Chapter 1~ THE FINDING
[SYNOPSIS: A STORY TO MY BOYFRIEND TAKEN FROM A DREAM. SO ITS IN FIRST PERSON, AS I WAS TELLING IT FROM MY POINT OF VIEW, and when it says "YOU" it is directed at ERIN. Keep that in mind. I'll fix this as I edit along.
todler (6/8/12 1:41:41 PM): you ready?
marinesrecon (6/8/12 1:42:00 PM): of course
todler (6/8/12 1:42:31 PM): OK]
FOR BATTLE SEQUENCE 1. [i'll call him enemy 1 (guy who runs to the forward left) and the other will be Enemy 2(backward right) that way you understand what happens better.]
Its crowded... I'm in a parking lot alone, pulling wheeled suitcase and a backpack on my shoulders. I have a baseball cap on, with my hair in a ponytail coming out the back opening where the straps are. I'm wearing really worn shoes, my clothes and backpack and suitcase are all dusty and a little faded I'm wearing mittens that unzip into fingerless gloves... The air is changing all sorts of colors; there are a lot of lights and the ground trembles every few seconds. The cars are all torn to pieces; some of them are flipped over some of them look like they had exploded already. I hear footsteps somewhere behind and to the left; a set of at least 2 people.
I stop for a second and their pace picks up... The noises split into two. I close my eyes all the colors disappear. Then something happens: the world is black, and faint purple tremors show up at every noise and every vibration in the area. Instead of seeing from where I am my mind maps it out as if I can see from every single point of vibration at the same time... Shapes from the two sources of noise reach points directly across from one another where I'm in the center. I take a slow breath and relax every muscle in my body. A burst of energy from both, simultaneous and i hear the humming of something dangerous pulsing towards me from the one behind me to the right. I see a burst of something dark exit from a strange shape being held by that one. Something that seems to suck in vibration and take away my sight making it all easier to track, as a blind spot.
I jerk my hand up and put my left thumb in my mouth, biting it sharply so that the tip bleeds. Then I slam the bleeding tip of my thumb against the inside of my other arm's elbow, and I feel a huge pulsing of vibrations come out of the hand that is attached to the inner elbow where my other hands blood touched. I swing the suitcase up with that hand grip tightly on a latch, which disconnects the hand-grip from the rest of the handle. The suitcase slides away and the hand-grip pulses to life with a long stream of the darkness that absorbs all vibration. All of this happens in just a millisecond but I process it like it's lasting several moments. I flick my wrist and the emptiness attached to the handle whips and surges with energy as it tears through the vibrations around me, reaching out for the other spot of emptiness. The person to the front left is now charging towards me. I kneel down and slam my bleeding thumb onto the ground, and as I pull my hand up it's fused with asphalt. The dark spot from the one behind me collides with the beaming whip of my own and I feel the gripping energy start to oppose my control.
I send more of the pulse from my arm into it, while pivoting on my heel still crouching and flinging the dark mass with my own. Whipping it around towards Enemy two pulses tear away the environment as they swing towards Enemy 1, but he unleashes a pulse of his own. I'm already letting go of Enemy 2's pulse and swinging my whipping pulse in an arc down towards Enemy 2. Enemy 1 braces himself as the Enemy 2's pulse collides with his own, and as he pushes it back it flies off and slams into a car, exploding. I roll towards him and slam my asphalt fused fist into the side of his knee and it snaps. I take a breath and breathe onto my hand while he rolls back landing on his one good leg and pushing his pulse-arm towards me, its covered in a shroud of emptiness. Enemy 2 jumps out of the way of my whip and shoots off another pulse of emptiness, as Enemy 1 surges forward, his pulse strengthens as if getting ready to compact. The density of the air around his arm crackles, and then like a lightning strike's effect on the air around it, the boom of thunder blasts the air as his pulse races forward in a bolt towards my chest. I kneel down, and feel the pulse tear through my shirt gashing my left shoulder blade... It would have hit my heart.
