Apocolyptica

Unknown Chapter

Nicole woke up. Her head spun.

"Ugh... where... am I?" she asked herself. She tried to rub her head, but she realized her hands were bound behind her back. 'What the?' She looked up and around. She was in a steel cage. All around her in the room, were stacked crates. Some were open and revealed strange looking gadgets. Thankfully, the cage was big enough to where she could stand. She tried forcing her hands free, but the cuffs wouldn't break loose.

She stopped. Her ears twitched as she heard foot steps. Looking across the room, she noticed a door. It was rotted to the point of unrecognition. There was talking as the foot steps got closer and closer. She glared as the door opened and a familiar face appeared.

"Well, the sucker is awake." the fingerprint said with a smirk.

"Sal..." Nicole growled. Next to Sal was an armored looking man. His face was covered by a visor. Nicole tilted her head in confusion of the design and structure. It had desert camo plastered all over and the visor's eye sockets shone a dim blue glow. In the man's hands was a rifle Nicole has never seen before. It almost looked like an M16, but the design was more... futuristic. The iron site was replaced with what looked like a hologram of a scope. Numbers glowed on the side. It was at the number 100%.

"Fancy, eh? Amazing how quick the market springs back even after hell broke loose." Sal said. She now looked around at the crates and noticed that inside them were nothing but strange futuristic looking weapons.

"What are they used for? I've never seen anything like them?" Nicole asked.

"I shouldn't bother telling a sucker like you." Sal snapped. He motioned at the man and he stepped forward, a big boot clunked across the ground. The man knelt down and touched the cage's base. Nicole almost lost balance as she suddenly felt the cage levitate.

"W-what? What's going on!?" Nicole panicked.

"Heh, we smuggling weapons to sell. That's what. We ain't called Desert Bandits for nothing. And as a side bonus, we can auction you off to slavery." Sal smiled.

"S-slavery!? Oh you are so going to prison for this!" Nicole said furious. Sal just laughed.

"What a sucker. Earth to feline! There are no prisons anymore!" he said. The man walked behind Nicole's cage and pushed. The cage hovered over the ground with ease. It almost made Nicole motion sick. She was led out of the room and out into the bright sun.

She winced as the sun shone on her. She instantly felt the sweltering heat and she was soon feeling thirsty. As her eyes got used to the glare, she gasped as to what she saw next.

Nothing but sand. Sand as far as the eye can see. Around her, she noticed that there were two buildings. One was the one she was lead out of, which was the storage room, and the second seemed to be filled with nothing but laughs and cheers.

"Where are we?" Nicole asked. Her breathing has picked up and she was beginning to sweat.

"We are on the outskirts of Elmore." Sal said. He suddenly threw into her cage some clothing that was similar to what the man wore. Sal had also put on the same suite, but his visor had a skull the covered the mask. A red glow came from the eyes. "Put those on."

"No way! I'm not stripping for a bastard like you!" Nicole snapped. Sal just laughed.

"I don't even care if you did! But you are useless and less valuable of a slave if you just shrivel up and die in the desert before being auctioned off. Besides, your figure is hardly what I call, "keep sake."" Nicole flushed with anger as Sal walked into the building where the merriment was going on. Sal was greeted with a bunch of cheers as he walked in. "Alright boys! Whose up for gambling?" More cheers. Nicole shot a glare in the direction of the man who was standing at the cage.

"Do I..." Nicole took a deep breath before saying "do I have to strip to get in this suite?" The man didn't reply to her. He just stood there, his visor staring toward the building where Sal went in. Nicole waited, but still didn't respond. She looked at the suite. She examined it.

'It doesn't look like the type where you have to strip...' Nicole decided to keep her clothing on and put the suite on. It slid on her body comfortably. The suite seemed to instantly adjust to the figure of the person wearing it. As she stared in amazement, she was startled by the sound of metal clacking together. She saw the visor cover her head automatically.

Guest User: Preparing Guest Programming...

Nicole watched as the visor brought up what looked like the temperature and a heart rate monitor. She gasped at the temperature.

"300 degrees? What kind of desert is this?" she asked herself. She was now glad that she had put the suite on. She felt her body cool off as the visor seemed to have a built in cooling unit. She looked over to the man who was still standing there. 'Creepy...' She looked around. Nothing else of interest seemed to be out here. Suddenly, the man fell to the floor. Nicole yelped as he hit the cage. Where his head should have been was now a black smoldering hole.

'What the...?' She looked around to see if anything had come to kill.

Nothing.

Nicole looked more closely in the distance.

Zooming 30%

"Eh?" her visor zoomed in and she saw a glint somewhere above a mountain of sand. But she couldn't see what it was. Her visor zoomed out to normal view and she slumped in the cage.

'What the hell is going on here? Wait...' she stood back up and looked around. 'Where's Richard? Darwin? Anais?' She called out.

"Richard? Darwin? Anais!" she waited for a response, but non had came. "Where are you!?"

