begin as soon as the weaponry and the tactics were given the all clear. The pair didn’t touch the tactics but Draven had a good feeling that Japan would be taken down, as Joanna had the exact same feeling as well, lingering inside of her.

She smiled as her black curls bounced along with her and the crystal and diamond embedded chandeliers reflected the slickness of Draven’s blonde hair gelled back. Joanna, like Draven, was in a business suit, same coloured attire with the same coloured accessories. Well, except for the shoes, they were heeled black boots that made her presence too clear and obvious when she walked down the hallway.

“I’m no scientist but why do I have to care about the hydrogen levels in the Eye?” asked Joanna, looking to Draven for the reasons for her having to care.

“Because if it’s not the right amount, the thing is going to explode or in the most likely case, implode in your hands,” answered Draven looking back at Joanna.

“Oh okay, I get it now,” Joanna made clear to Draven that she understood or Draven would’ve gone into deeper and scientific terms about the reason. “So we release the Eye, that is out of the chambers, at say about 0800 hours tomorrow and then what do we do after that?”

“Sarah will take care of that, remember the last time you went near the Eye?” asked Draven, recalling a memory where Joanna freaked out because of the Comet Eye’s tendencies to change colours and emotions rapidly. It freaked out because it could sense Joanna’s panic and something that no one in the room knew as well, it freaked out because it had eaten quite a few of her memories and it was the first time that it had direct contact with the physical body of the memory that it had consumed. “It’s like Spyro a lot, it senses mentality, it senses emotions, it feeds on a non-physical food source, and it reacts as we do but in a more combustible and explosive way, physically speaking. Ever heard what plutonium does do you when it is unstable?”

“I don’t know all of this science stuff, I’m just here to be the heir and know everything,” answered Joanna. “Or so that’s what I’ve been told.”

“You’ve been told correct in that case, you have to know everything and I’m the one that has to teach you everything as I taught Sarah, but she’s too smart for her own good at times,” commented Draven, trailing off a little bit towards the end of his sentence. They stopped in the middle of the hallway. Joanna could see a painting that looked out of place behind him, because there weren’t many paintings in this hallway compared to the collection of Jonathon’s that Sarah showed Joanna. “Plutonium is the main component of the Comet’s Eye and it is the core of this invention that makes it physically and emotionally unstable. We at Spyral don’t condone instability, but we approve of it when it comes to our advantage and not our disadvantage.” Joanna wasn’t paying attention but she was busying on trying to read what the painting said on the gold tablet at the top of it. Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci. Joanna frowned as she thought how badly the portrait of the woman was painted. “Are you paying attention to me, heir?”

“I’m sorry I trailed off,” apologised Joanna, as she didn’t know she didn’t have to apologise to anyone but Sarah right now in her status of being the heir of Spyral. “This picture…” She pointed to the painting as Draven turned around and looked at the painting. She stopped pointing. “What’s so great about it? It’s just a woman sitting down.”

“Don’t converse with me over this painting, it annoys me as well, it’s meant to be one of the most famous paintings of the Old World era,” Draven told Joanna, as they looked back to each other. “An heir has better things to do and learn than to sit and commentate on a picture that deserves to be slashed. In fact, help me for a second, now that I think of it.” Draven turned around, dropped his papers on the floor in front of him, and started to unhinge the painting off the wall.

“But, do you not respect Jonathon’s love for the painting?” asked Joanna, a bit confused. “Didn’t he put it up for a reason?”

“As much as I would love to say yes to both answers, I would have to say no,” answered Draven. “Now are going to help me destroy a painting that is blasphemy to a generation of artists?” Joanna shook her head, as she was somewhat stunned and a bit offended that he would do this to Spyral and to Jonathon’s legacy. “If I could tell you how much this painting doesn’t deserve to survive the next line of Spyral heirs, I would. But I’m afraid I would bore you.”

“Give me that,” ordered Joanna, dropping her papers on the floor, as Draven took it off its hook and Joanna grabbed the other side of the painting and started to pull it her way. “I’m not going to allow you to do this to Jonathon’s memory. You’re contaminating his memory by doing this!”

“And did I say for one second that he liked it?” asked Draven, as he quickly won the struggle to gain control over the painting. Joanna lost grip and tried again to retrieve the painting but her efforts were futile, as Draven merely shoved Joanna out of the way. “No! Can’t you see what the arts have done to Spyral’s head and the people who run it? They fight over canvas with some splashes of cheap Old World acrylic paint on it. This is how Israel lost to Palestine just before the Third World War ended. Bloodshed here, and bloodshed there, for the love of my mother, we could’ve been killing Old Worlders instead of each other of New World blood over this stupid painting.”

“What are you on about?” asked Joanna, stepping back for a second, as she looked around to see if anyone was witnessing the atrocity that was happening right before her. The hallway was empty and the exit to it was a couple of yards away. Joanna looked back at Draven.

“The assassins who killed Jonathon, were not only after his corpse, they wanted this painting as well, claiming that had been stolen from Venice, over in Europe somewhere, and they were only here to get it back,” explained Draven, trying to recall the facts. “I don’t know what happened, but I assumed that Jonathon didn’t like the painting anyway, but he still fought to maintain the truth that he didn’t steal it, so he was stabbed for it. Even though I don’t know the whole story off by heart, this painting was the cause of Jonathon’s death and it needs to be massacred like Jonathon was. With his own sword.”

Before Joanna could say or do anything, Draven broke into a run, ran past Joanna and went straight for the other hallway that joined the hallway that they were in now, with the painting still in his grip. Joanna looked down quickly at the papers on the floor and now was contemplating quickly about taking the papers with her because she had a job to do and if she didn’t do it she…just didn’t want to know what would happen to her if she failed to carry out a simple task. She looked back at Draven running like a slow motion athlete with the Old World famous painting in his hands.

Joanna had no choice, she didn’t believe for one second that this painting that looked horrible and useless was the cause for Jonathon’s death. Joanna could have just gone and started to run to Sarah yelling out that Draven was a traitor to Spyral and Jonathon’s legacy, but Joanna knew she didn’t have time. She had to get to that painting before it was slashed along with the previous ruler’s memory. Joanna turned around and ran awkwardly in her heels, cringing several times at how hard she was running.

Draven was almost out the door, as he turned around and whispered a slight yes to himself as he realised that the plan was working out the way that he wanted. Draven quickly dropped the painting on the floor, opened the door, picked it up again, and ran outside into the next hallway, slamming the door behind him. Joanna was catching up fast and Draven knew she was a fast runner and was a good quick thinker.

Draven looked around to see if anyone was coming and Sarah was coming with a group of black and white clothed associates surrounding her and a few scientists in their white lab coats pinned on the outskirts of the circle of Spyralans. Draven told himself that he better hide quickly or else he would be answering to the three thousand questions that Sarah would throw at him. He looked around quickly.

“Ah, weaponry room,” he whispered to himself, as he quickly hid in there, repeating what he had done previously with the whole dropping the painting and opening the door thing. The painting was getting heavy for him and it was starting to strain the muscles in his arm. He entered and gently closed the door behind him. He saw a small table with a katana on it that had been hidden under a piece of snow white velvet cloth to keep it anti-Japanese (the cloth was meant to keep it free from any Old World Japanese plagues or diseases it might’ve been contaminated with and therefore, that katana was praised as New World technology).

He quickly placed the painting against the table, so that the woman on the canvas faced the doorway and quickly slid out the katana from under the cloth. He had managed to rearrange the previous state of the cloth by doing this so he had to quickly reorganize it again so it looked like it was hiding a katana. But he had to count on Joanna’s stupidity to kick in to realise that the hilt of the blade was missing from sticking out of the piece of cloth.

Joanna came to a sudden halt in front of the door, screeching her heels against the surface of the wooden floorboards of the hallway that she was in, opened it and went through. She looked both ways to see a group of scientists and associates piled in together like a group of penguins huddled in. She couldn’t see Sarah anywhere, so she closed the door behind her and looked to a door that was slightly ajar. It read on the front of the rare timber door, Weaponry Room. Joanna smiled as she knew Draven will be in here probably about to slash the portrait that apparently was the result of Jonathon’s death. She quietly ran into the door, pushing the door open to see that the portrait was in front of a table with an empty white cloth on it.

Joanna took a second or two to look around the room before approaching the painting because she couldn’t see her opponent in sight, because he was too busy lurking in the dark corner quite close to where he wanted her to be with the katana in the firm grip of both his hands. He held it as though he was ready to slice and dice.

The walls were covered in all sorts of swords, ranging from different cultures to different centuries. There were ones that were small daggers, so that they could be hidden they way Sarah hides them in her corset top, there were so many of them. However Joanna couldn’t help but to notice, where were the Old World machinery, like a silencer or any type of destructive guns?

But then she remembered as she sighed, as she thought old age must’ve been the instigator of her forgetfulness. There was none. They were banned because of their involvement in the Third World War. They used other methods like a Glover, which was a magnetic glove that was used to handle the Comet’s Eye in the times of nuclear and mass death and destruction. They included machetes, axes, and all sorts of other bladed instruments for killing and defensive purposes only.

She walked over to the painting as the door swung shut by itself, and kneeled in front of it and bowed her head in silence as she told herself that she wasn’t a traitor for doing this. The only traitor was Draven because he wanted to destroy a token of Jonathon’s brilliant plan that had succeeded to create a better society.

Draven crept out of the corner, still holding the katana firmly in both of his hands, gripping it firmly. Joanna still had her head bowed to the painting, as she suddenly moved her arms and held the painting in her grip. Draven stopped suddenly, afraid that she was going to get up. But he told himself that if he didn’t strike sooner or later she would eventually get up and take the painting with her, and reveal his deceit to Jonathon and the throne of Spyral to everyone who would listen.

“Got any last words?” growled Draven, as he pressed the tip of the blade to Joanna’s skin. Joanna was shocked and almost scared witless by Draven’s sudden presence in the room, let alone that she had now realised what Draven was about to do. She felt the cold tip of the blade against her skin. She had no time to react.

“What?” asked Joanna, as Draven took that as Joanna’s last word, raised his sword, and swung it hard like he had never done it before.

The blade sliced through skin and bone, as blood spurted out in all directions, including all over Draven and the painting. The blood sprayed out from the starting of the wound to the ending of it, as it was not a wound anymore. It was a full decapitation.

Her severed head fell to the floor not far from her body, as her body fell to the floor.

The Mona Lisa was now soaked in Joanna’s blood, as with the white shirt that had been bloodied and the pool of blood that was increasingly getting larger by the second as Joanna’s corpse lost blood and more blood, until there was no more blood to lose.

Draven wiped both sides of the bloodied sword clean with the clothes that kept Joanna’s corpse warm and tossed the sword aside as it landed in the pool of blood, sending more blood spatter everywhere. He stopped as he wiped his face with the sleeve of his black jacket, so that his face was free of the blood splatter that had managed to get onto his face and chin.

He smirked as he remembered that now Joanna is another death, Sarah will be weaker, and now since Draven had never been stripped of his place to be third in line for the throne, as he couldn’t recall ever being booted out of that department, he was now second in line according to Spyral traditions. And now that Joanna just got sliced and diced, Draven found no reason for Sarah to become an invertebrate.

Draven stopped and frowned as he realised that killing Joanna wasn’t a challenge and he liked challenges, but it was a good tactic he admitted to himself secretly. Now somehow killing the top pin of society, that was going to be a challenge because of how many spies she had roaming around the grounds of Spyral and the three dozen or so she had around the streets of Los Angeles who were very faithful towards the dictatress.

“Oh well,” Draven muttered to himself as he could literally taste Joanna’s blood on his lips. He must’ve forgotten to wipe his lips, but he ignored it. “Heiresses, who don’t pay attention to what I’ve got to say, don’t live for very long.”

 

 

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[Pheonix791989]

good update sar, srry i took so long to reply its a long story

[Ravynlee]

He killed my sister?! WTF?! 0_0

Whoa... hold on a minute while I digest that...

 

Wow. Well as shocking and as sudden as that was yes I have to agree with Draven's motives, it was tactically smart, but there's a great big BUT that leaves me wondering what kind of protocol Spyral law follows in the event of internal sabotage and treason (cause lets face it, that's what it was killing of the next-in-line). Yes we all know historically it's arguably the done way if you want to succeed to the throne faster, but again I cant help but wonder if perhaps Draven's aparent cleverness didn't just set himself up for Sarah's evil trap of her own (to take him and her biggest localised threat out as well) lets face it, she may be a little emotional at times but she's not stupid. At least I HOPE she's not... yeah...

That's all I'll say to that one. Well, that and I CAN'T ******* BELIEVE YOU ******* KILLED MY SISTER, YOU ********************************** (etc etc til your red in the face) !!!

 

Ahem. Composed now. Back to it.

Draven found no reason for Sarah to become an invertebrate

When I first read that I'll admit in confused me a moment. I was like 'found no reason for her to be a bug?' and then I thought about it. While personally I think it's a very cerebral and intelligent obeservation on Draven's part, I think in general terms it was almost too... clever, I mean, for a general audience you could have said it an easier way.. or something. It is after all just another way of saying 'spineless' really, which we've already picked up from his previous monologues. I still think it was clever though. Well said

 

This notion of him getting so bent out of shape over a painting at first seemed weird to me. Yes it was made clear why eventually, but I'm also left wondering now what if any truth there is behind the notion that it played a hand in Jonathan's murder. It's not confusing it's just... I don't know, intriguing I guess. Have to wait and see what the real truth to that tale is in time.

 

The white cloth thing to 'drain' the evilness of Asian ownership of the weapons made me laugh. Oh how hypocritical are these people at Spyral! My god, if I were there (and not a mental patient) I would SO be on the rebels side, cause Spyral's ideals, why they seem perfect, are really nothing more than a conglomeration of power-mongering greedy politicans who tout truth and spit out lies and brainwash the senseless with their utter corruption! Oh my god it's got to stop! *gasp! huff! tries to catch breath* (See how empassioned you've made me?!) Anyway, yes the cloth thing reeked of ancient religious practices (Pagans off the top of my head) and again the hoarding of Japanese weapons when they are declaring war just... yeah, it really fires me up, big time. Holy hell, come on Rob and co. This place had got to burn!

 

Pfft. Waging war on a former superpower. This lady needs to be taken down a rung or two. Will be interesting to see what comes of this farcical equation.

Again, awesome. Even the science lesson in the middle was not so bad Looking forward to more. Thankies!

[woodyloveslinkin]

I've made this chapter deliberately short btw ^^ (took me long enough to write it, don't worry not losing motivation for the story).

 

Chapter 28 - Let's Have A War

 

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The rain pelted down on the faces of the guards as they stood one by one in a neat line that stretched for several metres. Multiply that by a hundred or more so guards standing behind each line of one another until they were like a massive army of a mixture of human guards standing over a hill in front of the black horizon that had been mixed in with grey and black storm clouds. Horses neighed as vapours of their breath rattled the smoothness of the air that surrounded an army of hate and reeked of revenged. The reins that dangled around their necks and heads rattled in the wind.

It was cold for Sarah as rain splattered across her face, as she rode the black stallion that she had personally picked out from the stables that it was bred to remain in. The wind was pounding her face and it was whistling past her ears like a sharp whistle. She was one out of very few Spyralans that had a horse as the commanders had horses that were decorated with red reins and the Spyral logo, the two snakes wrapped around the pole, printed on their saddles and on every fighter’s red and black uniform, well, except for Sarah, as Draven sat on his horse behind Sarah, who was in front of the huge artificial army that was created in less than two hours thanks to genetic modifying technology. Sarah was off her rocket about Joanna’s death as she had woken up from her bed, stretched her arms as usual, smiling of course, to see Joanna’s detached head on the end of it, with her dead blank eyes staring right at the person that she was going to inherit the throne of Spyral to. Along with the news that the two Old Worlders had escaped during a five minute shutdown of everything that Spyral could get their greasy little fingers onto, including the technology that went into implementing the invisible bars which was deliberately designed to play mind games on the prisoners on the wrong side of the bars.

