Oh dear. How unlike me to just randomly brain-vomit a story out of the blue! Sarcasm...that brain-vomit thing was how Oxygen was born! I know I'm now testing my ability to multitask again, but trust me...I have the attention span of a peeled jellyfish, I can focus on several things at once. I know I also owe some of you requests. Don't worry, I'll eventually pedal them out.
Like I mentioned in my previous post in Oxygen, I have become a member of AdultFF and I'll post my things over there as well if I ever become annihilated. It's the same pen name. TawnyTheDisturbed. So no worries, my friends.
Seeing as I have a LOAD of freetime at my new job, I spend a lot of time alone...thinking...writing...brain-vomiting. So just sit back in that pathetic excuse for a computer chair, or that flattened sad pillow with your laptop and enjoy the ride.
Rekindle. Like kindling? Haha, get it? Spark the relationship? Haha? Yeah...Rekindle, as in send sparks onto dead leaves to start the fire again, rebuild a friendship, and continue building into a most lovely relationship.
I feel like this is one of the most adult-like things I've written. It's probably like five or six years or so after Will's graduation at Sky High, so yeah, everyone's in their mid-twenties. I don't entirely mean adult like Rated R...I also mean like literally adult...Young men and woman who've joined the game, have a little experience, have adult qualities but still manage to be modern day big adult kids.
Enjoy then...PINEAPPLES!
The darkness of night flooded the ammunitions camp. Men slept soundly purely out of exhaustion in a small, cramped barracks that smelled of stale sweat and piss. Those on the night watch walked silently through the shadows cast by the few overhanging lights that flickered weakly.
There were two small towers on either end of the small, hidden camp. They were connected by a rickety bridge made of old, salvaged ropes and roughly cut tree planks. Each tower housed a spotlight and was held down by one man. Both were currently smoking.
In the dimness, their cigarettes lit up with faint, glowing orange light. The watchman in the East lifted his cigarette from his lips and sleepily sighed out smoke. He reached up and rubbed at his eyes, checking his watch. It was 0256. According to his Sergeant, a helicopter was going to be arriving at 0300 sharp with a drop-off. The weary watchman reached back and scratched under his collar. Against his fist, he allowed himself to let out a long, stifled yawn.
It was such a long, eventless night. And the only things that made the night seem alive were the lazily strolling night watchmen below on the ground and the orange light from the West tower watchman's cigarette. He leaned against the railing with a sigh through his nose. Slowly, his eyes started to droop closed.
He forced them back open when his head lolled heavily. With another sigh, he took a drag off of his cigarette and unbuckled his helmet, setting it on the floor of the tower. Running his fingers through his shorn hair and rubbing at his scalp, he looked out over the camp. He raised his cigarette to his lips again and froze. He squinted in the dimness beneath the few buzzing lights. He could've sworn he'd just seen something move on the edge of camp in the trees and plants near the fencing.
Now awake, he jumped over to the spotlight, craned it around and turned it on. Light shined blindly, slicing through the dark. It illuminated a spot along the fence, turning the night-splashed forest life from black, creeping silhouettes to green, sleeping nature. The watchmen on the ground froze in their pacing, startled. Their hands moved instinctively to their automatic weapons. One man called up to the East tower watchman, asking what he'd seen as two other moved toward the illuminated area warily.
He relayed his suspicions back down to them and watched the two men search the area beneath his spotlight. After a short inspection, they turned to call back and say nothing was there. They were cut off when the spotlight in the West tower was flipped on and pointed at the opposite side of the camp. The West tower watchman called out that something moved along the fence line.
Two watchmen closest to the newly floodlit area moved quickly over to it. The East tower watchman looked to the sky when he heard the familiar sound of a helicopter approaching. He looked at his watch and saw that it was 0300. He glanced up and saw the flashing lights and spinning blades on the helicopter, now hovering over the camp. The watchmen abandoned the fence inspection to receive the drop-off.
The East tower watchman looked back at his watch again, impressed with the helicopter's religious punctuality. The numbers changed before his eyes to 0301.
He jumped when bright, red-orange light washed over his hands. He looked up and in a fleeting second, he saw that the light was coming from a ball of fire shooting through the air from the forest. It collided before his eyes with the tail of the helicopter, igniting a loud explosion. Sparks flew onto the tower and the watchman threw up his arms to protect his head.
The men throughout the camp yelled and screamed, cursing out in confusion and fear, blowing their alarm whistles. The helicopter whirled out of control and fell toward the ground. From the opposite side of the camp, a ball of fire shot out of the forest and struck the face of the helicopter in midair, igniting a larger, more heated explosion. The watchman looked on in horror as the helicopter was swallowed by fire, and crashed to the ground with a horrible boom.