"How about you shut your trap and let me do my job without getting spotted?" a voice said. Nicole was startled and looked to see a slightly invisible figure working away at the lock on the gate. "You are lucky we came just in time." the figure said. The voice was metallic and raspy. It almost sounded to Nicole like the figure was on a voice changer. The lock beeped and the cage swung open. "Time to go." Nicole stepped out and almost fell to the sand. The cage had almost made her lose her sense of balance.

"Who are you?" Nicole asked.

"That's not important." the figure said. The invisibility had vanished and revealed what seemed to be a female figure in the suite. The suite was green and camo was also plastered over it. Her visor had a light green glow. Nicole saw another figure in a similar suite but more of a muscular figure and a lighter shade of green.

"This way. P, set the charges." the man said. His voice was also on a voice changer. Only more raspier and deeper.

"Just shut up and let me do my job!" the figure called "P" pulled out a small looking cube, tapped it a few times and tossed it into the weapon storage.

"When is she going to get here with the glider?" P asked.

"Err... I dunno" the man replied. P facepalmed as the charges went off. The crouched behind a stack of crates outside.

"Stay down, you got it. T, you deal with anyone that decides to get curious." P ordered. The man called "T" nodded. P beat her chest with her fist and she faded. Her camouflage made her well hidden, but Nicole noticed that if she moved too quickly, you can faintly see a blurred figure.

"Dammit! The prisoner escaped!" a man shouted.

"Don't worry, she couldn't have gone too far. And if she did, she wouldn't last. Besides, they are just around the corner." T looked down at the sand and swore. Obvious foot prints stopped right to them. He had forgotten to cover them.

"Hope you are good at fighting." T said. Nicole was about to protest when T suddenly leaped out and shot his rifle point blank into the head of the man who has unfortunately peeked his head around the crates. His body fell and T threw himself on the guys friend. A group of men pointed their rifles at him, but T took hold of the guy and pointed his rifle at them.

"Nobody moves, nobody dies!" T said. He looked over to Nicole and nodded. Nicole readied herself, sprang out and sprinted toward the storage building. T instantly threw the guy in the way of a rifle shot that was aimed at Nicole. Before they could retaliate, P became visible in the middle of them and with two, what Nicole thought were light saber daggers, drawn, she swiftly cut down the men. She flipped and kicked and countered as the men tried to go in for close quarter combat, but were felled by P's blades. As the kicked up sand cleared, Nicole stepped out, amazed as to how quickly she had dealt with them. T whistled.

"Still graceful as ever." he said.

"You give more credit than I want, it's disgusting." P said annoyed. T held up his hands in protest but before they could do anything, they looked as they heard a strange humming sound. They rolled out of the way as a hover motorcycle looking bike sped away. Nicole saw Sal in it.

"So long, suckers!" he cheered as he slowly vanished out of site.

"Dammit! Where is she!?" P said frustratingly. Another hum that was followed by a motor. A jeep looking vehicle came to a stop in front of them.

"Sorry about that, P." a voice said. Nicole looked and saw a cute and slim looking ghost with a bow in her hair. Her tail slithered at the peddles of the vehicle.

"I will forgive you once we catch up with Sal!" P said as she jumped in the side seat next to the girl. T sat in the back and pulled out a giant looking rifle. He placed it at the top of the hover jeep. Nicole climbed in to the seat next to him.

"Well, whose the new girl?" the ghost girl asked. Nicole couldn't help but feel like she knows her somehow. She couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"Err... My name is Nicole... Nicole Watterson." Nicole greeted nervously. The three suddenly fell silent.

"Watterson... as in THE Watterson? You don't happen to know by chance who the Wattersons are do you?" P asked.

"W-well, I am not sure what Wattersons you are implying, but I can assure you, I am not famous. I wish though. You see, I was with my husband, Richard and my three kids. We were-" Nicole was cut off by the ghost girl sputtering.

"W-w-what? P, is she?"

"Yeah... I think so..." P replied. Nicole was not sure of what is going on, but she didn't like how they were mentioning her family name.

"Who are you people? Why are you helping me?" Nicole asked. The three remained silent. Nicole hadn't realized that they were already speeding through the sand. The ghost girl's long hair whipped around in the air.

"We... will have to tell you later. Anyway, I forgot the introductions." P's visor collapsed into her suite revealing cute features. She was a reindeer. "The name is Penny Fitzgerald. I am aware you know my codename already. This is my awesome friend, Carrie while he is... err... well..."

"What's wrong with me? You can say it can't you?" T asked.

"Fine. You just have a tendency to be stubborn to let people keep calling you codenames, so it is hard to keep track." Penny said. The man's visor collapsed revealing a burly rainbow lass. "He is Tobias."

Nicole couldn't believe this. These were her sons friends! They looked so grown up! However, what puzzled her more was as to how Penny is a reindeer. Carrie was more slimmer and had grown her hair out, while Tobias had developed muscle mass. 'What's going on? Where the hell am I?'

"If you are wondering where you are, you are in an era that is recent. We call it Apocolyptica." Carrie said as she pressed down on the peddle.