Blade which was name that Sarah had given the black stallion was decked out in black and red reins and Sarah was decked in her dark red Chinese dress. He stood strong and proud just like how his rider sat up as. She wasn’t stupid. She could clearly see the connection between the escaped Old Worlders and the death of the heiress. She wasn’t going to be ignorant of Joanna’s death; she was going to do what any other person in her position would do.

“Today is the day that you all will prove your loyalty to Spyral, to me and to my father’s legend,” Sarah started her speech sounding like a victorious leader in an Old World movie. She had to raise her voice because the wind was getting louder and louder, and the guards stretched over the hill and far away. “Today is the day where Spyral will rise against these rebels that try and take us down, one by one, like little dominoes. I do not know about you, but I am not small, I am proud, I am strong and I stand tall above everyone else.” She fixed her eyes on a guard is Blaze couldn’t stand still as she halted him to a stop by tugging his reins. “What about you, soldier? Do you stand proud and tall like you are better than this old generation that tries and makes you look small?” The guard responded with a gruff that Sarah took as an agreement to her question. “Everyone who stands here today, one by one and side by side, has pledged their loyalty to Spyral many years ago, even some of you that stand behind me in this war, even before I was born you pledged you life to Spyral. But Spyral needs you! It is a time of need and bloodshed! Will you answer its call?” There was a large roar of agreement amongst the guards. Draven stood by his silence, as he couldn’t help but to be in fear that she had found her backbone, but he couldn’t help but to think that this might be her last struggle to be liked amongst everyone, including the Old Worlders. The guards stopped their roar as they noticed that Sarah wanted to continue. “Do not let any Old Worlders get away by the time that night officially falls. The night is a perfect blanket that covers their lies and their treason to Spyral. You have failed your pledge to my father’s memory to keep this society stable and now instability rocks the baby in the crib. You have let me down! Do not let me down tonight, for this is the night of broken glass! This is the night of Old World blood spilling over my chest! Walk away with Old World blood all over your hands and your face! Do not regret any Old World killing or any New World intervention! Kill those who oppose the crown and let us show the world their nailed and naked bodies!” There was a loud uproar of support in the crowd of guards that stretched over the hill. Again, Draven didn’t say anything but Sarah didn’t notice his absence of support. “Let us show the Old Worlders we are made of! Murder them! Torture them! Play with them as though they are a cat torturing a mouse with its paws! But do make sure there are no Old Worlders when we’re through with them!” There was another roar of support as everyone who possessed a weapon raised it and cheered. This included Sarah, as she was holding a katana (which coincidentally was the one that held responsibility for decapitating the one person that Sarah had started this Night of Broken Glass idea which was specifically aimed to kill off the Old Worlders due to Joanna’s death). She raised it into the air as rain sprayed across her face and blinded her momentarily every now and then. She yelled in agreement as she turned around her horse and led the army of guards down the hill. Draven followed showing or saying no support.

On the side of her brown leather saddle, was a small box. Tightly wound with black cloth and tied with various bits of string. Inside of it was something that could cause the world, as it stood on its tilted axis, to become nothing but another star that soared through space and into neighbouring galaxy light years away. And right next to it, hung the Glover, one of the last weapons Joanna saw before being murdered in cold blood, as it swung side to side, according to the movements of the galloping stallion. The metallic balls that were sticking out at the fingertips were glistening with rain, but yet, the role of the Glover, remained unaffected, as it fed on electromagnetic impulses, similar to the weapon it was used in conjunction with.

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[woodyloveslinkin]

Chapter 29 - Lightening Crashes

 

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Mike ran to the cliff’s edge and stopped suddenly, as they had found out the hard way that the Dark Hills wasn’t the only obstacle. In fact the Dark Hills were down because, like Fox and Ravyn had said once in one out of two meetings that Project Tourniquet manage to hold before chaos turned into utter madness and complete death and destruction. After the Dark Hills, there were real cliffs that overlooked the countryside that was being battered with winds and rain that felt like a mixture of sleet and ice. What he saw was unbelievable. Guards with torches that were lit with tilting fire in their masses.

“This is unbelievable, I’ve never seen so many guards,” Mike muttered, as Chaz joined him, shortly followed with Viking and then finally Rob. They all looked down at Dark Knight Station that was flooded with guards and houses that looked like they were built out of hay.

“What’s happening?” asked Chaz. “Unless it’s someone’s birthday, I don’t think they are just gathering like that just for the heck of it. Something’s got to be up.”

“You’ve sobered up pretty well haven’t you?” asked Mike, shifting his attention to Chaz for a second, as Chaz responded with a nod. Mike looked back to the guards. They had to thank the darkness of the cliffs or else they would’ve been spotted. Rob turned away for a second as he looked back to the trail that had been artificially made through time. He started to contemplate whether they should continue sticking to the trail. He looked back to see what the guards were doing as no one had said anything since Mike’s last question which Chaz had answered with a simple movement of his head. “They’re up to something and I don’t like the look of it.”

Over a period of ten or so minutes, the guards had started to arrange themselves into four lines, each line side by side, so it looked like a long square from an aerial shot. No one knew what they were doing and because no one knew what they were doing, they couldn’t revolve around what the enemy was going to do.

“We can’t stick around here for much longer,” Rob quietly said, as everyone’s attention was on him. “You know when you get that sick feeling in your stomach that something awful is about to happen?” Everyone nodded and quietly agreed with them. “I have that feeling right now. We need to get past here unnoticed because there’s no way that we can fight all of those…things down there.” The reason for the mentioning of the word, thing, is because from this distance Rob didn’t know if they were human Spyral guards or they were the annoying robotic ones. Even if Rob squinted through the almost blinding rain, as everyone was now dripping wet, and cold as the Arctic was during the Ice Age, he still couldn’t see. He didn’t have very good eyesight compared to what he could be like if given the chance of having his pair of glasses within reaching distance of his outstretched hand. “This rain isn’t doing much better. It’s so hard to see. Is it just me and my lack of glasses that I’m so used to wearing even when I’m not reading?”

“No, you’re not alone,” answered Viking, softly. “I agree. In Berlin, right before the Nazi’s came –”

“Wrong war,” Mike interrupted Viking, as he corrected Viking on historical facts and events. Mike hadn’t looked at Viking, but more at the guards and their actions. “The Nazi regime was destroyed and there wasn’t another version of a Reich or a Holocaust.”

“Okay, you know what I mean, the Germans,” Viking rolled his eyes. “As I was saying before, the rain was pouring down on us as thought it was Angel Falls or something. But don’t let the rain stop us. It is merely an obstacle, one we can overcome. And yes I agree, we need to start moving. If the guards start coming this way, we’re doomed.” Viking looked back and tried to see if the Dark Hills had reappeared. He couldn’t see as well, his eyes weren’t demisting and his window wipers for his eyes weren’t working. “I can’t see if the Dark Hills are back or not. Damn this rain!”

“Which way you suggest we go then?” asked Mike, as everyone’s attention was now diverted back to Mike and not at Viking’s memories about the Third World War. “We can’t just stroll down there and say hey, we’re the Old Worlders that are going to kick your ass, there’s just too many of them. And oh, did I mention I’m half Japanese?”

“No way man,” Chaz sarcastically replied, looking shocked. “I thought you were just tanned. Wow. I’m still surprised. I thought you must’ve been Mexican or something. I wouldn’t be actually be surprised if you were Mexican, that would explain why you miss nachos so much.” Mike shot him a glare. “You’ve got the diet of one at times.”

“Okay enough of the chit-chat, I’m not going to be around here to get eaten alive like I’m some kind of animal,” Rob concluded, as he looked over the cliff’s edge seeing if there were any things that would catch them if they fell. He knew that they were too dedicated to the idea of a better society for them to falter at this stage. “We’re going to climb down this face of the cliff and hope for our sake’s we don’t get caught. Taking the trail would be like walking into your neighbour’s house without an invitation.”

Rob didn’t look at any one of his Project Tourniquet fellowship but was too busy trying to swing himself over the edge and trying not to lose grip at the same time. Everyone followed his motives, as one by one they swung themselves over the edge, as each one tried to find a hole or any surface that was suitable for gripping for both hands and feet. The rain wasn’t making it easier, it was making everything slippery.

Chaz’s left hand slipped and then his foot slipped, sending pebbles out of their place from being loosely embedded in the face of the cliff. He was now supporting himself by one hand, as everyone’s attention had shifted to him. However, Rob’s attention had been diverted to the guards in the nearby distance. He was afraid that they had been just rattled and they were going to get pounded like a mallet to raw meat. The guards didn’t notice and Rob felt a tinge of relief run down his backbone. Mike knew that it was risky business trying to get Chaz back onto his feet with climbing down while he was trying to support himself with both hands. He had to do it, because Chaz was a friend and friends don’t let other friends fall without firstly trying to prevent their fall. Mike reached out with his now-detached hand that he had freed up for Chaz, and they barely touched fingertips, as Mike was the closest one to Chaz.

Mike couldn’t hold onto his weight for much longer with just one arm, and he himself was starting to lose grip. His legs were already numb from the pouring rain.

“Chaz, don’t fall,” Viking ordered from below Chaz, as Chaz and Mike were out of reaching distance from him so he really couldn’t do anything. Rob frowned as he tried to reach for Chaz on the other side of him, but he couldn’t reach him. Rob was slipping as well, and losing his grip fast. Chaz couldn’t hold his grip anymore, as Rob detached himself from trying to reach out for Chaz but he was still slipping. Chaz thought he was the first person to fall those fifty or so metres down the cliff. But as he fell down past Viking who was the army trained personnel amongst the group, managed to catch him by the scuff of his shirt that was wet. The shirt started to rip from both sides. “Now quickly regain your grip, this is going to tear, and you’re going to fall.” Chaz scrambled to regain his grip next to Viking on the face of the cliff but he found it before his whole shirt ripped into little pieces. Viking looked up. “Is everyone okay with their grip?” Rob and Mike hadn’t moved, as they were trying to regain their grip. No one comforted Viking’s twisting insides by saying yes to him. “Close your eyes and stop panicking. Panic causes adrenaline and that cause you to freak out. We don’t want that. Close your eyes and think of a happy place or a happy memory. Then the quicker we move off from this cliff the sooner we can get to Spyral.”

Mike closed his eyes as he thought of the happy place that Viking had told him to do, as the wind continued to thrash its coldness against his face. His happy place…where was it again? It had been so long since someone had told him to think about his happy place. He was afraid that he had forgotten it. The one memory that had kept him motivated all along. Sitting back on the couch with Maya, his little girl in his arms, while outside the busy city of Nagasaki thrived with its brilliant neon billboards and crowded streets. He didn’t live in the actual city, but the ghettos of Nagasaki She smiled at her father; she was only just a couple of days old. Her mother, Yoko, was out the shops. He lent over to the television and turned the channel on.

Mike opened his eyes as he realised that was one of the last memories he had of Maya as by the time that he had turned on the news, just seconds later after that happy moment, the news anchor was in the middle of rapidly spilling out the Japanese language out which translated into that Japan had lost the war and that Spyral was now rising to global domination like mercury rising in a thermometer. The New World had just started and all the Japanese had to conform or to be executed. He fled that country after Jonathon’s army killed Yoko and Maya in a raid in the ghettos of Nagasaki, yet another failed attempt to conform the Japanese through bloodshed and destruction. He found refuge in the ghettos of LA, going back and forth between countries, dodging his real identity for most of the time and living under the name of Bob most of the time. And now he this is where he was, in amongst a bunch of Old Worlders who have more heart and spirit then the rest of the New World society have got.

Rob on the other hand had always held his happy moment in the back of his head and never let it go. It helped him through the New World society, it was the day that most people would have found the worst day of their lives, but at the time he thought so. Time had made him think the way that he did.

Every building that stood high in the sky had been brought down. Every statue had crumbled to the hands of the bomb that the Japanese days ago had dropped. He knew he was lucky, as he looked around at the dusty blue sky that felt like a war had just broke out. In fact, it was still the Third World War but it didn’t feel like it anymore. The war fields were noisy and full of weaponry being exchanged from one end of the field to the other at their opponent. This felt terrible, as he saw the corpses lying on the ground above the rubble, with their flesh torn inside out and the deadly sound of silence. He couldn’t help but to feel alone, single father of five kids, his wife had already been a prisoner of war and died in one of their camps, in Australia, (Cowra they called the small country town where they use to hold the Japanese in the previous World War), the kids were the only thing he had to hold onto after Virginia’s death. The two eldest twins, Samuel and Rachel, and then the two youngest triplets Jacob, Tabitha, and Esther, all killed by the blast. He was crying as he thought of his children, and of his wife. He stopped as he heard the cry that broke the silence that surrounded him. It was a child. And she was near. He didn’t know what to do because he didn’t want to do anything, so struck down by devastation. He then realised that the child was behind him, as he turned around slowly to see a small child crying at the dead body of her mother and father that had tried to protect their daughter from their blast because they still had their limp arms around her. He didn’t know what to do; he knew she was going to be one out of hundreds, or even thousands of orphans to come out as the result of the blast. He walked slowly over to the small child, as even the details of how her parent’s bodies had been severed were too gruesome for him to recall. He picked up the screaming the child and told the child that he was going to care of her and that her parents had gone to a better place. The child still kicked and screamed in his grip.

He opened his eyes as he realised that he wasn’t going to that small child down and that he just wished Fox was still alive. Fox and him had so many arguments and good times together, and still, Fox didn’t recognise him as her true father, as he had never recognised himself to be a father to her, it was just a coincidence that he knew how to father a girl. That’s the only thing he had trained his mind to think lately, ever since she disappeared. He regretted not coming after her when she was pulled away from the group. He tried to reach for her, but he failed. He couldn’t fail now, as he regained his grip on the rocks and started lowering himself down, as he realised that Mike was ahead of him and had started when it was Rob had closed his eyes. Rob assumed Mike’s happy place wasn’t a very good one for it didn’t last very long. He shrugged the feeling off, as everyone met each other at the bottom of the cliff in the shadows.

“Now, that you’ve all time to find your happy place, we are not to dawdle,” whispered Viking, as everyone huddled in together to hear out Viking, who naturally good at tactics and avoiding dead ends which were actually graves in the ground. “These guards are up to something no good and the Old Worlders are going to see the bitter end pretty soon.”

“Then we better hide,” Chaz pointed out, as everyone turned around to see what Chaz was looking at. The guards were now lined up fully and the commanders were yelling out orders which the group of men couldn’t hear because the wind and rain distorted distant sounds. They looked around quickly. Nothing, bare land but then he saw a bush. “There!” Chaz pointed to the small bush.

“There’s no way we’re all going to fit behind that,” objected Mike. “You may as well get a bunch of freak show contestants to do that while you’re at it. Or anorexic teenage girls.”

“Not if you pack the right people the right way,” answered Viking, as he started to walk over to the bush, still sticking the dark shadows. The rest of them followed as Viking stopped and surveyed the space. He started whispering orders at certain people to go certain spots and in certain ways. In no time at all, Mike found himself to be at the bottom of the awkward pile trying to hide from the guards because they all knew they weren’t going to be able to take on a chunk of guards with a still weak Mike. Mike had curled up into a ball, while sitting on Rob who laid down with his arms by his side and his legs bent up so that his legs didn’t stick out. While Chaz and Viking curled up into a ball and repeating Mike’s actions, but Viking got the uncomfortable spot of leaning against Rob’s bent knees and sat on his crouch with Rob wasn’t too happy about while Chaz sat next to Mike on Rob’s stomach.

