Prologue:
-''The Light at the End''-
-Compound C: Phoenix, Arizona-
-5 February 2013-
-0645 Hours-
Four...long...years...
For four long years, we have been the targets of a dictatorial president, intent only on our sheer destruction for our faith...
Ever since our founding in 1997, we've been nothing but heroes...protectors...of this once glorious country. The Terminator Militia was found on a principal of help, good, and God.
We are an army of God...we have been through so much...and yet we have always pulled out in the end. He never gives us more than we can take...and we can take a lot. Perhaps that was why we survived the failed nuking of our capital, New Alexandria, in 2011. New Alexandria...a city protected by nearly impenetrable, sandstone walls, an electron forcefield...and surrounded in a graveyard of armor, aircraft, and artillery...souvenirs of this baseless war we've been engaged in since 2010...
But our driving force is our faith. Even in the darkest of times, we never lost hope, never lost faith...everything happens for a reason...and for awhile, it did seem that this war, the Second Civil War between the Terminator Militia and the radical US military...the Maxia Regime...was never ending. Lately, I've been having dreams...dreams of a brighter future...dreams of a time where this is no war. I feel, for whatever reason, that the end is near...that the war is almost over...and soon, we will be free.
Free to live...free to express our faith...free to walk the land without fear of death, punishment, or capture.
The American view on the Maxia is diminishing, those who were once blind defenders of them are now seeing the error of their ways...seeing through the lies of President Barry Mabao. They are now seeing that this war...that he wants to continue this war...and we want to end it.
For three years, we have been engaged in this brutal war, watching a formerly great nation fall into tatters and rags. For three years, our only goal was to survive...to outlive this war and someday see a return to what once was...to see a return to peace. Yet, some of you may be wondering...what is this? Who am I?
Well...
I am the Great Commander Alex Vaughn, founder and leader of the Terminator Militia, a band of some of the most incredible characters you will ever meet. We live in what is known as the Base World. It is the world where all universes, real or imagined, eventually end up. Think of a room. The Base World is the floor, the walls are the physical embodiments of time and space. Between these metaphorical barriers lines endless chains of universes, like a string of pearls. Each universe is a pearl, the barriers keeping them apart act as the string. Imagined or fictional universes are much weaker than the natural born universes, whether bred by God or blown from the Big Bang, the origin does not matter. Over time, these false worlds break down...they deteriorate, they break, and they fall to the floor. Sometimes, the spatial barriers keeping them apart weaken, resulting in multiple universes touching, during which physics causes both worlds to absorb one another. Once the worlds fall to the floor-the Base World-they are absorbed...the Base World itself expanding to accustom them...like droplets of liquid mercury attract to form a puddle.
Because of this phenomenon, many, many, many worlds end up in my own...many of them you would never even begin to imagine. The Base World is a 'real' world, meaning that by the time I meet these characters, they have grown...matured...taken to the vices that plague our teens and adults...and even our children today. Many of these characters seek us out, wanting the companionship of Alpha Company, the leading division of my army, which is primarily composed of many characters that they can akin to.
Heading back further into my story. When I was three, I was kidnapped, taken away from my parents and forced to join the Tan Army...and they weren't the little plastic guys you'd expect either. The Green/Tan war was a truly devastating showdown, in a world faraway from the country where I lived, but still, one of the final battles ended up in my hometown, during which I was caught in the crossfire.
I was taken away from my mother...corrupted at the young age of three, by age four, I had already slain several hundred people. But...there was something unique about me, General Plastro saw it...but there was something different. Some kind of destiny surrounded me...he told me that I was a child of the Gods. That somehow...I held some kind of power that wasn't found anywhere else.
I advanced quickly through the ranks of the Tan Army, purposely treated to become obedient zombies to submit to authority without conflict. The treatments did not work on me, and before a year had passed, I had risen to Brigadier General, and was Plastro's second-in-command.
There was another boy, named Zack...he was my hero...my best friend...he helped me when no one else did...but he was taken away far before his proper time...my army...it was his dream, not mine...it was built in his honor.
On a trip to Africa, I gained the first two members of my army...Simba and Nala, and brought them before my commanding officer, forcing him to allow me to create a branch off the Tan Army. He hesitantly submitted, under the condition that the training and supplies were paid for by me. In a dream, I was told how to create a special potion...a serum...designed to turn a regular man-or in this case, boy-into an unstoppable warrior.
Upon my awakening, I acquired seemingly random elements and devices, soon creating the mutation serum, what gives Alpha Company the supersoldier qualities we have. Over time, we expanded, my army expanded. I set out to expand the Terminators by forging alliances, unlike my predecessor, who strove to annex anyone and everyone he could.
It didn't take long before we reached a height of power and respect. We were heroes to not just America, but to the whole world...even if they were at first doubtful about my 'corruption' of seemingly innocent characters. As I grew older, the effect of a child without innocence began to play on me. My dreams were that of nightmares...and while most pubescent boys dreamed of girls they liked, of girls they wanted, I instead dreamed of past battles...where friends died in my hands. In school, I was mistreated, cast off as a social reject...we all were.
We were seen as psychopaths...even invalids...we were bullied, and we could not fight back, or else fear authority involvement and a damage to our reputation. For a long time, we took what we were dealt, but it also began to warp our development...we watched the world go by, always alert for the slightest offset detail...alert for any sign of a battle or attack. Our peers talked about crushes and broken hearts...friendship and animosity...what's popular and what's uncool...