I focus on the blood coming from my fresh wound, and it darkens in my vision, into a pulse of it's own. Intensifying until it sucks in everything around it and blinds the area its in. I slam it into the ground, swing my whip forward towards Enemy 1 while he backs away, his arm shuddering. I catch him in the abdomen with the whip and it tears across his stomach, wrapping around, and then I will the pulse to change density feeling the muscles in my arm go weaker. The pulse's intensity changes and it squeezes Enemy 1's mid-section cracking ribs and collapsing lungs. I un-focus the whip and my arm goes almost limp, the pulse going much shorter and weaker. I'm flying up through the air propelled by my second pulse's push from the ground. Enemy 2 shoots a pulse at the ground and blasts himself up after me, raising his other arm and shooting up a second towards me.
I bite my tongue... The blood starts to fill up in my mouth, and I'm careful not to swallow any, as I use the pulse in my back to push me like a wing out of the way of Enemy 2's own pulse, coming towards me. But Enemy 2 is also coming towards me right behind the pulse and he smacks his fist into my gut... It hurts, and I almost cough the blood out of my mouth; but I focus and wrap the pulse coming out of my back around him binding him to me with his arms stuck facing down. I breathe deeply through my nose facing him... I open my eyes and the world comes back into my own view. His eyes meet mine and I form a pulse as dense as I can get it in my mouth, careful not to let it expand and tear me into nothingness from the inside. I wink as he starts screaming in terror, before I open my mouth and push the pulse out; reaching up with my one good arm and shoving it against his face. Using my blood to protect my own skin as the surface of the emptiness, to my normal eyes looking like a piece of blackness where nothing could manage to exist... Like a tiny black hole it gives his face the appearance of being cleanly torn through without any debris or blood, sucking it all into its own quickly rotating vortex of emptiness.
It gets bigger and bigger the more of him it consumes, and know that I wont be able to escape it myself if I don't get away. I keep my hand on it and fling him away with the pulse coming out of my back. He flies away spinning, the ball-pulse expanding at a much faster rate not that it isn't being constrained by the blood from my hand. It completely consumes him and gets a little bigger than a car, before a loud hissing starts and it shrinks until it's impossible to see; leaving the air around it warped where it's density is so insane that the light around it bends. Then it shoots up into the sky away from earth, and I lose consciousness. Falling to the ground, my pulse attached to my back turning into a strangely shaped ribbon of blood, and then raining behind me.
I groan... I don't want to open my eyes... I'm so sore... I hear a voice "She's so young... She can't be more than 5, Erin." a male voice says, soft and lacking edge, as if the person using it had only spoken a few words in his life.
"Yeah well, this little girl took on two crawlers alone." A much more masculine and edgy voice, with a reserved intensity to it. Someone used to giving commands... Someone used to them being followed. I opened my eyes and tried to raise my head, just to see the person that voice belonged to... But it made stars appear in front of me, and my head fell back down with a soft thud onto a pillow and I winced.
"Stay still." The softer voice said, annoyed. "You're so small. How you used so much blood and survived is... " and the face leaned over my own dazed face. A pale white nerdy looking man who must have been in his late teens with black hair and keen eyes. He had stubble. [Nate./Radwimp]
"It is... Interesting. See that she gets rest." the second voice said.
And as the feet belonging to the second voice started to move, I cough out "Hey!" My voice was so small... So weak in comparison... Even to the softer boy's.
"She can talk...?" The deeper voice said, pausing.
"Uh... I'm not sure. It could just be delirious With as much blood loss as she has, I wouldn't be surprised if she thinks this is B.A." The soft voice.
"I'm...not delirious." The nerdy one leans closer and pushes my eye open wide staring intently at my pupil.