They were right, the guards were coming their way, and if they hadn’t moved they would’ve been roasted ducks on a spit rotating above a flaming hot fire called Spyral. They marched past. They marched and they marched, until it got the point where something bad just had to happen to the group of men. Rob couldn’t Viking against his bent legs any more. His feet slipped, scrapping along the ground. Everyone held their breath and closed their eyes as they heard no sign or any indication that the guards had noticed. Rob quietly regained his previous position as he quietly slid his feet back into place and Viking didn’t lose balance.

Eventually they passed, and none of the crew had been injured, well, Rob, just say he couldn’t walk properly for a while after that, as they drew away from their hiding place. Mike even managed to notice that the Dark Hills were back and they had a bad feeling that the guards were headed straight for Los Angeles and neighbouring towns. None of them could afford to worry, or even play a tourist in the now deserted Dark Knight Station that seemed like a desert now. Chaz couldn’t help but to smirk at Rob’s new walk, but he didn’t laugh, he knew better. He was more afraid of getting beaten up by Rob than getting caught by a guard as a result of him laughing at Rob. Rob didn’t care about Chaz and his sense of humour. He had better things to do rather than to take notice of his new walk.

Now, the challenge laid ahead for them, both a physical one and a psychological challenge, and they didn’t know what they were going to be in for when they reached Winter Station and the horrors that were being played out. None of them expected what they were about to endure, as they continued walking cautiously and quietly through Dark Knight Station.

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[Jeezy]

awesome...

 

we talked about how this story kinda reminds of/is inspired by Blade Runner

so I get that movie now

[Ravynlee]

I know you expect a rant right now but bear with me. It's late and I'm tired

 

I loved the humour, the part where Mike and Chas exchange sarcastic quips before going down cliff face was funny. 'Thought you were just tanned,' smart @$$. But that was good. The flashbacks were cute, though I couldn't help but cringe at the name Yoko. The drawback of a famous name is that you automatically draw subconscious parallels, I did. It disrupted the flow a little. Would havelooked for a more contemporary name, unless Japan in the future had a timewarp back many generations of course. Stranger things have happened, but the description of him and his daughter was cute. The surrounding was immediatey visual. Bravo for that. Actually I found more visualisation and empathy for Mike's 'happy place' than Rob's - even though arguably Rob had suffered more. Rob with his Aussie wife and 5 kids - gee where's that parallel I wonder - but was still sweet. Didn't get much emotion from that scene. Finding Fox as a kid, yes. Back to highly emotive and visual. That was good, terrible for those that suffered, but good from a reader's point of view. (Yay my name! I know, Hebrew, but had to say it, yay! Awesome! Also had to laugh at 'Virginia' I think it was. As close as you could get to the other V name huh? XD kewlies) So all in all that was pretty well written.

 

The human entanglement I thought was a tad strange. Weren't they hiding behind a bush or sth? Was a bit too slapstick comedy for me, even though it wasn't meant to be comedy, thats how I saw it, and Rob's new walk. Detracted from the intensity of the scene, you're really trying to build this tension between good and bad and haven't quite got there yet. Mind you the chapter starts off well with tension, that's great, but ends a little... ambiguous. The guards need to be more threatening if we're to really fear them for the characters sake - even a description of their armor again, a hint to remind the reader, will do wonders to keeping this level of anxiety up where I assume you want it to be. Anyway just giving you my two cents worth as always. Good to see Rob can remain stoic and fixed in this while all his friends are sort of taking turns being the goofy side kicks. And Vi 'wrong war' dont ask me why but that made me laugh. Weird, but I laughed regardless.

 

Of course I liked the update overall, especially in a few places, but be careful not to let the sarcasm hijack your story. It's about the Old Worlder's taking back what Spyral and the evil empire took away from them in essence, not who can get the most one-liners in per update

 

Looking forward to seeing how horrific the Winter Station I think really is. You did set that up well though, awesomely done. Great level of tension and just enough to let us know what to expect ahead without giving anything away. Well done :ok:

[woodyloveslinkin]

Chapter 30 - Spyro's Curse

 

 

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“This is unbelievable,” Bella couldn’t help but to notice the lack of people’s presence in the hallways of Spyral. Ravyn stood next to her in their maroon prisoner’s uniforms. She looked side from side as she couldn’t believe it as well. Breaking out of the prison cells of Spyral was as easy as getting to her feet and walking off. A system malfunction, Bella suspected. “It’s like walking through the doors of Spyral unscathed.” Bella turned to Ravyn and Ravyn looked back confused as ever. She realised that something major must be happening outside for all of the Spyralans to scatter and desert their headquarters. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I highly doubt it,” answered Ravyn, as she scratched the back of her neck. It had been itchy and it had that part of her neck had been sending dull pains down her spine. She didn’t know what it was, call it paranoia or schizophrenia, but she felt a small lump underneath her skin. She frowned.

“What are you doing?” asked Bella, a bit concerned for Ravyn’s mentality today. Ravyn couldn’t remember where she was at first and had even forgotten Bella’s name.

“There’s, there’s something underneath the skin of my neck,” frowned Ravyn, trying to figure what it could be out but was left blinded with anxiety and concern. “It wasn’t there before.”

“You’re just paranoid,” Bella dismissed with a tremble of fear in her voice. Bella didn’t want to be the one that told Ravyn about her past. Bella wasn’t even sure that Ravyn could remember what happened to her back in the old days of Project Narcissi Extraction. The thought of even knowing great detail about that project made Bella feel ill in the stomach churn. “We have to get out of here. Do you remember what way we came?”

“Why are you asking me?” asked Ravyn. “I don’t even know where I am to start with or even how I got here.”

“Did Joanna give you Ivna by any stupid New World chance?” asked Bella, as she frowned.

“Where is Joanna?” asked Ravyn, suddenly remembering that she couldn’t recall the last time that she saw her sister. “Didn’t she go out to get some Chinese?”

“No…it’s a long story and I don’t think you have the mental capacity to handle the information right now,” Bella replied softly. Then she remembered. “Don’t you have the present we have for Spyral still?”

“Whose birthday is it?” asked Ravyn, as Bella frowned and slapped her forehead. “What?”

“You’re not having a bright day are you?” asked Bella as Ravyn shook her head. “Okay, just, enough of the delusional questions, I don’t want to end up talking to a child. Where is it? The virus?”

“With Chaz…why was I supposed to have it?” asked Ravyn, as Bella groaned feeling like she was just going around in circles and getting nowhere with the version of Ravyn that seemed to have forgotten everything. It was frustrating because Bella didn’t have the virus and now she had just found out that Ravyn couldn’t remember if she had it or not.

“Okay, well in that case, we’re going to have to find the main computer that controls of all of the functions, because without…” She trailed off her sentence, as she thought she heard footsteps coming their way.

“What?” asked Ravyn, as Bella raised her hand to silence her. “Oh…” Bella looked sincere around them as she swore she just heard some noises that weren’t supposed to be there. They continued to walk down the hallway, unnoticed as usual. Again, Bella was surprised that they could even walk down a hallway of Spyral and not be chased for being prisoners who were plainly dressed as traitors. “Where are we going?”

“To find the motherboard, or whatever Chaz’s army of nerds called it,” answered Bella, trying to recall what the mainframe computer was called. She wasn’t big on technological terms. Her area was planning with blueprints. “I wonder if they have any tourist maps of this place that we could have. Would be handy right now.” They continued to walk through the hallways taking in the magnificent décor and she frowned at such thoughts of how they obtained the wealth to pay for it. Her voice dropped to a soft mutter. “I wish I had those maps that Rob ordered us to get, now that I think about it.” They continued to walk down the hallway unnoticed. Bella still had the feeling that someone would just pop out of thin air, as it was possible nowadays, and slaughter them to the bone. Her nerves always got the best of her at times but she knew that right now she couldn’t afford for her head to dawdle off into her nerves. Not only that, Bella feared the way that Ravyn was going with her bad memory today, Ravyn would probably mistake Joanna for someone who actually cared about her.

Ravyn however, was freaking out secretly in her mind. Her memory loss was getting bad and she felt like she had to rely on Bella to take care of her, like an infant to a mother. She couldn’t remember how she got here; it was as though there was a magnetic field around Spyral that was deliberately designed to make her lose her memory. The pain in the back of her neck had started to appear again, as she was getting more paranoid about the lump in the back of her neck, just where the pain was. They drew nearer and nearer to the exit of the hallway, which led onto another hallway and onto another, and so forth. Bella had a feeling that if they didn’t starting choosing rooms at random they would be going around in circles, letting the project down completely. They shortly arrived at the exit of the hallway and Bella took a left, in which Ravyn had no choice but to follow her lead.

“Why did you decide to go down this way?” Ravyn asked, not looking to Bella but at several paintings of fruit on the wall. Ravyn had always wondered why artists always chose to draw and paint fruit as subjects, Ravyn also pondered the question why about a lot of things including why it had to be her that suffered from memory loss.

“Well, it was either left or it was a right, or unless you want to run into the wall, by all means go nuts if you want to give yourself a concussion, just don’t come crying to me about it,” answered Bella, a bit harshly. She didn’t like questions that started with why, after the experiences of taking care of a child by herself in the Old World.

Yes, it was true, unknowingly like her fellow friends, she had an offspring in the Old World, one that she had to take care of by herself. She was just another teenage mother that had been abandoned by her son’s father at the ripe age of just sixteen and lost her son, Marko, shortly after the bomb was dropped on the country. They said he had died from blood poisoning. Bella shook her head trying not to think of what happened and what could’ve been. The thought of Marko wasn’t her inspiration for a better life in a better society; it was just the plain old thought of pure freedom and of course, to show the world the deep purple bruises that Bella could inflict on Sarah’s young pretty face.

She heard it again, footsteps. She stopped and turned around as Ravyn did the same. Was Bella going insane? She kept on hearing footsteps but every time she stopped and looked to see who were making them, she couldn’t see the person or the people making them. They were footsteps, but Bella had no idea who or what kept on making them. A chill ran down her spine as she thought the worse. Angry guards, those of the indestructible kind that were bound to kill you in the long run.

“What is it?” Ravyn whispered to Bella, looking from down the hallway behind them to Bella who was right next to her.

“Don’t you hear those footsteps?” asked Bella, not whispering but in a soft but solemn tone. Ravyn shook her head. “Then you’re the one going insane not me.”

“Aren’t they just ours?” asked Ravyn, raising her volume in her speech a bit more to be considered not a whisper.

“Do I look stupid to you?” asked Bella, looking to Ravyn as Ravyn shook her head. “I would’ve hoped not. There’s something weird about this place, it’s starting to freak me out. We need to do what we need to do and we need to find the others. I hear Rob has got it in for you. Don’t know about you, but I reckon you two would make a lovely couple.”

“And you’re the one that’s calling me stupid…” Ravyn muttered under her breath. Bella heard it of course, but ignored it. The last thing Bella needed was an argument when the pair of them had a world to destroy and another world to resuscitate. Bella turned around and started to continue her walk. Ravyn didn’t continue as she saw something through an open door. “What is that?” It was something blue and it was moving. The door was only slightly ajar but she could still see what colour it emitted off.

Bella stopped and turned around to see that Ravyn hadn’t moved. Bella stopped and rolled her eyes at the woman. She crossed her arms and sighed, knowing that this was going to be a long night, but she didn’t expect this out of Ravyn.

“Stop it, now you’re acting like a child, seriously, the last thing I need is to be taking care–”

“No look at it,” Ravyn demanded, spinning around so that she faced Bella. She pointed at the door, as Bella followed her finger’s direction slowly. “That’s not normal.”

“It’s Spyral, dear, nothing’s normal, I thought you would’ve figure that out…” Bella trailed off as she took in the sight of the blue light emitting off through the slightly ajar door at the end of the hallway. “Oh my…love…what is that?”

“See, I told you I wasn’t completely crazy,” Ravyn defended. “I’ve seen normal and then I’ve seen the New World’s version of normal. I might not be having one of my brightest days right now, but that is certainly not normal.”

“Did I tell you were crazy?” asked Bella, innocently, as she had figured Ravyn had been reading her mind, as she slowly started to pace towards the door that was left slightly ajar. She passed Ravyn as Ravyn started to walk by Bella’s side.

“No, but I bet you were thinking it,” answered Ravyn. The closer she got to the room, the more the dull pain had started to turn into a mildly sharp pain. She cringed in pain, as she held the back of her neck. But she kept walking, her head might not have been held high but her spirits were kept high. “This is starting to kill…my neck…” Bella ignored her, because her curiosity had just been stolen and now it was getting the upper hand on her. The more she approached the door with Bella by her side, in which she was lost in her own little world, the sharper the pains were. About two or three metres away from the door and Ravyn just collapsed onto the floor. She was still awake and breathing, but she felt like she was paralysed from her the tips of her toes to the hairs on her head. She started to cry. Bella stopped immediately and turned around.

“Dammit Ravyn, get up,” Bella came to her aid, as she now felt bad for ignoring her friend’s painful cries. She knelt down to try to pick her friend up, but Ravyn just fell limp. “What the hell is happening to you?”

“I don’t know….I can’t move…” Ravyn sobbed, as she started to cry more. The pain in her spine and her neck was shooting up and down at million miles per hour. “I think…I think…” She couldn’t find the correct words to how she felt as she felt like someone was strangling her and she was having troubles with her breathing.

“You think what, dear? You think what?” asked Bella, as her mood had suddenly done a major turn. She could sense the pain in Ravyn’s eyes and she could now realise that she was also having trouble with her speech. It was as though she was having a stroke. “Come on, you can tell me, Ravyn, come on. Tell Bella what’s wrong.” Bella tried again to pick her friend up, but Ravyn just cried more in pain. Bella laid her back down. Then she heard it again. The footsteps….Bella looked back up to see who or what kept on making the sounds of people walking, but no one and nothing was there. Bella started to freak out, what if they were really there but Bella couldn’t see them, like as though they were invisible? She looked back to her friend who was still crying in pain. It was a rapid and not a well thought through choice but she had to do it. “I’m so sorry if this hurts, but we need to get out of here. Something is making that noise and it is now the third time that this has happened.”

“No…please…” sobbed Ravyn, as her sentence was cut short because she still had that suffocating sensation in her throat and the pain was like a thousand needles jabbing into her at once and painfully withdrawing blood (for some odd reason Ravyn somehow could relate to that feeling but wasn’t sure where it had came from). Bella had to do it for she feared they both would be slaughtered alive and now with Ravyn being immobile, she would be a victim of whatever was out there making those sounds. Bella picked her friend up, as Ravyn cried more.

“Please, Ravyn, keep your crying down, I know this must hurt whatever you’ve got, but please, there’s something out there which is freaking me out, and I fear it’s going to kill us both if we don’t move,” urged Bella, as Ravyn cringed for the thousandth time. The pain was getting unbearable. In the midst of the pain, Ravyn thought the last thing that could end her physical pain that was shooting up and down her spine and neck.

“Just….kill…me……now…Belle…” Ravyn requested, as Bella shook her head. Bella managed to open the door with her foot and walked straight in without noticing what the object that was omitting the blue light was. Unknowingly they had just walked into the Mirror Board room, still with Spyro confined to her screen and still with the same old wooden chair in front of her, where Sarah usually sat for hours at end talking to her. Bella didn’t see any of the details of the room; she closed the door with her foot, and walked over to the far end of the room where the curtains draped over the window so that no natural light could seep into the room and laid her friend down. Ravyn was still crying and still in a lot of pain. “Why…?”

Spyro had been busy muttering to herself in a pitch that only programs like herself could hear before Ravyn had spoken. Now she was awake and her systems were going haywire. She couldn’t trigger off an alarm as the virus that had previously brought Spyral to a standstill a couple of hours ago. She was awake now and she listening intensively to what Felicity’s killer had to say for herself.

