REMNANT RISING
Prologue
I exist in a harsh and unforgiving world. But I bear a Secret. I did not foresee this, only the neverending gray days of a bitter winter.
But life deals its cruelty in sudden, jarring hands, and here I was, left utterly vulnerable to this grisly fate by virtue of my own stupidity. But that is not for now.
They have named me tribute. A tribute of the District, competing for the honor of survival against twenty three of my peers. This sad farce of a nation knows no semblance of justice.
But I do. My people did, once. And that is the burden of the secret I bear. For I am a survivor, a remnant of an old power long dead.
The men of Panem expect children in their hunger games. And children, teens at best, they shall get. But what they will never expect is that in the same deathblow they dealt me, they have presented my people with a chance, a window of opportunity- A chance for justice long gone to finally return to this land.
They don't know. Good. Let them rot in their ignorance. Hundreds of years ago, order prospered, and humanity grew prosperous under the protection of the sacred law. But the arm extended past its bounds, and ever were there indecent men, wolves of the dark who preyed on the weakness of culture and civilisation. And so we fell, and the wolves took all we had. The wolves who now rule this land they call Panem...
We knew it differently once. Civilisation, humanity, united in thought and concerted in goals once stood on this hallowed ground. We lived in abundance, lived by wisdom. Before the wars that set our world ablaze we stood on the cusp of the greatest era mankind could ever know, and our gaze fell upon the stars themselves. We sought to conquer this last frontier, bring us into a new golden age of advancement... But corruption grew at home. The eternal vigilance that was the price we paid for our salvation waned; and our great power declined. Our finest, our protectors and defenders were too far away, could not be reached in time... For we had sent them to sail amongst the stars. And when the betrayal came, the wars rocked our planet and burned her biosphere until even we could barely survive. And still our brave protectors were engaged in fields of battle too distant to be easily recalled, tens of thousands of light-years away. The wolves, the betrayers claimed their victory, and from the shining pedestal humanity had just so recently claimed we were cast back into a thousand years of darkness. Our defenders, our once great fleets would return too late, find that civilisation had been slain with her sword and shield out of reach.
There were, of course, contingencies. Continuity plans. We followed, we preserved the protocol. We were now the stewards of the flame of knowledge and civilisation, and to safekeep it was our charge. But while the chain of command remained intact, it no longer had the muscle to bend the killers of our children to our will. We had a surviving leadership structure with no forces at its disposal, empty. So we went underground. Called ourselves of Panem. But we were too few then, and even fewer now.
Of those who took up arms in the defense of our way of life, there was a select few. They were called upon when we absolutely, certainly could not fail. A small corps, far more lethal than their lack of numbers would suggest. They were the last to fall in our defense, a silver line against an unending tide. We heard their screams as they died, bodies vaporized, and yet we lived. We burned our uniforms then. No more did they represent anything but the horror of thousands of brave, old warriors, massacred and given no quarter. And yet, they live on.
We have few troops now, but of those we have there are some who trace their lineage back to those noble formations. Groups of the last resort, where in the throes of desperation we cannot fail.
They were warriors without peer. And now so are we.
I am tribute to the Hunger Games. In doing so, I risk my humanity. But what the Capitol does not know will prove to be their undoing. They have invited a Remnant Captain into their midst.
I am Tier One. I cannot afford to fail.
CHAPTER ONE
0800HRS
LOCATION REDACTED
CPT DAREN FORGE
The world was wrong. No definition left, like a great gray vacuum had sucked all detail and noise from his ears. And for some reason the ground had tilted up to meet him.
Shellshock. The concept crept into his shattered mind amidst the screaming of thousands of banshees. His eyes, his body, his limbs- They no longer felt under his command. They refused to obey, refused to function. Had he been slightly more cognizant he would've felt the coldness of the rock beneath him pressing into his battered cheekbones, but as it stood even his survival was a miracle. Even then, slow realization dawned - A single word, the weight of which crushed him more than all the physical forces of his world.
Ambush.
***Author's note: This is just something I did on a whim in less than an hour, so leave your feedback and based off of that and if there's enough interest I'll take this up a bit more seriously and resume work on it. Otherwise, I'll just let it die.***