"Her pupils aren't dilated, she seems to be ... Mindful... This is one intense toddler." A dark hand... Grabbed my chin and even though the grip was soft, I knew that if it had an inclination, or a miscalculation of force, my jaw would be crushed like a candy wrapper between the fingers, which had metal plating fused into it... A permanent job... Only the most powerful pulsers could permanently fuse... It tilted my head slowly until I was staring directly at a visor. There was body-armor with strange holes in it at certain points: blood-letting holes. All I could see was the mouth of this user. His lips were tight, with contemplation...
"What is your name?" Those lips said after a moment. I looked at the dark green of the helmet's visor. Behind there must be some powerful eyes...
"E." I say, somewhat worried.
"Just E?" The softer voice said somewhere behind me.
"Just E."
"The tattoo on your forehead. What does it mean?" Behind the lips were bright white teeth. A sign of power in a world where it was hard to eat things that didn't ruin teeth. Normal people's teeth always started to decay right as they hit puberty.
"... Where is my cap?" I answer instead.
"It's with the rest of your things, in this cabinet. What does that tattoo mean?"
"It's not a tattoo."
"What?" The softer voice said, stepping into view again. One of Nate's arms was robotic with his blood being pumped through clear tubes. A battle loss.
"Its... It's just there. It's not a tattoo."
"A birthmark?" The softer voice says slowly.
"A rebirth mark." I said.
"You mean it appeared on day zero?" The deeper voice.
"That's what I mean. Can you stop staring at it?"
"It's in the before language." Nate said. "Are you sure you don't know what it says?"
"It's not like I can see my forehead, now can I?" I raised my head and this time felt much better.
"Her color is already back... She's unusual." Nate said.
"You really think so?"
"Well... Look at her forehead."
"I've got one too." The visored face said.
"Yeah, thats my point exactly. You're unusual too."
"Got one of what...?" I sat up and felt the blanket slide down my skin... No clothes! I flattened like a board and shoved the blanket up over my head. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?"
"Relax, you're so young you don't have breasts." The darker one said. I felt lower and was relieved to find my tights and skirt still on.
"I had to fix up your back... Or well. We thought I had to. But it seemed to think otherwise, and did the job itself." I stuck my hand out of the blanket and my shirt was placed in it by one of the boys... I pulled it in and put the shirt on from under the blanket, shoving the blanket down slowly trying to fight the heat of a blush on my face. The visored face was emotionless, and Nate's face looked more bored than anything. I climbed up and slowly squeezed my hands into fists.
"You're a pure, aren't you?" Nate said
"A what?"
"There are two kinds of users and five levels." The visored mouth said. "Pures and converts."
"Converts are usually level 5 or 4, and some stronger ones get to level 3." Nate took over. "Pures are usually level three by natural ability, and sometimes get to level 2... Or in really rare cases... Level one." The lighter-skinned male looked over to his visored companion somberly.
The visored face started speaking again. "Pures are people who directly became users from day zero. Converts are people who harvest pure-blood and infuse it with their own. about three fourths of them die horribly; the other fourth become users. Then you have mechas. They build machines and fuel them with pure-blood concentrations, to use."
"Like me." Nate said "Every few months, I just take a little dose of Erin's blood, and I'm fueled to keep up my medical work. In exchange for his blood, he gets free treatment. Users absorb radiation a lot faster than normal humans, and the more pure the blood, the more exponential that factor becomes."
"Oh..." I say warily, hoping that I don't look as stupid as I feel.
"So you're a pure then?"
"Maybe. Why does it matter."
"Just curious."
"Where were you, when you on day zero?"
"In a hospital, in an MRI machine."
"... Unusual." Nate said again.
"We have to go." You said suddenly, your voice flat. Nate nodded sighing and turned and put on a trench coat. I pulled open the cabinet and started to put my backpack on, but you took it instead. I took the suitcase and its handle was locked back in place. I followed you two out, Nate pulling out a huge magnum, it must have been as long as his thigh. All across his belt were cartridges, like bullets, only clear ... And inside I had the feeling there was blood.
"Why are we leaving so suddenly?"
"Because, Erin said so." Nate said blankly as if it was obvious.