“Because I won’t, you are a friend Ravyn, you hear me?” asked Bella, looking Ravyn in the eyes. Bella pulled Ravyn’s brown hair out of her face so that Bella could look at her friend properly without being distracted about the wandering hair. “You’ve got to tell to me what you think is causing this and then I can treat it, or at least I’ll try. Now what is it?” Bella didn’t get a response that made sense because the pain was just crippling Ravyn to the point now where it was obvious that adrenaline had taken advantage of the situation and Ravyn was quickly getting dehydrated. Bella didn’t know what to do, because she felt like she couldn’t do anything.

Spyro smiled at the weak Old Worlder on the floor as Spyro detected the various emotions in the room. Pain and suffering, being two of many that Spyro could pick up at that stage of time. Spyro always had thought she had been a cunning woman from the day that she had betrayed Felicity and Jonathon. But no one listened to her warnings about this one. Innocence was her hand and she played that façade too well. Spyro was right from day one, but they chose to ignore her, and ever since that ignorance had cost them Felicity, Spyro was always considered to be the right piece of machinery to listen to when it came to filtering out Spyralans.

“I’m so sorry, I can’t do anything,” Bella told Ravyn, as Bella felt bad about being unable to help Ravyn. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“I know what’s wrong; it’s her reaction to my magnetic field,” Spyro spoke up, as Ravyn and Bella were both surprised to hear the blue woman speak. The surprise sent more pain in Ravyn’s way. Bella stood up and turned around. There was what was emitting the blue that Bella and Ravyn managed to ignore since entering the room. A digital blue woman’s head smiling, as formulas, equations and map co-ordinates were scrolling down in columns beside her.

Bella was amazed but also shocked at the same time that something so digitally advanced could be so, lifelike. Bella automatically jumped to the conclusion that this must be the motherboard that Chaz and his army of nerds were talking about and this is where Bella assumed, where the virus had to be implanted into.

“And why should I trust your word?” asked Bella. “After all, you’re only a program.”

“I’m no ordinary program, I’m the program who brought paralysis to your friend over there,” answered Spyro, as she sighed. “You know what Old Worlder, if my alarm systems weren’t failing I would’ve had your ass gone to the dogs by now.” Bella was quite amazed by this program that was in front of her, as she sat on the chair in front of Spyro. Bella didn’t want to stay too far away from Ravyn but she knew she couldn’t be always by her side when such a chance to mock a program that acted like a human, minus the body, came along. It sounded a bit cruel, but it all made sense to Bella. And anyhow, it wasn’t like Bella was going to abandon Ravyn. Bella smirked at the program’s ability to cuss and interact. “Your friend over there seems like she’s in a lot of pain…having said that, have you ever thought of how my magnetic fields affect her and not you?”

“So you’re one of the programs that think they dictate the way we think, aren’t you?” asked Bella. “Followed along with that program that is considered to be human and rules this great land of ours.”

“Sarcasm isn’t needed, thank you,” replied Spyro, examining Bella’s physical features. “Great hair by the way, must take a long time to get it to that length and that colour.” Bella smirked, thinking that this program had to be a hoax. “And by the way, I’m a lot smarter than you think I am. I’ve been integrated with the latest technology with the must updated information from both worlds, yours and mine.”

“Yeah, but not the latest anti-virus technology if you can’t even trigger off an alarm,” retorted Bella. “I have a job to do and that is to bring you down to your virtual knees and I will do it some way or another.”

“Do you even know who she is?” spat Spyro, angrily and getting sick of Bella’s smart remarks. “Do you want to trust that traitor you’ve got there? Do you know how long I’ve waited to see that little piece of scum fall down to her knees like she’s doing right now?” Bella didn’t even say anything she was too lost in Spyro’s angry outbursts. “Do you want me to show you a video of her holding baby Sarah in her arms?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Bella, frowning and crossing her arms at the same time. “You mean Ravyn right?” Bella laughed. “As if! Given the state that she’s in right now you may as well lock her away in a mental asylum and throw the key away! If she’s going to betray any thing right now, the only thing she would betray is the lock on the door because she couldn’t find the key to open it!”

“You are a fool!” snapped Spyro. “Let me show you something.”

“Go ahead, prove me wrong, but I know what I’m talking about,” replied Bella, stubbornly.

The screen changed to a black, instead of emitting blue light. The digital woman’s head disappeared but Spyro had not gone. She remained backstage as she was to commentate the events that she had been programmed to record. The screen flickered like a black and white film, as it counted down to the seconds that it was going to start, with the big black numbers against the grey circles in the background, beeping every time that a second had passed. It had now started as the numbers had disappeared and had count down to the number one.

What appeared on the screen shocked Bella for a second or two. What had appeared seemed to be a younger version of what seemed to be like…Ravyn holding the baby bitch in her arms. Behind her was a man with his blonde hair slicked back and smiling to the camera, (in which all truth, they were smiling to Spyro). Bella didn’t know who that man was, but she had a bad feeling that he was there that day at Camp David with Joanna and Sarah. What Ravyn was wearing was just a simple outfit with a white shirt and blue jeans, the little brat was wrapped in pink blankets, and she was smiling. Bella swore she was seeing things but at the same time she knew that little smile of the brat’s was only type of smile that evil people gave before they dominated people’s lives, much like to what she was doing now. The man, Bella didn’t know his name, seemed like he was putting on a fake smile for the camera.

The film suddenly stopped, as Bella than realised that yes, she had seen that man before. Yes, he was down at Camp David. He stood there and didn’t do anything, nor did he say anything. The blue digital woman’s head appeared again and smiled.

“Do you need more convincing?” asked Spyro.

“I don’t get it,” answered Bella.

“She ain’t your Ravyn and she ain’t anyone’s Ravyn, in fact, her name isn’t Ravyn at all,” Spyro smirked. “She’s really good at lying isn’t she?” Bella didn’t say anything. “You’ve got yourself a traitor on your hands, Old Worlder. That scum that lies there practically took care of Sarah before she went on the run from Spyral.”

“You probably treated her badly that’s why she doesn’t like Spyral,” Bella suggested, she turned to Ravyn who had managed to lift her head up and was paying full attention to what was being said. “Wouldn’t blame you in that case, Spyral’s not loved either way you look at it.” Bella smirked as her attention was back on the blue program. “Come on hit me with things that are going to make me fall off my seat, not like you can reach me anyway.”

“Felicity loved Rachel with her heart, one day so much, that she wanted to do her a favour and get rid of her Old World memories,” Spyro explained to Bella. “The reason why she’s paralysed right now is because that chip that’s underneath her skin, in which was put there for a good reason, doesn’t like our updated technology, and reacts in certain ways. React the wrong way while you’re around me and you’ve got yourself a paralysis pizza deal.”

“If you were so smart and technological advanced, wouldn’t have you tracked her down by your systems by the signals given out by that chip or in that case, the pendant that Rob tried breaking off and almost choked her with?” asked Bella. Spyro didn’t say anything. Bella smiled. “You guys think you’re so tough you can’t even bother updating your systems when it comes to…what did she say she was again?”

“She was part of Project Narcissi Extraction, an experiment that had Rachel in it,” answered Spyro, as she soon started to realise what tactic Bella was pulling on her.

“And so she’s the one that killed Felicity, is that the thing you’re failing to tell to me?” asked Bella, as Spyro didn’t say anything. “Good. She gave birth to that little brat so she deserved death. And oh, thanks for the information. I am now going to tell the whole world this, because those hallways are deserted and I get to roam around there like me walking around my place in my underwear. Thanks a lot, it’s taught me a lot now, of how badly you guys are organised!” Bella got to her feet and started to walk to Ravyn as Bella had remembered that Ravyn, or as she was now known as by her real name Rachel, still had the virus, Bella knew she had to have the virus, but finding it was a different matter altogether.

“You might want to be careful of those footsteps you’ve been hearing as well,” warned Spyro, as Bella stopped in her tracks, as she knew Spyro had something to do with the scare tactic.

“You bitch,” muttered Bella, as she figured it all out. It made sense now, the footprints, and the deliberate door opening. “You lured us into this room didn’t you?”

“I’m not stupid like I’ve been telling you all along,” answered Spyro. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you for a couple of hours now, ever since I detected a foe lingering around. I have eyes and I have ears outside of this room, remember that, Old Worlder.”

“You won’t have that quality for much longer, I can tell you now,” Bella muttered to herself as she ran over to Ravyn. Ravyn didn’t know what was happening but she sure knew that the name Rachel rang a bell in her head, the trouble was she was just having trouble of remembering her Spyral days, if what Spyro was saying was true. Bella rummaged through the pockets of her friend and quickly found something. Ravyn thought the worse at first but realised that Bella knew the limits of what she could go through. Bella pulled out a small USB at smiled. “Thanks…ah… Rach.”

Ravyn wanted to reply to Bella’s new nickname for her but she didn’t say anything. The muscles in her throat felt like she was being strangled by now. She didn’t know anything about an experiment and she certainly didn’t know that she had been experimented on. She didn’t know what points shocked her the most, the part where she found out that she had held the little dictator in her arms at one stage, or the point where she had been a traitor on the run from Spyral.

“What are you doing?” asked Spyro, noticing the drive in Bella’s hands. Bella smirked as she knew Spyro couldn’t do anything because Chaz had designed a powerful virus to bring Spyral down completely.

“You know, for such a powerful corporation, you don’t have any barriers back on home base,” noticed Bella, as she stopped on the side of the blue screen and started to look for the USB plugs that basically every computer used to have when they were legalised. “Thought you would have at least some sort of military scheme that ensured safety on the home base…” Bella trailed off in her sentence. She had to know what was happening to cause the lack of people wandering around in such a busy corporation. “What’s happening? What’s happening down there? Because there are no people outside in the hallways.” Spyro smiled.

“By the time that she’s through with you all, Old Worlders, there will be none of your type to pollute our cities and our seas,” retorted Spyro, smugly.

“She’s…out to kill us all?” Bella clarified as Spyro nodded. “Fat chance she’ll succeed there’s too many out there. And if she wants to do a good job, she’ll probably have to kill half her Spyral team as well.”

“That’s what you think, Old Worlder,” Spyro retorted, bitterly.

“No, that’s what I know, program,” Bella retorted, as she found the plug and quickly inserted the virus into the program in which Bella just hoped it was the main program that controlled everything in Spyral’s walls, for there had been no direct words along the lines that Spyro was.

“Downloading file now,” a voice came out of Spyro’s speakers but was not hers. It was a deep male voice in which Ravyn, or Rachel, and Bella knew only too well, the voice belonged to Chaz. Bella smiled as Ravyn faintly smiled as well.

“What? What are you doing Old Worlder?” asked Spyro, as she was helpless to see what was happening. She had detected excitement and hope in their moods which Spyro was afraid of. The worse was happening. Bella stepped back, as Spyro started to fade in and out. Then suddenly Spyro and the blue light disappeared altogether.

“Congratulations, file download complete, good job,” said Chaz’s voice.

Then it was just silence as the room went completely dark. Nothing happened with Spyro as Spyro had never appeared back. Ravyn suddenly felt better, as though she had just been cured of her paralysis. In all truth, since Spyro had been terminated, everything else that she controlled when down on the boat with her as well, including all the operating systems and of course, the magnetic field that was slowing killing Ravyn, for if she had been left there any longer, she would’ve choked and suffocated because the muscles in her throat were getting tighter and tighter gradually. Bella pulled the empty USB out of its plug as Ravyn managed to get to her feet by herself. Bella turned around as she put the drive into her pocket and looked at Ravyn standing on her two feet now.

“I thought you were going to die, Ravyn,” Bella said solemnly, as the eeriness of nothing around them had settled in completely. “We couldn’t have that happening now, could we?”

“It’s alright if you want to call me Rachel,” said Ravyn, as she felt something fall down the back of her shirt. She frowned as she shook her shirt out and felt it drop out onto the floor. She turned around to see what had fallen out of her maroon prisoner’s shirt. She looked down and there it was a small Old World orange chip. She frowned as she felt the back of her neck. There was no lump anymore and there was just no blood. It was like an automatic healing wound. “That’s strange. Haven’t seen you for a while, wondered where you had gotten to.” Bella frowned at her last comment as Ravyn bent over and picked it up.

“Do you know who I am?” asked Bella, as Ravyn turned around and smiled.

“What do you think I’m daft?” asked Ravyn. “Bella, of course.”

“Who’s your sister?” asked Bella.

“You’re speaking of Joanna, aren’t you?” asked Ravyn. “Why all these questions?”

“How tall is Rob?” asked Bella.

“Find out the height of the largest tree in the world and then you’ve got your answer,” answered Ravyn.

Then Bella realised something, but made her more confused at the same time. Since Spyral’s systems had been taken down completely thanks to Chaz’s powerful and quick virus, it must’ve caused the chip to pop out. But why did the old technology react so well and quick to the new technology of Spyral’s? And if Spyral had a black out a couple of hours ago, why did the chip only react to only Chaz’s virus?

The first answer to Bella’s query was that no matter how old the technology of Spyral’s was, if Spyro was taken down completely, anything under her control, past, present or future, went down with the program. The old technology was still in her cache but Spyro couldn’t modify her cache so easily. The second answer to Bella’s second query was that Rob had told Chaz to specifically design what was called a Supreme Virus which was specifically aimed at taking down past experiments while doing a lot of damage, beyond repair, to the entire infrastructure it touched all in a matter of seconds. The Mississippi virus of Chaz’s was aimed to be dormant and take everything down slowly.

“I’m surprised that the whole building didn’t collapse,” noticed Bella.

Ravyn wasn’t paying attention to Bella but was looking at the small chip that had controlled her life for years now. This one chip had caused so much grief and confusion for her over the years, so much she had to depend on her sister that didn’t even acknowledge her Old World name, Rachel, as its biblical references were ignored but the name had brought back so many bad memories of her treason to the Spyral Corporation. Her Old World name had been replaced with her mother’s name, Ravyn, which had been become her New World name. She dropped it inside her pocket. She felt something else drop down the front of her shirt. She smiled as she saw it drop to the ground. The necklace which had bound her to the chip and the memories it brought on, as it fell to the floor. She picked it up and looked at it. Again, the memories were brought back. She held it in her now closed fist as she walked over to the curtains, pulled them open to reveal a black sky that had been filled with wind and rain, opened the window as she felt the cold air from outside rush in and hit her against her face. She reached back into her pocket and got the small chip from out of her pocket. She opened the closed fist and placed the chip inside it. She closed it again and held it upside down out the window.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” smiled Ravyn, as she felt normality coming back to her. Memories flooded into her head like a tidal wave coming to shore. Ravyn felt like she could breathe again. She opened her now wet fist and let the two items fall to the ground below. She could faintly hear the sounds of war cries in the distance and waited until she could no longer see the two items that had restricted her life so much for so many years. She withdrew her fist from the cold weather that caused havoc for the people outside and closed the window. She let the curtains fall back into place, as Bella in that time had lit a candle to illuminate the way to a better life that was awaiting them.

 

 

****

[Ravynlee]

Am replying to this as I read it.

Here;

I hear Rob has got it in for you. Don’t know about you, but I reckon you two would make a lovely couple.”

Inconsistency. He has a THING for me, not has it in for me. Otherwise he now wants to kill me. The first sentence implies he hates me. The second Bella is either being sarcastic or she is backing up her original statement.

 

The screen flickered like a black and white film, as it counted down to the seconds that it was going to start, with the big black numbers against the grey circles in the background, beeping every time that a second had passed. It had now started as the numbers had disappeared and had count down to the number one.

I know what you're referring to, but seeing as how this is set in the future, maybe a reference to a more modern recording process, instead of the reel-to-reel that's outdated even by our contemporary modern-day standards, would suit this scene better. You could draw reference to perhaps Bella remembering this pre-WW3 style seeing as how she's from the old world, but like I said, in this day and age where we use mobile phones, blue rays discs and satellite imagery, a reel-to-reel is sorta redundant. Maybe if you stipulate that following the 3rd World War that for a period while Jonathon was getting Spyro the program up and running and fine tuned he reverted back to the old nostalgic concept of recording but even that goes against his dislike of the old world he is trying not to assimilate with but to obliterate. You should make it a point to keep all technological advancements strictly in Spyral as state-of-the-art because even trying to rationalise reasons why someone so powerful was recording the birth of his venerable first born on outdated technology really has no merit and undermines his capacity as being this forward thinking idealist. Just a thought.