He grabbed his helmet and frantically climbed down from the tower as fire fell from its roof. His fellow men shouted out in fear in their language as he cradled his weapon, shakily strapping his helmet back onto his head. He quickly dove to the ground, covering his head when a string of flames short from another angle, and lit up a neatly stacked pile of crates loaded with stolen and stockpiled guns and ammunition.
He looked up and scooted backward when a line of fire moved across the ground in front of him, weaving and ducking as if it were a snake, hunting and alive. An explosion rose into the air, shoving his body twenty feet with the force of the blast.
He recognized the voice of his Sergeant, telling him to get to his feet. Swiftly, he obeyed and looked up at the aged, determined face of the older man. He called out for his men to put on their masks. He yelled out a squad number and ordered them to put out the fires with anything they could find. He yelled out another squad number and ordered them to break the perimeter and find the attackers. The Sergeant picked up a gun and went running through the panicked, but obedient crowd, pulling on his own mask against the smoke.
The East watchman reached to his belt for his oxygen mask, but fumbled and ducked when another load of ammunition exploded in a wave of red flames. Fear struck his heart when a bird of fire with eyes of red rose from the explosion in the plumes of flames with an echoing fiery shriek. He coughed against the smoke as fear blackened to terror when the bird faded into the flames. Someone screamed, "PHOENIX!"
He cradled his gun and all of the stories of the American Super soldier flooded into his head in a fit of horror. A pyrokinetic who had been sieging their camps all over the place, melting away their weapons, igniting their gunpowder and burning down the camps with very few survivors. The East watchman feared that he would be claimed in this burning camp, and he would be nothing but a story. In a brief moment of indecision, he considered abandoning the camp, and fleeing on foot. But his Sergeant came back to him, mask on his face, and seized his shoulders.
He yelled for him to put on his mask as the East watchman coughed. With shaking hands the watchman unhooked his mask from his belt. He secured it shakily over his face, tightening the straps and engaging the pressure to filter clean air to his lungs.
And then his Sergeant gave him a cryptic command. The East watchman knew exactly what the older man meant, knew exactly what his superior was ordering him to do. It had been a recent addition to the camp's defenses, and the other camps and bases that were so far untouched by the fiery destruction. It was made specifically for an attack by the Phoenix. At this moment, the East watchman wanted to be one of the few survivors that walked away from their blazing camps. And he almost fled from his Sergeant's grasp.
But his Sergeant tightened his grip and gave the same command, this time with more vigor. He warned him that everyone still alive would die if he didn't take the East while he himself took the West since the West watchman was dead.
So he gave a nod, and did as he was told. Over his shoulder he heard the Sergeant yelling out an ambiguous warning to the remaining men. He rushed to the locker just beneath the burning East tower. He threw open the door and twisted the switch. He waited for the light to turn green to signal that the Sergeant had twisted the switch in the West. The second it turned green, he yanked out the switch and flipped it down to activate the defenses. He turned around and looked through the flames. Men ran around with masks on their faces, trying to put out the fires, and failing. He watched black clouds begin to rise from the pipes lying throughout the camp.
Briefly, he thought about how much tripping had occurred once these pipes were installed. He remembered the men, and himself griping about their presence. But now, as the black clouds began to spread throughout the camp and mix with the smoke, he felt blessed. It spread almost as fast as the fire.
More explosions overtook the camp, smelling of gunpowder and blood. The East tower moaned with pain above him and he quickly moved out from under it. He lifted his weapon, trembling with fear but also with a new determination brought on by the rising black clouds. In the orange-tinted darkness, he saw movement up in the trees.
Fire rose from the shoulders of a man-like figure, almost forming wings, and flying him high above the camp, and then went out. The man dropped down through the air where he landed at a crouch on the rickety bridge between the blazing towers. And he stood, looking out over the damage to the camp with his back to the East watchman. And right before his eyes, fire began to flock to the man's form from the bridge and rise from his body, and he began to dissolve into the flames.
The watchman quickly raised his gun, and yanked back the trigger. His shots rang out through the chaos and he saw the Phoenix stiffen and drop to the planks on the bridge. The watchman screamed out for his Sergeant, calling out that the Phoenix was overhead.
The Sergeant paused in his attempt to extinguish a rolling and screaming man. He looked toward his East watchman and then up at the bridge just as it burned away from the flames. And a fire-haloed man dropped down to the ground only yards away. He handed off the canvas to another passing soldier who immediately began pounding the rolling, screaming man. The Sergeant drew his knife and ran toward the downed Phoenix.
The East watchman saw his Sergeant charging toward the fallen, flaming man, and rushed to his aid. As his Sergeant came upon the Phoenix, the figure burst heavily into bloody fire, spreading racing lines of flames along the ground, coiling around the boots of the Sergeant. A wall of fire reached up in front of the young watchman and he recoiled, slapping out the flames on the sleeves of his uniform. He called out his Sergeant's name as the towers collapsed under the stress of the flames. The fire spread yet, and he turned and fled away from the reaching, hungry heat.