"Why did you say so?" I asked. Erin stopped and turned around, held out his hand, with three fingers up. He put down his ring finger. then put down his middle finger where only your index was up. Finally he put down his index finger and the building shook, and a massive explosion down the street sent a shock-wave toward the building, and the window at the end of the hall shattered inward.
"Oh..." I said as I stood back up. I hated being on unsolid ground. We made it to the shattered window and you and Nate looked out, Nate firing off two shots into the distance. I was too short to see, so I ran up the opposite wall, and landed sitting on the windowsill. Before I could see anything, other than that we were VERY high up...
I was yanked back into the window and landed roughly on my butt. "Don't get in my way." Erin said. He didn't even bother to look at me letting go and raising his other arm. I felt every ounce of air in the room freeze in suspense. A huge explosion happened in the distance again and Nate fell over this time, but Erin stood as if unaffected, and I knew his blood was getting ready, for that familiar intensity of adrenaline high that came with Using.
Erin's effect on the environment, warping it to the naked eye as his body densified was insane. His feet cracked the floor tile and then a pulse shot from his hand, so small and fast that I only caught the movement of it, and couldn't actually see it. I felt it though. It pulled on everything as it tore through matter towards whatever unlucky beings were down there making the explosions. My hair blew toward it gently and then it exploded when it hit wherever he was aiming it. The pull was reversed and every bit of matter of the building was altered slightly. I felt like someone had changed me into a fish and I needed to suddenly use water to breathe for a moment.
All the air was pushed away... Gravity was gone. As soon as I realized it, the effect was over as the shock-wave pulled back in to disappear. You pulled Nate up and instead of pulling me to my feet you yanked me up by my waist, bruising my hip, but only until I was securely balanced against the hard plating of your armor. You turned and started running. Down the hall you kicked a door off its hinges and it flew to the opposite wall and shattered. I had enough time to watch Nate push a button, like one of those gas bubbles on a weed eater that you push to get the gas flow started. The room was a stairwell going in a square spiral all the way down... It must have been ten floors to the bottom.
You jumped and Nate jumped behind you. Every instinct I had was to bite my hand and use the pulse to grab onto a ledge to keep from falling to my death. But your arm wrapping down my back and supporting me against your hip by my thigh made it impossible for me to bite into my thumb. The fall seemed to take forever and as we were going down I heard Nate let off a few shots. He was falling behind us. Some people in dirty clothes... No. A lot of people in dirty worn clothes with holes.. They looked like bandits.
Crawlers... Just like the ones who had attacked me. Converts who attack Pures in mass to harvest their blood. Nate was shooting them as they burst through the walls behind our fall. Below us they were starting to burst through too... I didn't really think it mattered. By the time we land, all that will be left is blood anyways so those crawlers should just give up and take the elevator to the bottom where they can collect.
And then suddenly the ground was rushing towards us from ahead as you flipped over mid air and sent a push of density down in a constant flow, slowing us by... A lot. Nate's robotic feet, shaped like hands as if he was a robotic monkey waist-down, gripped against yours, and he kept shooting that magnum, expertly hitting a crawler in every blast... I felt myself go green; right as we reached the ground I threw up, and it landed in a crawler's face as he jumped up to meet us with a pulse blade.
I felt you laugh though the armor. You flipped expertly, landing and rolling, with me spinning and spinning. We burst through the wall and Nate followed shooting back and forwards with three magnums while hopping on his fourth leg. You stood up straight and sat me down on the ground where i wobbled a little before falling flat-faced onto the grass of the buildings lawn. Crawlers, I noticed as I fell dizzily, were everywhere. Like a sea.. At least 60. I sighed...
My forehead started to burn slightly...Then stronger... And then like the shift of the pinch of a knife against skin turning finally into the searing pain of a cut. The pain filled me and i screamed and writhed on the ground. Blood was flying everywhere in my moments of conscious awareness. You were standing there, looking down as if you were wondering what was wrong... While your blood Flowed like a sea through the air, so dense that it was visible to the naked eye.