 

Also I should have mentioned this last update, but again Jeans in this temple of Holies (being Spyral HQ) is really kinda... silly. It's a new age and still maids wear trends from eons ago? Jonathan would disapprove. I think the fashion even for the most menial servants of his house needs to be addressed. This is because when you cut back to the rebels on the street I think they were wearing jeans etc and this is a visual reminder that they are all old-worlders. You need to be consistent, maybe creating a new kind of material or mode of dress that would befit the most powerful family / household on the face of the earth. It would also serve you well to reiterate Sarah's dress sense as an adult that she wears all these corsets and such, with throw back to Elizabethan times with a contemporary feel. So repeat it here. Maybe this is the standard dress for all Spyraleans only in dull colours while Sarah gets the most elaborate and brightest to show her status amongst her people. In creating this new world you need to repeat, repeat, repeat until you know just by looking at a character (in description) where they belong without them so much as opening their mouths. Just a suggestion.

 

“Felicity loved Rachel with her heart, one day so much, that she wanted to do her a favour and get rid of her Old World memories,” Spyro explained to Bella. “The reason why she’s paralysed right now is because that chip that’s underneath her skin, in which was put there for a good reason,

Well said. Ties in the past and present succinctly AND had you eluded to this in your prologue, as a reader you would feel the chips finally falling into place right about now. I actually have empathy for Felicity reading this, and it leaves me to wonder what their relationship was like as friends (Rachel and Sarah's mother) before Ravyn killed her. Good to think not all New Worlders are heartless bastards so that's a positive!

 

Just one thing the amount of sarcasm is entertaining BUT again you spend far too long on having Bella mouth off to Spyro and because of this you're losing tension. I was anxious as a reader when the women sought shelter in the room, but Bella's flippant attitude ruined the fear-factor. Instead of being a strong woman Bella has now become a mouthpiece, she has too much attitude and not enough fear for me to care what happens to her. Be careful if you give your strong-willed heroines the gall to fight back they still retain that sense of vulnerability that makes us wonder with every breath what's around the corner.

 

Bella pulled out a small USB at smiled. “Thanks…ah… Rach.”

Change 'at' to 'and.'

 

I know you mentioned this with Spyro already wearing the effects of an earlier virus but for an all-powerful machine I think 'she' deserved the dignity of trying to defend herself against attack. An electric shock or jolt may wound Bella but seeing Bella overcome that and crawl back to Spyro defiantly and in pain would have made me cheer Bella along rather than sort of go 'that was it?' You do good at building drama in some places but arguably where it counts with Spyro and what 'she' represents you failed a fraction. Give us an indication she is not to be messed with, injured or not.

 

Then Bella realised something, but made her more confused at the same time. Since Spyral’s systems had been taken down completely thanks to Chaz’s powerful and quick virus, it must’ve caused the chip to pop out. But why did the old technology react so well and quick to the new technology of Spyral’s? And if Spyral had a black out a couple of hours ago, why did the chip only react to only Chaz’s virus?

The first answer to Bella’s query was that no matter how old the technology of Spyral’s was, if Spyro was taken down completely, anything under her control, past, present or future, went down with the program. The old technology was still in her cache but Spyro couldn’t modify her cache so easily. The second answer to Bella’s second query was that Rob had told Chaz to specifically design what was called a Supreme Virus which was specifically aimed at taking down past experiments while doing a lot of damage, beyond repair, to the entire infrastructure it touched all in a matter of seconds. The Mississippi virus of Chaz’s was aimed to be dormant and take everything down slowly.

Personal preference but I would have left this towards the end. You need to sustain the drama not rationalise what happened.

 

And the closing paragraph was just brilliant. Great description, very emotive. Well done.

 

How's that for a rant, 'eh? :ok:

[woodyloveslinkin]

Chapter 31 - Stalemate

 

****

The wind outside was now howling past Sarah’s ears as the rain pelted across her pale face. Lightening cracked the sky in half with its earth-shattering brightness and the thunder rumbled like as though a boulder was rolling down the hillside, trampling over everything and its path. The night was as Sarah felt it to be, the dark windy and rainy night belonged to her and it wasn’t going to end very peacefully. Sarah was the angry boulder rolling down the hill and she knew that people were going to resist, she wasn’t stupid, and she was going to trample over them as that boulder did to everything in its path. She had more bones in her back then she ever did now and she wasn’t going to lose a single one during this night, which was showing her true emotions in its weather. Her face was pale and she was cold in the downpour which seemed to never ease. She lowered her head as the wind whipped across her face, as she rode down the hill as she led her mechanical androids and humanoids down the hill, with Draven riding beside her, unknowingly waiting for the right time to strike, as he gripped the slippery reins of his horse, a tan stallion, named Matador. Suddenly, there was a large explosion as both stallions, stopped suddenly in their running, skidded to a halt. Sarah and Draven managed to stay on their horses, gripping the reins to both Matador and Blade tightly then ever before. Or else if they hadn’t, they would’ve been thrown off their horses and then be faced with starting a fight while injured.

And then there was another explosion, in which drove both horses insane. Draven quickly regain control of Matador before he could react the same way as Blade. Blade reared up onto his hind legs, leaving Sarah holding onto the reins for her life, as it thrashed its front legs into the air. Draven shook his head as he thought that Sarah didn’t know how to control a horse but then he realised something as the wind and rain continued to lash against his face, almost to the point of blinding him. Her weaknesses were horses…he dawdled into his own thoughts not turning around to see what had happened.

Sarah pulled Blaze’s reins around turning the frightened horse around to see…

“What has happened to half my army?” she screamed over the sound of the pouring rain. Half her army were just little mountains of dust, well in this case, they were just mud that was quickly being sprayed away with the downpour. She looked to Draven for answers. She couldn’t find to seem the answer to her own question, as the rest of the guards who hadn’t been affected by the sudden and shocking turn of events stopped because they were both wondering what had happened as well. “I am waiting for your answer, Draven! What has happened to my army?”

“Do I look like the book of answers to you?” asked Draven, also yelling at her because if they were to talk normally, it would be very difficult to hear past the wind and the rain. “Don’t stop! We must continue!” Draven swept his hair back over his head as the rain had gradually made it sink over his eyes. “A true leader doesn’t stop for the weak!” Sarah gave him a glare that told him that he was right and that she was unhappy about his rightness. She turned back around so that she faced the humanoids.

“You hear him! Those who falter remain behind, any questions?” asked Sarah, bluntly, as no one shook their head. Sarah was still concerned that she had only half an army to fight with and they were humanoids, one out of few things that Spyro couldn’t touch. It hadn’t occurred to Sarah that Spyro might have been destroyed and everything that Spyro couldn’t touch would survive. “We ride on for victory and for the sake of the New World!” Uproar of agreement was heard from the humanoids. She dropped her voice to a mutter deliberately. “That is the spirit.” She smiled as she turned the horse around and proceeded to attack Camp David without any further ado.

Blade’s hooves pounded the ground as he galloped across the soggy and muddy ground. They were soon amplified by about a hundred and fifty other soldiers on horseback and Draven trailing Sarah’s lead, and they could be heard for miles at end.

“What’s that?” asked Fox, suddenly getting to her feet and off her mattress on the ground as she heard hooves and lots of them. She wasn’t the only person to hear the hooves and start with the questions. She wasn’t the only one that had started to think the worse was about to come. Her once brushed long red hair was now short and she almost looked like a boy with how short her hair was now. It was ratty and hadn’t been brushed. She was still in her thin prisoner’s nightgown that she had been forced to wear since arriving in this hellhole. She had lost so much weight because she had concluded that she was going to die here so there was no point trying to take the little nutrients that she received through a piece of bread at suppertime. Her bare feet had remained cold from day one and they hadn’t changed from the purplish-blue colour that she had only got at wintertime.

Panic had hit the group of women that were forced to live with one another in such a confined area, like a whip cracking. The mothers who still were with their children picked them up and scoured the room to try and protect their little ones, as even the women that weren’t mothers joined in with the panic.

“We have to hide,” said Mary, a person that had befriended Bella in her last moments that Fox tried to save her. Fox didn’t like to recall such memories, but she couldn’t help it every time that Mary spoke to her or every time that Fox saw her in her vision. The guard, who had ripped her away from Bella, had punished and violated Fox in the worse possible way, so much Fox was ready for a revenge attack, which was not like her at all, but she had started to take Rob’s advice on this manner, as she could clearly recall the day that Rob had told her you need to start standing up for yourself or one day that’s going to be your cause of death, your shyness. She could still see Rob’s brown hair and his hazel eyes through his Old World glasses. She couldn’t help but to notice the details, his serious look upon his face and all the fine grey hairs in between his brown hairs. She wished she knew how Rob was and where he was and vice versa. Mary started to tug Fox’s arm. Fox looked at Mary and tried not to recall what had happened to her. “Come on, you don’t know what’s coming.”

“We’re going to end up dying here anyway, so I don’t see much use in hiding now,” objected Fox, wanting an excuse to see what was coming. Mary shook her head. Fox was actually thinking about Rob and if he was dead by now, she didn’t want to make his spirit unhappy by simply giving into the people that probably killed him. “You know it as well as I do that our corpses are going to remain unnoticed. Hiding proves nothing, Mary. We have to learn to stand up for ourselves. Would you rather die being a coward or rather die being a hero?”

“Fox, there’s no way we are going to end up winning against Spyral,” Mary started. “You’ve seen the kind of stuff they are doing to us now. Forced conversion! Doesn’t that tell you something? Doesn’t exile over the simplest of things tell you something? We’re nobody’s. We’re going to die here as animals.”

“Rob once told me that my greatest weakness is my shyness, do you want to die being known for that? Would you?” Fox pounded Mary with questions and her new found attitude. Mary looked confused about the name Rob. “I thought I was going to die here, and I still do. But I’m not dying here as an animal sacrifice.”

“Fox, please, I love the heroic attitude, but it’s Spyral, they’ve defeated all political, culture and social figures in the past, and they’re going to wipe us off their asses pretty soon, this camp has just been too much for me, and for the rest of the people here,” Mary tried again, but the hooves were getting nearer and nearer and she was starting to get scared. Like Fox, her hair had been cut too short for her to be recognised as a woman and her red hair was knotty and tangled. The glow from the outside light’s showed that reflected off various bits of shattered pieces of glass and onto Mary’s face revealed her sad eyes and the red freckles that were dabbed across her face. “They are coming.”

“More of a reason to die fighting,” retorted Fox, still looking unsure about her actions and worried about the beating of the hooves against the ground. The floor was wet where she stood as the rain had quickly leaked in through several large cracks and holes in the walls. She looked to all of the people that were looking at her strangely, but some where nodding their heads in agreement. “We aren’t animals, so why are we getting treated like we are? Die fighting or die like a coward, it’s your choice not mine.”

“What about the children?” asked a mother from the corner as she had managed to keep two of her children, as Fox saw them in the reflection of the outside lights. They couldn’t have been more than ten between each of them. “You know, some of us managed to keep our children and we need to protect them.”

“Get them together, and the mothers stay behind for the children in that corner where you are now,” Fox sighed as she hadn’t thought about the mothers that had managed to retain their children and she felt bad about this thought that she had completely missed. She looked back to everyone else, as they whimpered more with the hooves drawing in closer and they eventually stopped. “I’m going outside now, seeing the guards haven’t come in and slaughtered us by now, ironically.” Fox turned as Mary’s grip became lose and she slipped out of her grip. Mary didn’t walk along Fox and she just stood there, contemplating. About a dozen or so women got to their feet and picked up anything that they could use as weapons. Fox didn’t think about using a weapon to defend herself, she really couldn’t see any objects around her that could be used as weapons so she didn’t bother. She was about to open the door, but someone else had just beaten it to her. Fox stood there shocked to see who was on the other side of the door.

“Hello sweetie, going somewhere?” asked the girl in a red Chinese dress and with her black hair soaking in the wetness along with the rest of the attire she wore. Then it had started. The screaming from barracks where the rest of the prisoners were held. Fox caught a glimpse of guards dragging women and children out from the other barracks and throwing them head first into the mud that lined the wasteland. Fox looked back to the girl and knew that something wasn’t right about her. She had to be the first and only girl who didn’t tremble in fear. Fox swallowed hard as her legs felt like jelly and she felt as though she was being strangled for she couldn’t find the right words to say back to the girl.

“Who…who are you?” Fox managed to find the words to ask her. She assumed that she was this brat that everyone talked of and fearer her as though she was friends with Devil. She took a step back, as she took a step forward into the barracks. Most of the women that had stood up had stood their ground when they had agreed within themselves to stand and fight with Fox, while the rest of them cowered and whimpered in the corner with everybody else. Mary was one of them.

“I am the dead saviour you have been longing to be saved with,” answered Sarah, sardonically. She then realised where she had seen this girl before, downtown with the woman that had stolen Romeo off her, the Ravyn person, the one that she had turned a blind eye to when she was trying to put Joanna in the role of a ruler when she was still alive down at the same location to where she was now. “You…” She trailed off in her sentence. She didn’t have any weapons on her, which was a bad move altogether, but she had confidence that she had broken their spirits just by appearing.

“Me?” asked Fox, still trying to find her nerves to try and stand up for herself. Now she knew who she was dealing with and the thought didn’t sit too well with her. She had just originally thought that she would be dealing with Spyral guards and not the so-called brat of Spyral. She didn’t know what her name was, but Fox didn’t need to be told who she is to know that she was the only woman in the barracks that was looking forward to Fox’s death. Fox gulped and then shook her head. She had to stand up for herself; she had to stand up for herself! She shook her head but by this time her trying to defend herself was already too late. Sarah had grabbed Fox’s short and spiky hair and dragged her outside into the blistering wetness of the night.

“You want to contaminate this perfect world I have bled and sweated over?” asked Sarah, as Draven watched on, still mounted on Matador. Sarah let go of Fox and threw her face first into the mud. “Is that what you live to do?” Fox tried to get up, but her hand slipped trying to get up and she felt straight back down. She tried again, but Sarah decided to sit on her back and she was pinned down in the mud. She had to turn her head so that she wasn’t breathing in mud. “You are a sadistic bunch are you not?”

“Compared to what you do to us, not really,” answered Fox, as Sarah nodded her head, thinking about what she ought to do with the Old Worlder. “You treat us like we are animals; you treat as like we are aliens.”

“You have such a strong mouth for something that my ass is currently pinning down,” replied Sarah, getting to her feet as Fox felt a bit relieved that she had stopped being squished from under her weight. “Here, let me help you up…traitor.” Sarah grabbed hold of Fox’s arm and pulled her up. It took Fox a second or two to realise what Sarah was doing and as soon as Fox was up, she knew it; Fox would start being physically attacked. She wasn’t going to let herself be a punching bag. Fox was the first person to give out the evening’s menu to Sarah with a punch of the gut.

Fox thought that would disable Sarah for a couple of seconds, and so that she could have an upper hand to the fight but Fox underestimated Sarah. Sarah came right back at her opponent with the same blow to the stomach and Fox now had started to learn how good she was in fights, with or without the help of a weapon. Fox stepped back in pain clenching her stomach and frowning, as she kept an eye on her opponent as she struggled to keep her eyes open.