Tradewind rubbed his hand back over his shaved scalp. In the far distance, he could faintly see the camp glowing in the night, engulfed in flames. He paced, waiting for his man to come back so they could hastily vacate the area. He looked at his watch. 0323.
"He was supposed to be here over ten minutes ago, Tradewind. This isn't like him. Something's wrong."
Tradewind glanced back at the speaker. He observed the elongated teeth and claws of the wolven man as they extended with tenseness and worry. He stared into the glowing yellow eyes as he contemplated his next move. "Alpha, if he's not here in two minutes, I want you to take Spike and Snowblind and kick rocks." He finally declared.
"We can't just leave him." Alpha literally growled in protest.
"That's why I'm gonna go get him." Tradewind retorted.
"Sir, with all due respect, Phoenix knew what he was getting into. It's 0324. We've now strayed fourteen minutes from the plan. We're pushing it." Spoke the only woman in the group, face illuminated by the faint glow of the red glow sticks staked in the ground around them.
Another man growled, "He didn't leave you behind back in K3, did he, you prickly bitch."
"Suck this you, frosty asshole!" The woman barked, raising her arm, spikes rising swiftly from the back of her hand, ready to launch at him. Alpha growled a warning as the other man's hands clenched into icy fists.
"Spike! Snowblind! Enough!" Tradewind hissed and pointed, "Look!"
Silence overtook the group as they looked up. Relief washed through Tradewind when he saw firelight approaching in the sky. But immediately he knew something was wrong. The wings of fire were faint and weak. The fire lining his shoulders and arms was patchy and small. And then the fire completely died out and a body came plummeting toward the ground.
Tradewind raised his palms, yelling out. The forest winds heard his cry and rushed to aid him. A gust of wind flew over their heads and cradled the falling man, bringing him closer to their circle. With his fall softened, Tradewind allowed him to hit the ground with a grunt.
The group rushed forward as he rolled over.
"Phoenix!"
His back arched up off of the ground and his entire body trembled. His fingers were rigid, claw-like and covered in blood. A reddened knife fell from his grasp. And his breath was nothing but short, empty gasps and wheezes from his open mouth. "Jesus Christ, he's fucking cold!"
"He can't breathe!"
"Gunshot and stab wounds!"
"Spike, get the kit and bring the blankets!" Tradewind commanded.
He watched the pyro's dark, rolling eyes caught sight of him. He had never seen such fear and pain in the young man's eyes. "Get his armor open, we gotta staunch the bleeding!"
Snowblind gently peeled at the straps and Alpha growled, "Oh, move!" He shoved Snowblind aside and ran a claw down the middle of the vest, then tore it open. The jerk of the vest illicited a pained grunt from Phoenix. "Careful!" Snowblind shouted. Spike returned with a bag and all five of their rolled up blankets.
"Stop the bleeding, Spike, we gotta open an airway!" Alpha's gravelly voice interceded. "Get the fucking box out!" Tradewind barked.
Snowblind fished into the bag and yanked out a metal box as Spike tugged out a heap of bandages. He threw open the lid and grabbed at disinfectant wipes, ripping open their packets. He turned and wiped at the base of Phoenix's throat before Alpha approached with a clean scalpel.
The wheezing, helpless young man before them seized Alpha's hands and pushed them away, shaking his head slightly as he writhed. "Phoenix, you gotta let me," Alpha started, but Phoenix shook his head again, gasping. He tapped his shaking, bloody hand over his mouth and nose a few times.
"A mask! Get a mask!" Snowblind cried, diving back into the bag. He yanked out a coil of cords and searched for the oxygen mask.
"Hurry up, Snowblind!" Spike yelled, her hands shaking as she pressed the stained, bunched up bandages to Phoenix's wounds.
"Snowblind!" Alpha warned as he watched Phoenix's eyes roll back into his head and his breath faded away. Snowblind jumped forward, shoving the mask over the pyro's face and pulled tight the strap around his head. Tradewind pressed the tab and a hissing noise was released as the mask drew oxygen from the air. "C'mon, Phoenix!" Spike cried.
"Phoenix!" Snowblind echoed.
Alpha ground his sharp teeth.
Tradewind shook the young man, "Breathe, goddamnit!"
As if obeying the order, Phoenix pulled in a huge, shaky gasp contradictory to the previous empty, struggling rasps. Phoenix wheezed heavily, drawing long gulps of oxygen. "He's still bleeding too much, Sir!" Spike warned, grabbing at a blanket and replacing the bandages with her bloody hands.
"Wrap him up, let's go!" Tradewind barked, unrolling and throwing a blanket around the shivering, bleeding pryo, listening to his long, grateful gasps.