You lifted up your visor and looked at me closely. I couldn't stand to look at your face... I tried and the burn in my forehead intensified. I felt like my face would melt off. You pushed down your visor, and and turned your attention to the crawlers. They were encircling us, careful not to get close to the swirling blood, as it put a hiss on the air... Extinguishing all matter it touched.
Nate crawled over to me, staying low to the ground, where the intense pressure was weaker, between the encircling blood-flows. Nate pushed his hand against my forehead too feel if i was feverish or something and I screamed and his hand was repulsed by an invisible force. He backed away, frowning and hard in thought. The blood swirled and the converts started to swarm inwards through the apparent gaps in the constantly swirling mist.
The blood when it touched them just a droplet, spreading so much that it covered them to where it looked like where one moment a crawler had stood he was replaced by a blood statue replica to the exact detail. And then it hardened.
Tiny droplets of blood, as soon as they touched the crawlers would densify; covering the crawlers like plating... It looked as if the hand of God had paused time, made a perfect replica of a living being out of hardened blood, and replaced them in the blink of an eye. The blood-plated crawlers lost control of their bodies and became like puppets to your will. They started to slash and thrash against their comrades covered in the armor-like blood while the bodies within suffocated.
The stronger converts dodged through anyway, and killed their overtaken companions cutting their way to you, and us. You faced them as the stronger ones pushed through. They waited for more of their comrades to make it through. I understood what you were doing, behind all my pain... The river of blood-mist had been a obstacle to weed out the weak ones. These converts had no idea what they were dealing with... But I totally lost consciousness then, giving into the pain and I shook and thrashed on the ground screaming until my voice wasn't able to make any noise, and still trying to scream.
Twelve of them... Somehow I was still slightly aware of what was going on. They surrounded you in a perfectly spaced circle, like a clock, with you at the center. They crouched getting ready to all pounce in at once, their pulses vibrating slightly with building charge. Everything became dark again, and my muscles relaxed. I saw through pure energy, absolute nothing in every direction beyond a certain point. Your blood-mist river was cutting us off from everything else in the universe. Blinding me to everything outside of it.
The 12 jumped, and just as they started to leave the ground, I felt your face tighten... Into a grin. Then such an insane pressure collapsed on top of everything. Leaving a bubble around me and Nate. But not even around you. The entire ground busted into pieces and the pressure was so high that they started to awkwardly float upwards because of the force of earth's mass pushing back against such a strong pressure.
Gravity was gone again.
You stood while every one of the crawlers crashed to the ground so hard that they left imprints several inches deep. Their bodies busted open, their bones broke. You turned around to face the other direction; something you sensed that I couldn't. I was writhing in mid-air in this gravity-absent tiny universe that existed only within your blood-mist bubble.
A bang, bigger than the others went off, far far far in the distance. My forehead hurt even more, as if it was being torn open by a deranged lunatic with a wooden spoon, and the sky began to cloud over. Suddenly you released the pressure and the blood-mist fell to the ground.
In that moment, I saw Everything... I saw every single thing within Earth's atmosphere, at once... And the one thing that drew my entire focus away from the rest was a faceless entity; burning with so much energy that the ground beneath him was disintegrating slowly, so that he left a trail of eaten away concrete as he walked down a highway in some far of city. The city i knew, was entirely void of life; and yet a second earlier, I could sense that there had been close to 25 million living there.
And then, I felt that facelessness focus on me; and an intake of raspy breath before he stopped and raised his hand and seemed to look at me even though I was seeing from everywhere. I could feel his focus sharpen onto me, like a grip of pure will. He closed his hand into a claw... and started to close the grip. I felt my heartbeat slow. I felt my control begin to break. And then I could see nothing.
END CHAPTER 1 - THE FINDING.
(THANK YOU ERIN, MY LOVELY BOYFRIEND FOR HELPING ME BETA-READ AND EDIT.)