Suddenly, Sarah was grabbed from behind from her long black hair and was dragged several metres and thrown into the mud, just how she had thrown Fox down into the mud, moments before. She landed face first but recovered quickly as she didn’t have time to wipe the mud off her face as her opponent had rolled her over and started to kick into the side of her stomach. She couldn’t see who was doing it, but she felt more people joining in as the kicking had started to intensify. And then it had suddenly stopped, as Sarah saw Draven pulling one of the guys off her. She couldn’t see who was lingering over her, but just a shadow. Then she figured something out, there were only two people kicking at her before and that Draven had hold of one. Sarah quickly wiped the mud off her face so that she could see a bit clearer. She tried to get up quickly but then she realised there was a blade pointed at her throat.

“It’s been a very long time, Sarah,” said the familiar voice that Sarah hadn’t missed so much and was under the impression that this person was dead. She smiled wickedly, as the lights from outside suddenly was shown on his face.

“Oh, you are right, it has been a while Michael,” replied Sarah, amazed by the fact that Mike was still alive, despite the vigorous attempts to kill him. He was an alien and Sarah knew he wouldn’t survive to see the next day now that Sarah was older, had more strength behind her, and knew Mike’s art of weaponry inside out now. It had been at the end of her teenage years that she had met Mike for the first time and had attempted to slaughter him for the good of the New world, but failed. For some reason, out of all the opportunities that Mike had been given, he had never killed Sarah but only had demobilised her for a couple of days. “Are you going to kill me this time around? Are you actually going to find the manhood inside yourself that you know you lack, this time around to actually murder me in cold blood?” Mike didn’t say anything, as Sarah knew that Japanese look of his too well. He had always been an enemy of the state, an enemy of Jonathon. Anyone opposed Jonathon, opposed Sarah. Sarah started to mock Mike, to try and provoke him to do something that in the long run he had never been able to do. “Come on kill me. I double dare you.” Mike ordered her to get to her feet and Sarah got to her feet, still with that same smile on her face. In a matter of seconds, it happened so fast that Mike wasn’t able to comprehend on what had happened in those few seconds, but Sarah managed to grab another sword that Sarah had been thrown by a nearby guard, stuck it up to Mike’s throat so that both swords now where pressed against the skin of their necks of the other and they were both in stalemate with one another. Mike didn’t know how he had let that happen, it must’ve been the rain as he was struggling to keep his eyes focused on his enemy and not on the rain. “You are not so quick this time around. You are like the rest of your Old World friends, Michael, you are slow, and you are naïve. And this time, I know one of us will not come out of this night alive, and I will be damned if I am the one to leave this life.”

“Then get ready to be damned,” Mike threatened, as Sarah just laughed in his face.

****

[Jeezy]

wow..could it be that it gets bigger and bigger all the time?

 

If you go on like that it'll be a book with 500 pages

[woodyloveslinkin]

Chapter 32 - If Only

 

****

“Fox!” yelled Rob as he barely recognised the young adult as Fox tried to see who was calling her name but she couldn’t see who was calling. She tried to shove her way past some guards but she was caught suddenly by a man with blonde hair, the one that she had seen rip Chaz off him and had brutally injured Chaz.

“Help!” she screamed, knowing that she couldn’t see Rob but she know that Rob would react instantly to her pleas for help. Rob did as he pushed everyone that stood in his path out of the way no matter what generation that they were born in, someone was hurting Fox and Rob was now peeved. Draven dragged Fox away from the fight and into a barrack. He threw her to the ground, quickly turned around and made sure no one could come in. he turned back around and grabbed hold of Fox’s arm. Then she realised something, there were a bunch of Old Worlders, some that she had even seen and spoken to in earlier days, were tied up against a stake. “No! No!” But her wails were unheard as Rob desperately tried to find a way to break down the door inside. He knew she was inside because no on e had Fox’s panic stricken tone like Fox. Draven pulled out a rope form his jacket and started to tie her hands together. She bit, she kicked, she screamed, even tried head butting Draven at one point but that didn’t work, as Draven just slapped her with such force that it threw her to the ground. Fox’s hands were now tied, as Draven pulled out another coil of rope from his wet coat. Again, she kicked her legs furiously, but Draven managed to get both of her legs and bind them together. “No! I won’t let you do this to me!”

Rob started to bang on the door. “Hold on Fox! I’m not going to let you die!” Rob then started to look for any other entries to the barracks, broken windows, just anything so that Fox didn’t have to be Tourniquet’s second victim.

“Keep screaming little girl,” Draven muttered as he smirked at Rob’s patriotic speech from outside in the rain. “The more you do the more you’ll wish you were never born. It’s as simple as that.” Draven then started to drag Fox screaming her lungs out and begging for Rob to come and save her, but her efforts were futile, as Draven threw her to the pile of silent women. Fox was the only one still screaming, as Draven turned around and turned back again, but this time he held something in his hands.

He started to douse the women in gasoline as Fox felt its cold liquid against her skin and it started to tingle and eventually started to burn her skin. Fox cried harder, as Draven went back over Fox and particularly made sure she was doused in gasoline from head to toe. Fox then went silent, as a window was broken and Draven quickly turned around. Only to be punched in the face, as the gasoline can in his grip flew into midair as it landed nearby, the rest of the flammable substance spilt onto the damp and wooden floor. Rob had quickly seized the opportunity and the advantages of a surprise attack, as Rob threw a couple of punches here and there at Draven, as Draven fought back quickly. Rob was down on the ground in a matter of seconds as Draven stood over him and laughed at how much of a coward he was. But Rob wasn’t knocked out, as soon as Draven turned a blind eye to Rob’s corpse and refocused onto torturing the Old World women, Draven lit a match and as soon as Rob saw what was going to be Fox’s preventable death, he stuck his foot out, just slightly, as Draven fell face first onto the ground and dropped the match as well.

The flames quickly started to spread along the floor as everyone, who was bound by ropes and bound by a passion to fight for their generation, realised that this place was going to burn down quickly. Rob got to his feet as he realised that he couldn’t save all the women and that Draven needed to be put in his place, it was now or never. But Rob had to get Fox out of this burning hole, as Fox was helplessly bound by ropes and was going to be torched alive if something wasn’t done. He shook his head as Draven tried to get up, but Rob had grabbed a loose plank of wood as soon as he saw Draven’s attempts to get back to his feet and whacked him over the back of his hand with it. Draven fell straight back down onto the floor. Rob tossed the plank of wood aside as the room was fully alight now and the flames were quickly crawling to the women, and Fox was on the outside of the circle of to-be tortured souls. He wasn’t going to let Fox be another victim out of Sarah’s regime, no, he wasn’t going to let that happened. He could feel the smoke crawl into his lungs, filling his sensitive organs with its toxic gas. He started to cough but he didn’t cover his mouth, he was too busy trying to get to Fox, before Draven woke up. He finally got to her and tried undoing the ropes as he heard the women’s sobs and cries for help, but he was shaky and he couldn’t undo Fox’s ropes. He couldn’t get her hands undone so he tried for the feet, he could get the feet undone as they hadn’t been tied as tightly compared to what the knots on the hands were like.

Fox was at the point where she was ready to ask Rob to let her die here. But she saw the determination in his eyes to get the knots undone that bound to the fate of being doused in gasoline.

Rob just gave up trying to get the first knot undone. Draven had done that one tightly.

“Get to your feet,” Rob ordered Fox. “Get out of here.” Rob knew he was only trying to joke himself into thinking he could save all these other women, but he felt like he had to do it. These women like him, had been discriminated and hated because of what generation they belonged to. But Rob assumed that they had horrible stuff done to them, because of the various scratches and cuts across their face and their very short hair that had been roughly cut. Fox got to her feet. “Go now. It’s not question time.” There was a big gush of flames and there were screams heard from the women. They had now been trapped by a circle of high flames that had started to make the roof cave in at the corners. Rob was torn between playing the hero figure to Fox and these women, and trying to use logic at the same time. He had been right the first time; he couldn’t save all of them. He could only save Fox. He couldn’t do it with his eyes open, so he closed them, trying to block out the sobs and the pleas for help. He grabbed Fox’s arm, told her to hold breath as the walked over to the window behind them, opened his eyes to face the window and smashed it with his elbow. He then ordered Fox to jump out as Fox didn’t say anything and did what she was told to do. Rob followed as he closed his eyes as the screams and wail for help grew louder from the bunch of now abandoned women, as Rob fell onto the ground as he opened his eyes to see the building was now fully alight.

And the worse thing about the building up in flames, the only sounds coming from the building were of windows on the other side of the structure combusting and shattering, and of the wood crackling like logs on a fireplace in the middle of someone’s living room. Not only had the women had lost their lives, but because Rob didn’t see any movement from Draven, Draven must’ve gone down with the innocent souls. Or so Rob assumed.

Fox quickly got to her feet and started to make her way over to Rob but she was stopped in her tracks. Draven had escaped when they had been surrounded by the sky-high flames and now had the cold silvery tip of his sword that was waiting to shed some Old World blood. It took Rob a couple of seconds to realise why Fox had suddenly stopped.

Fox hadn’t stopped crying she stood there as she heard the heavy inhales of the cold air around her, drawing in and drawing out, as Draven was trying to contain his rage. It was then that they all realised the rain had stopped suddenly, compared to what it was like when they had been outside before.

“Just do it,” Fox found herself saying, as Rob got to his feet slowly as Draven had his eyes solely fixed on Rob and his intentions set on to breaking that heart of his that had failed to save the other women. Rob shook his whispering the words underneath his breath – No, Fox, you can’t think like that. If only she could hear his words and if only if she could read his thoughts, if only…the possibilities could be endless, but they had to stop at some point in this New World and this social prison that he had been hiding behind all these years. “Just kill me. I’m doused in gasoline and it’s eating into my skin. I’m weak. And I am therefore, nothing and insignificant.”

“No you’re not!” Rob suddenly found himself yelling at Fox and made a dash to save her and shake her until her senses came about. What had happened to Fox’s spirit? Rob couldn’t help but to ponder such thoughts. Didn’t Project Tourniquet teach her anything? But Draven was quick, with that smirk on his face and his slick blonde hair slicked back to show the evilness in not only his personality and what of Rob knew of him to be, but to show the dominance that Draven pretended to have over the pair of the two Old Worlders. Draven pulled Fox back and quickly placed the blade underneath her chin. He pressed hard, but didn’t slit her throat. Rob stopped in his tracks immediately, suddenly thinking to himself – You’re not Hercules so don’t try to be him! Rob almost wanted to punch himself in the stomach for thinking that he could save the day with just a grab and run tactic. “You’re not…Fox, really, you’re not.”

“I totally agree with her,” Draven revealed his cold voice to Rob. Rob knew the instance that he talked he must’ve been high up in the hierarchy of the Spyralans. The way that he gripped the weapon and his stance, told Rob everything that he needed to know; he must die. “She is weak, and she is insignificant. Let me put an end to her life for you. Or…do you want to do it for me?” Draven snorted. “As if I am going to let you to a job that not even a filthy Old Worlder like you can handle. What happens if you run off with her, marry her, and…produce more of your kind? I mean, seriously, do I look seriously that stupid Old Worlder?”

“I heard you New Worlders are really gullible and stupid, see, I shift more towards the left column into the wise side of society,” Rob retorted.

“No, no, ah, and just no, you don’t understand this wonderful society that Jonathon created, what I have slaved over to try and perfect,” Draven explained, as Fox realised that she was pressed against Draven’s damp chest and then she still was doused in gasoline. Rob also noticed there was no mention of the new ruler’s name, just the old ruler’s name, just Jonathon. He detected there was something wrong with Draven’s faithfulness and admire for the world that Jonathon’s heir had perfected. Fox just wished for Rob to keep on talking for longer, in which truth to be told, he had a mouth on him at times, and Fox just needed a spark, just anything, the littlest of sparks, that’s all she needed.

Draven pressed the blade harder against Fox’s skin, making it bleed a little bit more. Rob swallowed hard. As he knew what he was about to do was probably going to end up in Fox’s funeral. Rob made a dash for it, but Draven’s reaction to Rob’s sudden dash of fate had been delayed by a reappearing downpour. He had only turned his gaze for one second and the next, he found himself down on the ground. Fox cussed as her plan to set Draven alight had been overruled by another major driving force and that was, Rob pounding his fist into Draven’s face. Then she saw it all played in slow motion. Draven still had the blade in his hands and even though Fox had broken into a run, she didn’t stop what she had witnessed. Draven dug the blade into the side of Rob, through tears of blood and groans of pain. The instant that Draven’s blade had penetrated the skin of Rob’s ribcage that was the instance that Rob realised something wasn’t right and stopped beating his opponent up. Draven dug it in deeper, until Rob fell off Draven and onto the ground and Draven swindled the blade around so that it inflicted more damage than usual. Fox picked up her pace, but Draven was up and was walking sternly and powerfully towards Fox. Draven grabbed Fox by the back of her head, making sure out of the corner of his eye that Rob was still down for the count, and rammed her head into the wall of the building that was burning inside, but hadn’t quite made it to the outside of the wood.

Repetitively, bang, bang, bang…

By the fourth time that Draven had banged her head against the exterior wall, she had blood dripping down her face. She was unrecognisable and she couldn’t fight back. Rob tried several times to try and get up but the pain of having a thick blade fixed in his side brought him back down every time. He wanted to help her, that’s what he had dedicated half his life to do, to try, and help Fox. Draven continued to ram her head into the wall, as now, there was a bloody print on the wall that kept being washed away by the rain. Not even the rain could die down the flames and this was Draven’s upper hand. Fox was dazed and confused, but still had will left in her, but Draven’s physically determination was too much for her. Draven stopped. He picked Fox up and threw her through the shattered window that had been used in part of Rob’s and her escapade, head first. She was out for the count, as flames unknowingly got bigger by the seconds.

Draven turned around, wiped his hands clean against his wet pair of black pants, and walked over to Rob’s weak corpse that was struggling to get up and save Fox. But he couldn’t. He felt like she was going to die all because of him. Draven stopped and knelt down beside Rob, looking him in the eyes.

“Why…?” was all the Rob could say. He was in a lot of physical pain to start back up again and fight. But he still had his faith in a better world. He knew this wasn’t going to be an easy process and he should’ve seen someone’s death who was so close to him, coming. But he was blind and now that he realised that he was blind to see the truth, it hurt him even more.

“Because it’s simple,” retorted Draven. “See, the plan is this… my friend. I kill you Old Worlders, because I don’t like you and then I kill the brat who’s in charge, because, I don’t like her. All because I can and I will.” Draven got to his feet that he stood up properly and proceeded to walk off, picking up a dropped sword on the way over to another fight with an Old Worlders.

“No…Fox…come back…” Rob sobbed, as his outstretched fingertips couldn’t reach her. Rob started to cry as horrible thoughts of Fox’s death started to flood his mind. “No…Fox…don’t go…I love you too much…” Rob was helpless and he had been reduced down to nothing but to a figure that looked like a beggar on the side of the street, crying and sobbing. Fox was gone, and there was nothing Rob could do about it.

If only…

****

[woodyloveslinkin]

Chapter 33 - The Fire Inside

 

Bella and Ravyn rushed down the hallway of the Spyral corporation's building that had been decked out in antique decor and of course, hypocrisy. The light's above were dim but Bella still carried the candle which was firmly stuck to its small and grubby plate. Despite Bella cutting off the electricity supply to the building, she knew that the emergency lighting system was kicking in and they didn't have enough time to sit and dawdle until all of the backup system ran out. Pitch darkness was not a friend in this case, but it was a friend and an enemy at the same time.

"Where are we going?" asked Ravyn, still a bit confused about everything. Her past was hazy but she still had the confidence that she was back to her normal self. The technology that had entrapped her in its virtual ropes had been destroyed but the sense of her missing something was still there. She perfectly knew well who Bella was and she remembered who the rest of the Project Tourniquet team were, but she was unsure who was still alive from the team.

Bella's green eyes looked at Ravyn and looked back ahead of her. Her silvery hair whipped through the air. She didn't say anything to Ravyn but merely turned another corner. Bella was in her own world right now and she knew what was driving her to be like this. She had a bad feeling what was going happening down on the ground, what the Spyralans called Winter Station and she knew that she wanted every part in it. The corridors of the Spyral corporation's building were mini-deserts and she knew that something big must have been happening to desert the Spyral building of its guards and their staff.

