AN: Hello everyone! This is my first story so I'm still figuring some stuff out, but if you find something that you feel I could do better on or if you have any advice I would really appreciate it, thank you so much. Right now I am not planning on writing any romance other than maybe some background: "oh yeah he/she likes him/her" and that may change but I will absolutely not write my oc in a romantic relationship with any canon characters, just to get that out of the way. I also do not lay claim to any of Tolkien's masterpiece, I only lay claim to my oc and any of my other oc's that may be mentioned later on in the story. I also will be the first to admit that I have not read either the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings in a long time (my parents used them as bed time stories and would play them in the car) and that it is highly likely that I get the move and book versions mixed up, so I apologize for any confusion. I am also debating whether or not to make some of the pre-oc stuff au or not, oh well. I apologize for the long note, I will try to avoid these in the future, enjoy.
Warnings: mentions of torture, flashbacks, war, violence, bad puns, sarcasm, poor writing, iffy plot, massacres, death, blood, gore, swearing (if I'm forgetting something that you feel needs a warning please let me know)
A shadowed form ran across the branches of dying trees in the middle of the night. Their branches that once used to be strong and covered with green leaves were now rotting and only had the occasional rotten leaf that swayed in the windless night, as if dancing with ghosts. The figure was obviously familiar with their current form of exercise, as they knew what branches were too rotten to support their weight and which branches could hold them long enough to get to the next branch. The figure's heavy breathing would have been able to have been heard all the way from the ground, if there hadn't been around 15 well-armed and irate guardsmen chasing after on foot and shooting at the retreating figure.
Although the figure was rather adept as dodging the, admittedly poor shooting, they were tiring and there was so many guards that it was getting harder and harder to evade the bullets that sought to tear through their skin and bones and to rip apart muscles and ligaments. So eventually they got shot, in the leg, precisely when they were launching themselves off of one branch to the next, the sudden pain and the sudden uselessness of one leg cause the figure to miss the next branch and to fall to the ground with a cry of alarm. This caused a triumphant and out-of-breath cheer to come from the pursuers as they convened and circled the temporarily dazed figure.
The leader of the guards walked up to the figure, (now identifiable as female, not a gender-less blob) and kicked her in the ribs, causing her to cry out and cough up blood as the ribs, already broken from the fall, puncture a lung. This reaction caused him to give out a condescending laugh, while his men sneered at the prone female.
"Not so tough now, are you? The infamous "Ghost" whose been stealing and terrorizing from our honest citizens, dying on the ground, alone and away from her precious rebellion. You're only fooling yourselves really you are just a bunch of terrorists." the guard sneered, "You know, I bet the politicians are going to have an absolute field day with your dead body, crush the rebellion and all that, and I get the pleasure of seeing you dead." The only response the taunter got was for the newly dubbed "Ghost" to glare up at him through her labored breathing.
"I don't think she's even worth the trouble, let's quit waiting and just shoot her now, the filthy dogs of the rebellion aren't even worth the time it takes for them to bleed to death." One of the guards spoke up while pointing his gun in the direction of the so called 'filthy dog'.
This in fact did get a response, Ghost, who was more of a young teenage girl than anything, let loose a snarl worthy of an angry tiger and lunged at one of the guards circling her. This was largely unsuccessful as it just startled them into shooting her, multiple times, and missed all her immediately vital organs (How was that even possible? They were what, six feet away from her?) and she fell back onto the ground on her stomach with her left arm underneath her, and with many more holes in her body than was probably considered healthy.
"You're going to die here Ghost, and as soon as that happens we are going to track down that escapee that you're trying to stall for. You failed and you're going to die here, alone." The leader of the guards said while trying to regain some of his previous bravado.
Ghost looked up after this statement, and while simultaneously coughing up blood she managed to work some words out between her pain, "I. Think. Not." She then brought her left arm out from underneath her body, to reveal that not only was it a mechanical prosthetic but that it also held a grenade that she had personally altered to make it much more powerful. And also that the pin had been pulled.
The last thing Ghost registered before the grenade exploded was the sudden expressions of fear among the guards faces. Then it was searing pain, well more of it anyways.
Sorry that was super short, Ghost will be introduced to Arda in the First chapter this was just a prologue of sorts, I will try to get the first chapter up as soon as I can.