And here we were, unable to understand how they could so blindly walk by without fear...of a worst case scenario. Here we were, thinking instead of battle plans...how to kill...who to kill...memories of battles...memories of deaths...strategies...
Eventually, I reached a point where I found myself no longer able to be effected by their smirks and their laughs, their scolds and their catcalls...my heart hardened...and this further warped my development. When I reach sexual maturity...my first love was not some scantily clad woman in my class...no, I lost my virginity to a dragon, a member of my own team, Cynder...
I later acquired a girlfriend, whom became my fiance...but during that time, I also made a new friend and lover in Rainbow Dash, another new member of my squad. During the later half of the war...many things changed...and I further strayed from the 'good path'. Then these dreams...they began to lift me up again.
For once, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel...for once, I realized that the war was not permanent...and once I saw morale for us increase, I realized that we would soon return to a golden age again. No longer would society think of us as religious zealots.
No longer would all of our good deeds be written off with ulterior motives tagged onto them.
The tables had turned.
The Maxia were falling.
All we needed was a catalyst...and the war was over.
Frater pro Infinito.
Then...
-''The Wrath of a Terminator, Pt. III: Breaking Point''-
-Compound C: Phoenix, Arizona-
-1 February 2013-
-1603 Hours-
Slowly...ever so slowly...
Alex opens his eyes, his heart beating mercilessly...pounding in his head. His vision is red and speckled orange. He is dazed, confused, his mind, his thought, his memories...are shattered...like pieces of glass from some fragile cup that has fallen to the floor and broken. When some awareness returns, he realizes that he is buried under a pile of rubble. His whole body burns, he can't feel anything. That healing itch is continuous...prominent enough to drive him insane. He gathers the strength to kick at the debris, crying out when a hellish pain shoots through his body in reply. Again he kicks the debris, biting back the urge to scream and cry...the pain is so tremendous...so intense...he wants to die. Death is better than this...this pain...
The pain...
He kicks a third time, and finally, the wall of debris breaks free, spilling in blinding red/orange light...a fiery sunset. He cries out against the light, terrified to find that his voice his a harsh whisper, like the undead. He throws his arm against the light, crying out in alarm and staring at the arm, now aflame. The skin beneath is constantly shifting and moving...like its alive and squirming...burning to a coal before healing to normal...burning and healing...burning and healing. He tries to douse the flames, but they are beyond his control.
He can't control the fire...
He crawls out of the wreckage, ignoring the fierce, unrelenting pain. He reaches the end of the pile, crying out as he falls off, rolling down the pile of debris, the pain becoming even worse than before. He lays on the burning hot ground, looking up into the smoky, hazy skies. Debris is blowing in a powerful, unnatural wind, and black snow rains from the skies...He lays there...unmoving for what feels like hours, before finally turning onto his side, slowly and carefully picking himself up as he looks up, mouth dropping at the site of a mushroom cloud hanging over Phoenix. All around him are charred bodies, burning brightly...bonfires...he limps through the burning, broken, apocalyptic world, searching for only one thing...
"Dash..." he shouts...his voice pitiful and weak. "Dash...where are you?"
Memories surge through his brain...the fountain, the war, the execution, the stampede. Crash and Requiem, Cheet and Perdition. The girl, No.1, the odd, unknown force that so recently left his mind after living there for so long. His dreams...the ones with Rainbow Dash prior to their mating, their actual union, his initial rejection of her...everything...every little detail.
And now...now the memories are sending him on a nauseating ride through time and space. He sees himself as a child, swinging on the swingsets, the color of the world around him similar to this, but more vibrant, more lush and filled with life. The invasion, his separation from his mother, Plastro...his time in the tan base...
"Zack..." he cries, voice a mournful whine as he remembers the boy that had been his best friend...his only friend... "Zack...Zack...Zack..."
Now he's away from that...away from Zack's execution, now he's awakening on the day where it all began...the day where he met Simba and Nala.
Now he's in Africa...Simba and Nala...just cubs, rolling around in the tall Savannah grasses.
Now he's in Chicago, being tortured within an inch of his life by No-Tongue, leader of the LKA.
Now he's watching Rapid's death...
Now he's in the asylum, killing the man responsible for his torture...and thus Piermont's own.
Now he's speaking to Necrodusk for the first time, after the stampede.
In the now, he groans, walking the earth, searching for Rainbow Dash...
Now he sees Rudolph, and now they are in Chicago, on Lake Michigan, as Rudolph gets injured by a flyby from an LKA fighter plane...
Now he meets Spyro...now they're rescuing Cynder...now he meets Terrias...
One by one, his life unfolds before his delirious eyes before he reaches the end of the timeline...his assassination of President Mabao, each detail of the repeating memory outlined in grisly detail. In an instant, reality snaps back to him...and all he sees is this burning hellhole that slightly resembles the base in Phoenix, Arizona...
After what seems like hours, a blue blur catches his eye, and he turns to see Rainbow Dash, laying on her side, her back to him...aflame.
He stumbles to her side, tripping over a stone and falling to ground, sending spikes of white hot pain surging through his body...enough to summon tears.
"Ruby..." he cries, remembering the dolphin at the aquarium... "Ruby...help me..."
He wraps his arms around his mate, holding her body tightly to chest as tears flow down his face, evaporating...
"Ruby...Dash...Cynder...Spyro...lovers...mates..." and he begins to glow faintly orange before, in a flash of orange light...
...He's gone...