Ravyn opened her mouth to ask Bella another question but she closed it thinking that it would more like she was nagging at the woman that she barely knew but only was united with her because of this war that had been playing out for far too long between the two different generations of people. She stopped as she closed her eyes. A sneeze was coming. Bella suddenly stopped and turned around. She frowned. Ravyn let out a little sneeze which Bella's frown turned upside down and into just a blank expression upon her face.

"Getting a cold?" asked Bella, as Ravyn reopened her eyes and nodded. "Come on, we can't stick around here all day. Unless of course you're planning to get us beheaded." Ravyn shook her head. Bella smiled faintly. "That's good to hear. Come on." Bella continued on walking, but for only a split second and that's when she suddenly calm to a halt in her tracks.

"Thinkin' of goin' somewhere?" asked a human guard that had been dressed in his official Spyral uniform that the guards were given. Ravyn froze, cussing in her head. Her sneeze had given their position away. Bella just shook her head, thinking that out of all the things to get them caught it wasn't their footprints but it was just a simple sneeze.

"Home," answered Bella, softly. Ravyn didn't know what to do, as the events of the night that where chaos was set loose in the marketplace started to come back to her like black and white film on its reel. Bella knew she should start getting ready to fight. She came towards the guard, and threatened him with the flame of the candle. The guard caught her wrist, and flung the candle out of her grip. Ravyn was quick to try and get the candle before it hit the floor, because of the unique odour in the hallways that indicated they used some sort of oil to keep it smelling the way that they did.

But Ravyn was too late, it hit the floor and it shattered into a million pieces. What they didn't suspect at first was it was not a real candle. It was merely a candle that was made out of glass and filled up with a special type of burning oil. And as for the wax, it wasn't real wax but artifical wax that again, was only there to make the candle look real.

Suddenly, everyone found themselves sheidling their face from the flames that had erupted from the spilt citronella oil.

"Bella!" Ravyn found herself yelling as she couldn't see past the flames that had divided the two team members from one another. "Where are you?" Ravyn wanted to rush past the flames and play hero but she couldn't. She feared for own safety at first. "Bella, can you hear me?"

"Ravyn!" Bella managed to yell, as she was starting choke on the smoke. And then suddenly, when Bella thought that the struggle with the guard was over, he came behind her and attempted to slice her throat with a blade that he had pulled out, but she was too quick. Once she had seen the silvery edge of the blade in her peripheral vision she turned around and punched him in the face, as the blade fell to the floor. The guard proceeded to rebuke her actions by grabbing both wrists and then headbutting her until her blood seeped out of its wound, and trickled down from her hairline and down her face. She lifted her knee up and knee-butted him in the stomach several times until he had let go of her wrists, sending him to the floor in pain. She went straight for the dropped blade and she had no interference with her intentions until she bent over to get it.

The guard grabbed her foot and pulled it towards him, sending her down to the ground with him. Bella still had the knife in her hand and she was prepared to take Charles Darwin's theory to the test; the survival of the fittest. He pulled her forward towards him, and Bella let him drag her by the foot. She rolled over and bent forward with knife drawn in the attack position, raised over her head. She swiped at him but missed and he stopped trying to drag her as soon as he realised what she was trying to do. He got to his feet but he shouldn't have. She took another swipe at him but at his legs and cut his leg. The bloody cut was clearly was visible through the ripped pants of his uniform. He let out a screech of pain as Bella tried getting to her feet but she was knocked back down again with a slap of his hand that met the side of her face.

"Bella!" Ravyn yelled again, as she was still on the other side of the flames which were spreading quickly and thus, they were being seperated quickly and it was the last thing that either one of them wanted. "What's happening Bella? I can't see you!"

"Go! Run for it!" Bella managed to yell. "Leave me behind! I'll be fine!" Bella now was pinned down to the ground and was in the process of stabbing the guard consistently with aim that was reliant on by luck. She couldn't see what she was doing because she was facing the flames and she was merely dancing on luck that she was stabbing him repeatitively in the leg.

"No!" Ravyn yelled. "We've come this far together!"

"Just go if you know what's good for you!" yelled Bella, as the guard fell off her. She got to her feet and went straight for his heart. He had barely noticed that Bella had gotten to her feet and he was too slow to react to her movements. She drove the blade into his heart and the next thing that Ravyn heard was a scream of pain.

"Bella!" Ravyn repeated. "I'm not going!" Bella's hands were now covered in dark red blood and the guard dropped to his knees and then, eventually fell to the floor, with the knife sticking out of his chest. "What just happened?"

"I don't know how to get out of here!" yelled Bella, as she became more aware of the flames that were quickly going to lead to her death if she didn't move.

Ravyn looked around to see if there was anything to douse the fire around Bella. Nothing. Ravyn somehow stopped listening to the sound of the crackling fire near her and somehow found herself listening to the sound of rushing water. It was like as though they had an inbuilt fountain in the building itself.

Then she realised something, of course there was going to be a fountain, the girl is rich! All rich people have fountains! She turned around, still blocking out the sound of the fire in front of her but still not blocking out the thought of saving her friend. She broke into a run because she knew if the fire continued burning, Bella wouldn't be able to get out of this building alive to see the Old World values back again. She ran past various paintings that represented Old World figures. She recognised some of the people, Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth II. And then suddenly she stopped as she recognised one of them.

Black curly hair, sitting against a chair that had a Celtic Cross detailing the back of the headrest. She sat in a black velvet dress that brightened her white pearls that she wore around her neck. Her smile was unique.

"Joanna?" asked Ravyn to the picture of the immortalised woman. She walked up to the painting knowing that she shouldn't stay long on this picture because of Bella's situation. She read the writing that had been scripted into the golden plaque. Princess Joanna, the Heiress of Spyral. "Princess? What?" Ravyn shook her head in disbelief. This couldn't be happening. She fought off some tears, as she turned away and continued to run towards the fountain that contained exotic fish that looked too artifical to be true. She stopped in front of it, still thinking about her sister and where she could be now, no word, no nothing. She had to do this for Bella though. She looked around to see if there was anything that she could scoop water into it. She looked around, nothing, nothing, just paintings and statues that were made out of high quality black and white marble.

And then it caught her attention. The statue just a couple of metres away from her that was a a young maid with tight curly hair, she held a what seemed to be a pail, a real one. She frowned for a second and then realised it was the only way to douse the fire. But how was she going to get up there? She was short as a woman and even trying to get a can of soup from the top shelf of the cupboard involved asking her sister for some assistance or moving various bits of furniture over to the kitchen and stepping up on them. She looked around to see what she could move but there was just nothing that she could see herself moving. Then she saw a small seat that seperated the garden bed behind the statue from the actual indoor miniture garden. She ran over to it and stood on it. She looked up at the pail that was just inches away from the top of her head. She got on her tippy toes and reached out to get it. Her fingers barely touched the wooden pail. She tried hitting it to get it off and she made it swing a couple of times. She looked around to see if she could get any higher but she knew if she stepped backwards any further she would be lower, away from the statue more and treading over various pretty-coloured flowers that had been designed specifically to grow in doors. She looked below her to see if there were just an inch or two elevated parts of the garden bench that she was on. Just nothing, then she saw like a mini-step then she could utilise that was part of the maiden's dress. She knew she had to be careful because she could easily slip.

She placed a small foot on the wave of the maiden's dress and elevated herself to get that pail off her outstretched hand. She managed to get hold of it, as she hung onto the arm for support with another hand. She grasped the wooden pail tightly as she let herself drop back down to the edge of garden bed. She jumped off it and ran across to the fountain and she scooped up a pail's worth of water. She needed to be out of here quickly. So when she was done and convinced herself that she didn't accidentally scoop up any of the fish, she made a ran for it, dragging along a heavy pail of water. She took one last glance at Joanna's portrait and made picked up her speed.

"Ravyn? Where are you?" Bella wept from behind the flames of the rising fire. "I thought you were staying with me..or so I assumed by your defiance." Bella slumped against the backwall that she had been forced to befriend before her death as the flames had made their playdate official. She started to cry as she closed her eyes. She just wanted to wake up to a sunny morning like she used to do in the Old World and not be afraid to have her opinion suppressed by a global regime. She just wanted to wake up from the nightmare.

A couple of minutes has passed by the time that she had stopped crying but her eyes remained closed.

"Come on, wake up, it's time for school," she thought she heard Ravyn say to her. She frowned as she woke up and saw Ravyn next to her. She looked around as she was about to point out that flames were about to kill them both, but she realised that the flames had died down. "Don't make me poke you to get out bed, young lady." Ravyn thought it was time for a light hearted approach to the situation, the stress was also starting to get to her. Bella smiled.

"How did - I mean, I'm alive, right?" asked Bella, not knowing where to start. Ravyn nodded.

"Don't ever say that again, I will not ever leave any of my friends behind, even if you held a knife to my throat," Ravyn ordered Bella. "I will never leave you behind. Understand? We rely on one another too much to even think that. If we want to get the Old World values back, don't ever go by the saying, who falls behind stays behind. Who falls behind, you go back for them and try to reclaim your spot." Bella threw her arms around the small woman for the first time since their cooperation in Project Tourniquet. "Come on, we can't dawdle. We've got a world to save." Bella nodded and let go of Ravyn.

****

[Greyfoxx]

wow...great updates. **yes i've been keeping up**

 

awesome scene with me and rob...great work!

[woodyloveslinkin]

Thanks Sorry I haven't updated for a while, it's been a bit busy for me and I had a long period worth of writer's block (and for me to overcome this last night I forced myself to write not LPF's but Tourniquet as it was long overdue for an update).

By all means, I felt kinda mean cutting your character off Fox. But it is a war and people are bound to die. I just feel sorry for your character, she was just a sweet natured girl who was shy at times and her confidence levels needed a boost at times, in which I think that this whole "raise against the empire" plan helped her a lot with her confidence levels. Thanks again for you all your comments.

[Greyfoxx]

lol honestly i really don't mind my char dieing

[woodyloveslinkin]

Chapter 34

The Chaos Theory

 

****

Mike and Sarah were still at stalemate with on another. The rain had eased off but the pain and the anger was still there. They had locked each other in a situation where it was a do or die, as both the tips of their swords were pointed at each other's throats.

"It's had to come down to this, hasn't it, Sarah?" asked Mike, as he was doing his best to restrain his anger. His hand was starting to shake but he maintained his firm grip on the sword and the direction it was pointed towards. "One of us isn't going to come out of tonight alive, you do know this?"

"I am strong you are weak, there is a difference my dear enemy," Sarah placidly said. "I am of the right blood of the right generation that belong to dominate and conquer this world, you are not. There is a large difference between us. However, there is a characteristic that we share equally, we know how to combat properly."

"The only enemy you have faced that knows how to fight like yourself," Mike replied softly. "It's the night that you die!" Mike for a second jabbed the tip of his blade into her skin and the moment that he had done that Sarah more than jabbed the blade of hers into his own throat. She had drawn blood and the blade was now sticking out of his throat with blood spurting out of his throat.

"You fool! You have only ended your life quicker!" yelled Sarah, as the fighting around her didn't cease but the guards continued on with their torture methods towards the Old World generation of women that Spyral had managed to capture. Mike tried to speak but he couldn't. Blood spurted out of his throat and onto everything that was close to him, the ground, the blade that now shined with a bloody blade in the nighttime and also onto his opponent. Sarah let go of the blade but somehow Mike hadn't lost enough sense in him to let go of his own blade and admit his ultimate defeat. He had only himself to blame for not reacting quicker to Sarah's jab in the throat. "You are a weakling. You are the second one I have slaughtered with a blade and at least the first one gave up a fight. What was her name? I believe it was Melissa." He couldn't retort verbally but he managed to hold onto his sword, as Sarah just laughed in his face. "What are you going to do?" Sarah smirked one last time at him and left him to his death.

He tried to say the words you're not going anywhere but he couldn't. He was bleeding enough for him not say anything but he was bleeding heavily enough to be dead by now. Sarah had made a mistake she hadn't driven the sword into his throat deep enough, but he knew it himself, it was only going to be a matter of a couple of minutes before he did die from the loss of blood, as he just knew it that she had done some damage to his main artery in his throat. The split second that Mike saw with his dying eyes Sarah turning around to go shed some more Old World blood was the split second that he managed to control his stumbling and leap forward to drive his sword into the back of her shoulder blade.

She screamed with pain as he fell to his knees and pulled the blade out of his throat. It was the thing that was keeping him alive, was that sword in his throat. More of his Old World blood and the Japanese heritage continued to be dead to the world. He fell to the floor with one of Sarah's swords beside him, as his blank eyes looked to the heaven's above. I've had a good life now it's time to go to a better one were the final thoughts of the half-Japanese man who had been wondering around the New World under various false identities and dodging Spyral authorities.

Meanwhile, while Mike's corpse was saying its last goodbyes to the world, Sarah fell to her knees in pain. Her eyes were closed and she was struggling to hold back the tears of pain she had rarely ever felt in her life as the queenbee of Spyral and everything it touched. The blood had now trailed down from the wound and down into her corset that she wore. She reached over her shoulder to pull the blade out of her, but she hestitated for a bit as she looked up to make sure no one was about to attack her while she was down for the count. The last thing she needed to show was her weakness and she was openly displaying it at that moment. She wasn't surprised at all that none of the Old Worlders had tried to attack her. Dumb Old Worlders, stupid as ever, do not know how to fight and poor tactic skills, she sneered at her own thoughts. She could feel the blood gushing out from the wound as she reached over yet again and pulled the blade out from her shoulder blade. She grasped the hilt of the sword with one hand and attempted to pull it out. She cringed with more pain as she felt the sword break inside of her wound. She pulled whatever she could out and looked at the snapped in half sword. Dumb Old Worlder, this sword is weak, pfft, Old Worlders using strong weapons is a contradiction, she thought to herself as she tossed the bloody sword aside and got to her feet. She stumbled for a couple of metres as she walked towards the sword that laid on the ground near Mike's dead corpse. She took one last look at him and started to kick his corpse in the ribs.

"Sarah! You have better things to do right now!" ordered Draven, walking over to Sarah and pulling her away from Mike's dead corpse. "Don't linger on the past. The past is the past. Leave it alone!" Sarah was furious at Draven for telling her what to do.

"Do not question my actions or my authority, you hear me?" asked Sarah, as she saw only red flashing past her eyes.

"Then don't linger!" retorted Draven. Sarah raised her hand and slapped her associate across the face. Draven caught Sarah's hand, as his eyes flared up with anger. "We're going to retreat now!" Sarah shook her head. "We have to! You're wounded!"

"So what? I'm still fighting!" Sarah yelled back. Draven let go of her hand, but as soon as he let go of her hand, she sprinted out of his sight. Draven knew the time was coming around for him to face her, but he knew this wasn't the right time. Sarah wove her way in and out of various spot fights and ran to her horse. She was barely holding onto her fighting spirit as the Old World blade that lodged underneath her shoulder blade caused severe pain and discomfort for her. She ran over to where the horses had been stationed, behind some bushes so they wouldn't be targeted and both Draven and Sarah had an escape plan shoved up their sleeves. However, Sarah stopped for a second and realised that Matador, Draven's horse was missing and that only Blade remained stripping ferns of its leaves and then chewing it. She started to look through various items that were attached to its saddle. She was looking for something in particular, something would ensure the truimph of the New World in this battle of Worlds. She picked up the small box that contained the Eye and contemplated even sacrificing her own life to make sure the New World stayed intact. But she knew if she was to use the Eye, great consequences there would be, even the loss of her own life. She never thought she would use it, but eventually shook her head as she realised the New World needed her to the end, and she also had a bad feeling that this night was not only the end of a war being raged on ever since the New World was created. but it would only be the starting of one. She wanted to see the end of it and she wasn't about to make a stupid mistake of releasing the Eye so soon, that would only be if she was the last remaining New Worlder still standing. She reattached the straps around it so that it hung from Blade. She leant against her horse, trying to take slow breaths in and out. She didn't want to admit it but she had no choice but to tell herself to retreat back to whatever was left of her headquarters, before the New World lost the greatest asset it had right now - herself.

