Oohh... hey guys! Check this out! I'm actually updating this story! Actually, redoing it with better work. This is like... 8th grade writing? No, maybe 7th. Anyway, it's time for some 11th grade writing, which I am certainly capable of. So while my internet is down from a tree breanch, I'll set up shop and write a chapter for your pleasure!
Copyright jazz- Zoids is not my intellectual property, nor are any of the characters. I'm just writing for fun, here, peeps.
Rain. It had always brought a reminder of those times that were better. That could have been better. Like right now. There were those summer rains, warm rain that trickled from the sky in sheets and brought about a clean renewal to a sweltering day. Rolling clouds, dark and brooding, sweeping over the horizon like some rippling curtain, lightning flashes and thunderclaps echoing within. Mother Nature always had a way of toying with his emotions when it rained. And although he couldn't pinpoint that euphoric feeling, it was a welcome release. Only when it rained.
Nowadays, it was such a small comfort to embrace the rain. Not when so much had happened in such a short time. Three years... only three years of relative peace between two empires, and then some stupid argument between two scouts outside a desert village brought it all tumbiling down again. And damn if it hadn't gone down like a plane-wreck. Smoke, fire, brimstone, and then the explosion. well... that hadn't happened yet. He was still struggling above the others. desperately clinging to his allies for help and assistance. But even his closest friends were now moving away, drifting ever closer to that metaphoric edge of the cliff. And when they went over, you'd never see them again. It's like they dropped off the face of the earth. Literally.
And he was at the center. Hanging onto the rope that held together two opposing forces, trying to keep them bonded, while the rest of the world whipped against him. That was the job of a king, right? No, no it wasn't. that was the job of an ambassador, of a foreign policies magistrate. That was not the job of a small boy, barely in his teens, thrown into the monarchy and the viscious world of politics through no fault of his own. This was the job of someone who knew what he was doing. And shit, he couldn't even see what was happening to his country without feeling the need to cry and cling to his mother. If he had one. And it killed him every time he saw the way the world had fallen from grace, with the consent of those who ruled it. And he was one of them. He had been too concerned with petty matters, with a stupid peace treaty that would have never worked. It looked beautiful on paper, that soft cursive that explained the agreements between the Republic and Empire. But it was just a piece of paper. It held no importance. A real soldier, those who lived with death and destruction and sorrow every day of their lives, would probably just use it as a cloth to wipe their grimy faces with. In the real world, where it took murders and blood spilled, there were no peace treaties. There was what you could do, and what you couldn't do. And that was it. Politicians, who had never stepped out of their air-conditioned offices, let alone gotten their hands dirty, were the ones who ran this country. How fucking ironic.
He hated to say it, but maybe there was something about the previous regime that had worked. Although he had bee thrown out of it before he had truly understood, those colossal figures that had ruled his life before, they must have understood the fickle beast that was the political body. Even the man he hated now, Gunther Prozen, must have known exactly what to say, how to act before an aggressive audience, and tame them into compliance to his will. Sometimes, he had encountered Prozen in the halls of the palace, and he had seen something in his eyes. At the time, he didn't understand it, he couldn't fathom that feeling, the emotion that welled out of the man whenever he was even remotely close to him. Anger. A burning, rippling monster, composed of hatred and loathing. For what? There were so many answers to that. Human-kind, for being so stupid and ignorant enough to kill one another for a simple grudge that had developed centuries before. The war, that had been the basis of many of his actions, and the reason he held the position of Minister of State. It was a well know fact, a whispered secret, that Prozen had been a war general at one time. He had seen quick glances of the man, battle-worn and bloody, almost screaming at his father. What about, he didn't catch. But the tears streaming from those crimson eyes told enough of what they had seen. The death of thousands, just to move the war machine along into a stale-mate. Why he had been removed from this postion, and shoved into a political station like some square peg in a round hole, only his father knew. And he was dead. Whenever he asked about it, his father simply smiled and sat him on his lap, quickly directing his attention to some gift that he had gotten for him in some foreign land. And since he didn't know the meaning of the word lie, he gladly accepted the bullshit that had been shoved down his throat. "Oh, he requested to be a Minister, and I gave him the job because he was so smart. Did you know that we're winning? We'll be out of this war in a few months."
His father had lied to him. But he couldn't blame him for that. He was a small child then, and the truth wouldn't have been understood. Minister jobs weren't given out because one was even moderately intelligent. That he knew, from his time spent with his own cabinet, discussing the war and all of it's hateful complications. And the almost thread-bare words, "we're winning the war," they had been put away, like some old doll that had been outgrown. They were almost taboo, and even an utterance of something similar to those four words were rewarded with cold stares and awkward silence. He had tried that tactic at one time, but it had been tossed back in his face like a spoiled piece of meat before royalty. Nice try kid, this isn't utopia. Come back when you have real information.
And then there was Van. He had been in contact right up until the disintegration of the peace pact, and now was lost in the static between the channels, a casualty of war. It wasn't as if he was dead, he was smart enough to take care of his own ass. The fact that he was so well known, however, was as dangerous as any reward on the head of a criminal. Soldiers knew his name, his story, and the accomplishments that he had made for both sides. And right now, they hated him for it. For making them hope, believe that this war was at an end, that the destruction of an ancient machine and a crazed minister could solve the entire fucked up problem that was the body politic. And it made him ill, that his own allies had probably chased the kid out of their social circle, and that he was probably in hiding. For saving the world, no less. Gods, it was so messed up.
And he was now all alone. Stranded within an empire that was held together with spit and the strings of a previous era, created by a dead king and his conniving minister. What a situation he had to deal with. And the rain had stopped falling.