She managed to get on Blaze's saddle and collapsed forward onto his wet mane and pulled the reins for him to get going. She barely was keeping herself alive, the blow from Mike had weakened her dramatically and she had a bad feeling that hre cause of death was going to read on her tombstone "Loss of Blood". She wanted to be known as a great leader throughout time, and now since Joanna was gone, she had nobody to inherit the crown of Spyral. But as her horse rode through the pouring rain and up the various slopes that she had led her army to a hopeful victory, she realised something. Yes, there was an heir for Spyral, but it just happened to be Draven, according to tradition. And then she jumped to another conclusion - he was the one that had killed Joanna for the sake of inheriting the Spyral throne.

By the time that she had arrived back at the Spyral headquarters she could sense that something was seriously wrong with the building. She dragged herself slowly to the front steps, as she clutched her wound that the sword had snapped inside her. She couldn't get up the stairs by herself and she collapsed on the flight of wet black marble stairs and groaned.

Draven stood inside the doorway, peering out of the building, sneering at the wounded ruler of the world. He smirked, as he realised that Sarah couldn't see him. He slowly walked down the steps, with his hands behind his back, and he had already planned what he was going to do to her. But there was something he wasn't counting on.

Suddenly, he found himself being attacked from behind. He spun around quickly after being attacked with a makeshift weapon, from a woman that he didn't quite recognise. He grabbed the crowbar as she took another swing at him.

"What do you think you're doing with this?" asked Draven, as he realised where he had seen her before. At the camp, she was one of the prisoners. "You!"

"Me," replied the woman. "I'm Bella. How exactly do you wish to die, slowly or fast?" He looked to the door as he realised there was another person by the shadow that was given off by the woman. This couldn't be happening, he thought she would've been dead by now. How could he miss the killer of Felicity being in front of him?

"Rachel!" he yelled, as she ran down the stairs to look at the state the ruler was in. For some odd reason, Ravyn or as Draven knew her by. Rachel, felt as though she should check what kind of state Sarah was in, not knowing that it was the actual ruler that had landed her a place in the Narcissi Extraction experiment. To Ravyn, she was just a child, barely a woman. Ravyn had gotten so used to her mother's name she had actually stopped responding to her birth name. She came to the child's aid, only seeing the figure rolled onto her stomach and seeing her chest inhale and exhale. Not even Bella could even guess that was the one person lying on the steps that she lived to kill. Draven was under the impression by Ravyn's movements that she was going for the kill. "No! She's mine to kill! Not yours!" He let go of the crowbar that he was in lock with Bella over still, but he was too slow and he had just said too much. By the time that Ravyn had rolled over Sarah, Sarah had already armed herself with a Spyral knife she had hid in one of her boots and instead of aiming at the person who had rolled her over she aimed at the moving body of Draven and threw it at him.

The silver blade of the knife rotated a couple of full rotations and neatly sticked out of his chest. Sarah had aimed at his heart and her wish was fulfilled. She collapsed on her back as Bella realised who she was and stood her ground. Draven collapsed without another word said and no other word was escaped from his mouth as the blood from his heart bleed out through the open and deep wound.

Sarah was now breathing heavily and was struggling to fight death. She looked to the woman that killed her mother and was shocked to see that she hadn't followed Bella's moves and stood her ground.

"Go ahead...." she managed to say; "I cannot fight no longer. I am weak...." Sarah slowly started to get herself to her feet. Sarah had a feeling that if she could play the poor villain, the weak and defenceless one, she would have her life spared.

"Step back!" ordered Bella, a bit confused why Ravyn hadn't moved away before. "Do you not know who she is?" Ravyn didn't say anything but she did what Bella had previously advised to do, and that was to step back. "I should've killed you by now."

"Why haven't you?" Sarah panted, still trying to get to her feet by herself. "Your Japanese friend knows how to handle a sword, it's a pity the rest of you Old Worlders don't know how to." Then both Bella and Ravyn saw the damage that Mike had done to her to make her so weak. They both immediately knew if they could just keep her talking longer, she would eventually bleed to death. Sarah saw one of her associates behind the pair of Old Worlders, coming toward the open entrance armed with a bow and arrow. Sarah smiled, knowing that her associates would not betray her in such a time of need for her. "It was a good attempt on your behalf, Old Worlders, on trying to...." Sarah eventually got to her feet and took a deep breathe in and continued talking. "...to take over this world...it really was.." The associate loaded the bow with the feathery arrow and aimed not at Sarah, like she had feared, but at Ravyn. It was released and Ravyn was down on the floor. The associate of Sarah's ran over Bella and knocked her stone cold, so that she couldn't help her friend or even try to attack Sarah while the opportunity was there. The associate threw Sarah over his shoulder and carried back inside within the safe walls of the headquarters.

That was the last time anyone could remember recalling Sarah's location.

[woodyloveslinkin]

Chapter 35

The New Old World

 

****

It was only a matter of time until Rob and the other people that had survived the attack had arrived at the steps of Spyral headquarters and the first thing they saw through the small downpour of rain was two women wounded on the flight of steps in front of the headquarters. Rob's eyes lit up as he realised who those two women were, they were from Project Tourniquet and they were Bella and Ravyn. Rob didn't know if they were victims or awaiting victims to this war between the two generations of people, but he knew which one he ran to first.

"Ravyn, Ravyn, Ravyn," he repeated, as he tried to catch his breath and came to her aid. She laid on her stomach with an arrow through her back. "Please, miss her vital organs, please, tell me she's alive." He looked for a pulse on her neck and there was a sigh of relief as he felt her veins pumping blood still. He wanted to take the arrow out but he wasn't sure. "Ravyn do you hear me? If it's a yes don't try to talk, move a body part or anything to tell me. I know you're alive." He looked up and down to see if she was moving anything and then he realised that she was moving her fingers slightly. "Whatever you do, don't try to speak." People rushed by Rob to attend to finding Sarah and killing her. They rushed through the front door as other people attended to Bella's body who was knocked out.

"She's still breathing!" Rob heard other people like Chaz say about what state Bella was in, but his focus was somewhere else.

"You're going to be okay," Rob assured, not feeling overally confident himself about the current position that the woman he had a crush on was in. "You're going to be okay, just as long you don't say anything." Rob got to his feet and looked around. There wasn't a New Worlder in sight, except for the dead corpse of Draven. When Rob saw Draven's body on the ground, he came over to it and glared at it. "Good. Got what was coming for you." Rob felt like just hurting the corpse for the sake of it, but then he realised there was no point, the man was already dead and Rob should be happy with just that. He stood up and looked around. "Is there a doctor here? We've got a case over there." Viking arrived by Rob's side. Rob looked to him. "Oh please, you can't be a doctor."

"I can only try," replied Viking, as he flicked his hair out of his face. "I've talked to everyone in this group and none of them have any medical qualifications so the best thing to do in this case is to settle for second best. Who is it and who's got the problem?" Viking hadn't noticed Ravyn lying on the steps with an arrow through her back. Rob got Viking's head in his grip and turned it Ravyn's way. "That looks like a difficult one." Rob let go of Viking's head as Viking faced Rob once again.

"You kill her and I won't forgive you," Rob warned. "I'm serious as well."

"I'll try my best," replied Viking. "I don't like making promises about things like this, but all I can do is to try my best." Rob nodded and so did Viking, as they both walked over to the limp body of Ravyn's that was having difficulty breathing, but yet, so thankful that she was still alive. Viking and Rob knelt down beside Ravyn, opposite sides of her. Viking had decided that it was for the better that he talk things through with Ravyn first. "Ravyn, what I'm about to do is, I'm going to remove this arrow from your back. But given my experience with removing inanimate objects from inside people, is that you run the risk of either bleeding to death, or being paralysed from the waist down. This has to be removed whether it be now or later on, you'll still be running the same risks." Ravyn shook her head but she soon paid the price for shaking her head with much pain and agony. "Don't shake your head! It can cause more damage! Just tap your fingers three times if you disagree and only twice if you agree. Am I understood?" She tapped her finger twice. "I'm going to try and remove the whole arrow at once." She tapped her finger three times. But both men ignored her disagreement. Viking put a firm hand on her back and the other on the arrow. He gently tugged it and she felt the pain of the arrowhead scrape inside of her. He gently tugged it again, but more upwards then anything.

It was another hour or so until Viking had fully removed the arrow from her back and put a ripped strip of his pants around her waist to stop the bleeding. Viking wasn't sure if she had internal bleeding or not, and he wasn't about to tell Rob his concerns. Viking and Rob's attention was back on the people who had entered the headquarters about an hour or so ago in search of the tyrantress.

"What's the outcome?" asked Rob, getting to his feet and facing the group of people. "Where is she?"

"We don't know," answered the first person.

"She might've been killed in battle," suggested the second person.

"Go back and double check," ordered Rob.

"We've tripled check, Rob, that's why we were away for so long, she's just not here," replied the third person. "She's got to be dead."

"Is that your honest opinion saying that or your exhaustion saying that?" asked Viking, stepping up to side with Rob.

"But if she is gone for good, what do we do then?" asked the first person. "Wouldn't it just be better if we end the whole night here. We are all exhausted and we cannot find a trace that can link us to a conclusion that Sarah is alive."

Rob looked to Ravyn's limp body on the ground and then looked back to the group.

"Fine, we head back to town, to see what it has become," he regrettably concluded, as he lent over and slowly picked Ravyn up with his arms and just hung her over his shoulders. Chaz did the same with Bella. They had to go back for Mike who was still trying to fight death to the end. Rob had a hunch that Sarah hadn't sliced his coronary artery but she had come very close to it, and all of his friends were thankful for that mistake of hers.

"Where are we going?" Ravyn managed to ask, trying to ignore the pain that she was encountering and she just wanted the pain to end. It was getting too much for her by this stage and she had to congratulate herself on not crying. Rob sat her down on a nearby rock, because he had already walked down the stairs and sat her down on it. They looked into each other's eyes. Ravyn was in pain and Rob could tell by what he could read in her eyes and Rob was serious and stern, to what Ravyn could read in his eyes. "Where are we going?"

"Home, so we can get you better," answered Rob, as both had wanted to be back home for a while now and just wanted to put their feet up in front of the television box.

"Who's dead?" asked Ravyn.

"Nevermind," he slowly said as he felt a million knives stab his heart as he remembered how he saw Fox died and how Draven had tortured her. "We need to get home now."

"Sweet home, sweet sweet home..." Ravyn muttered as she fell asleep and Rob caught her before she hit the ground and wounded herself even more. Rob smiled as he carried her off with a the other Old Worlders trailing behind him. A tear ran down her face as she thought about the happy place that she was going back home to face, but at the same time she thought that something bad had happened to her sister. She would've got to her feet and started searching the premises of the Spyral headquarters with her bare feet and hands, but physically, she couldn't right now. And mentally, she knew she was only trying to kid herself. She had always thought of Joanna, secretly, going to what she called The Dark Side of society, her being part of the New World generation and whatever followed behind that.

While Ravyn was deep in thought about her sister, that had been taken by the war and victimised by society, Rob was physically exhausted. He had a limp in his walk and knew that he was going to injure himself more from Draven's earlier attack. But at the same time he was furious, and all that he was doing was bottling it up and any moment he was going to explode. Seeing Draven beat the stuffing out of Fox was horrifying and even more, Rob was helpless. He had managed to bandage himself up before continuing on to the Spyral headquarters. Rob wasn't sure of what would become of the New World and what everybody's reaction would be, but he knew something for a starters, the New World regime had been bought down to its knees. Rob wasn't stupid, he did think to look for Ravyn's sister, but he had a feeling that her destiny had already come to early. He didn't want to bring the topic up with Ravyn right now, given that she had just had an arrow put through her back.

Viking and Chaz weren't too worried about what would become of this world now since the New World had fallen to its virtual knees as both men knew that once the headquarters in Los Angeles fell. the rest would fall. It was the Domino Effect all over again, but now, it was rolling in the opposite direction.

And for Bella's thought on the circumstances - she was in her own land right now, still knocked out cold in the arms o another Old Worlder.

They arrived back at the war torn site and Viking quickly rushed over to the corpse of Mike. Viking closed his eyes and hoped that he was still alive and felt his pulse on his neck.

"Come on idiot, give me a pulse," Viking urged as Chaz joined him on Mike's other side. No pulse. No breath. No nothing. Viking frowned as he opened his eyes and looked to Chaz. Chaz met his worried glaze. Viking shook his head in denial. "No..." Chaz reached over to the corpse that lied in the mud and closed Mike's eyes.

"We've fought for a better world and we got it," Chaz said slowly. "It was never promised that we would get out alive."

"He's right," Rob agreed, still carrying the half-asleep and bleeding woman. He felt the blood soak his clothes that were already drenched with rain but it was more of an ickier feeling that told him that he was currently being bled over. "We need to get home, before she bleeds to death. Leave Mike behind, we'll come back for him tomorrow. We need to make sure that everyone here is okay for the time being and then we'll think about what's going to happen. But I can tell you something for sure right now, the New World is now the New Old World."

 

 

 

_______________________________________________________

 

THE END

(excluding the epilogue)

:clap:

[Ravynlee]

Am in the process of reading. Two things as I go before I forget them;

 

The silver blade of the knife rotated a couple of full rotations and neatly sticked out of his chest

Instead use 'stuck out of' or 'lodged (from) within his'

 

"We've tripled check, Rob, that's why we were away for so long

Triple checked.

 

Only say these to save you time later when you go to do your final edits before sending off to publishing agents. Everybit helps

 

Will edit this post when am finished reading. So far so good - but you said Mike would live! What gives? *snuffle*

 

EDIT:

Check the last 2 or so paragraphs for several spelling mistakes and omitted letters ('too' instead of 'two' and 'o' instead of 'of' etc) but I know you were in a hurry so no one can blame you for that I guess. Just doing my bit (and proving I actually read it, not skimmed it )

 

I have to say I'm shocked about a few things at the end of this. You described how Mike suffered and clung to life before he died but when you spoke of returning to his body there was a hint there that he wasn't dead (almost knicked the artery etc) as much as you kept referring to him as 'corpse.' That was a confusing moment but in the end I finally got it by Chaz's reaction. Shame, Mike was almost the hero - but I know, people die in war.

 

Another thing was Ravyn's reaction. As much as she was suffering she accepted Joanna's 'death' way too well - for someone in obvious pain and distress she accepted things way too easily for a character that was a notorious 'fighter' the rest of the way through. I know she was in essence bleeding to death but that deviation from her strong stubborn self was a tad offputting. No matter. And I get that Rob was happy to see her alive but their reunion was rather... cold. No matter, can almost attribute that to shock. They've all seen and been through a lot, maybe that comes (implied) in a more happier future, who knows?

 

I did think it was great to see Sarah's reference to the all-important Eye at the end - in being it was such an integral part of Spyral and Spyro's power that she took it with her (did I read that right?) and in essence 'saved' what she could of her crumbling empire. That was good. Wondering now what the 'future' holds for them all, Sarah included. (On a side-note, did anyone see the irony of tThe grand New World army etc utilizing horses as a means of transport into battle - and Sarah's escape - which as far as our real life history goes has been utilized by our past ancestors and would arguably be considered an 'Old World' tool / method of getting around? Deliberate or tongue-in-cheek my dear? )

 

Oh and kudos for the end line, nicely said.

[Blue Sky Turtles]

I can't wait to see this published and in my own hands x)