Darkness... and redness.
Everything he could see was tinted red.
How odd.
He reached out his hand, and it immediately struck something.
Looking around harder now, he studied his surroundings better.
The insides a box... of some sort. He hadn't noticed at first because the area near his head was gone.
It was lightly padded, and roomy. But why was he in it?
Unless... it was a coffin...
An urge grabbed him at that thought, and he mashed his arms forward against the top in a panic. Nothing, solid as a rock.
He wheezed, something like claustrophobia was taking him.
Not being able to help himself, he clawed and crawled his way through the tight opening near his head. It was rough, and the jagged edges scratched him and tore into his clothing. He noted that his box was made of metal on the outside, an odd choice for a coffin.
He eventually clambered out onto the floor and quickly turned back and studied his former holdings.
Just as he surmised, it was a large, rectangular metal box. Not a coffin... not a typical one anyway.
He turned toward the large opening in the room, to which he had awoken staring out of. It was cloudy and dark out, though he couldn't see very far. He noticed though, the opening itself wasn't structured, but a large crumbling hole. Turning his attention back to the room, he then noted it was the only opening. No doors, no windows, not even a vent, not that he could make out with his reddened vision anyway.
The room was extremely plain. Nothing at all, save the box, and some machine hooked up to it.
He rose at that and made for the machine at that, suddenly curious.
It was about the size of the box itself, only upright and against the wall. It looked like the box too, all plain save for one point of interest: a dimly lit screen and small assembly of buttons below it. But all it displayed was an error message. Hitting the buttons did nothing, it was frozen.
The man stared back frozen.
What had this machine been responsible for? … It was connected to the box, had it been keeping him in there?
He looked back to the box, and reached down and touched it... a thin layer of dust...
How long had he been here?
He pondered that... and his head burned at the effort.
He clutched his head at that... and that's when he noticed the blood. It was quite sobering.
His forehead was slick with it, and his fingers eventually tracked the source to large scrape on the right of his forehead.
He gasped, shocked at the injury. How had it happened!
The gaping hole in the wall, the jagged opening in the box, the head injury. Something had blasted into here, and very nearly killed him, he realized.
Instead, he had been freed? Awoken, to stare at the night sky with blood filled eyes.
He frowned. Gritting his teeth, he explored the wounded area, determined to find out how bad it was.
Even though it stung bitterly, he could tell that despite being a hell of a gash, it was merely a flesh wound... his brains weren't leaking out at least.
But it was bleeding rather profusely... that could be dangerous... what should he do?
At that thought, something ridiculous happened.
Somewhere inside his head, something comparable to memory started playing. The problem was, it was much more comparable to an instructional video! It was as if a movie had started in his brain, he couldn't remember anything but he was still sure he was experiencing something entirely unnatural.
-"How to apply a bandage to a head wound:"-
The words appeared, then faded to be replaced by two polygon figures, one wrapping the others head with a bandage.
He was then advised that any piece of clean fabric may be supplemented, as the 'video' came to an end.
The man just stood there for a moment, dumbfounded. He then sighed slowly and grabbed at his collar, attempting to use his shirt... only to find he was wearing a scarf.
That was convenient.
He removed it, folded it carefully, and then tied it tightly around his head, putting pressure on the wound. When he was satisfied, he grabbed his shirt and proceeded to thoroughly wipe his face with it.
His eyes burned, but when he was done the red tint was finally out of them.
And having treated his ailments, he then decided he was done with this place. Why had he been sealed in this concrete and metal tomb? Who knows. But there was nothing for him here now.
As he left, he noticed how thick the wall was... whatever had breached them must have been pretty significant he surmised. He also wondered why these walls were so overly thick. To keep things out... or to keep things in?
He continued out into the open, to turn and examine his 'home'.
It was a large, burned out and teetering skyscraper he realized with some horror.
He then noticed it wasn't really cloudy out. The night sky was filled with the smog of large scale fires. And he wasn't out in the open, he was standing in a crater, surrounded by partially destroyed building in a veritable wasteland.
Screaming could be heard in the distance, and bodies littered the area surrounding him.
… Was he in hell, he suddenly wondered.
"WHAT IS THIS?" he roared into the night air.
But there was no response.
Filled with frustrated rage, he grabbed up a rock... and flung it at a near by body. It struck it, but the body didn't flinch.
Growling with rage... he was a bit bent now... he raced over to the body.
"WAKE UP!" he ordered aggressively, turning him over.
"GRAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
A deafening scream shook him to his core… but not from the very much dead body.
His swung around just in time to see a formation of lights screech across the sky like falling stars, a mere hundred feet above his head. They were as loud as fighter jets, and the ground shook in their wake.
The man stumbled to reclaim his bearings, only to notice one of the flybys had impacted through his home. The teetering tower was now a crumbling one, and it was coming straight for him!
What did he do? What could he do? He threw his arms up and screamed his last, as several tons of concrete hammered him into the earth.
"Damn it!" Rillo growled, roaring into his scouter, "I went right through that building, Cap'n! Will you please settle on a landing site already? !"
"Fine, fine." Captain Shroter sighed, "Men, commence landing sequence now!"
The five round space pods each came to a screeching halt in midair, only to fire straight down like bullets... right through a building.
When the dust settled, the five crafts sat neatly in a row, resting in their newly formed crater.
The far right pod opened first, and out leapt a lizard like creature with blue skin. He was very lanky, and wore full body armor, with shoulder plates.
"'Bout damn time!" he roared with unbridled enthusiasm, "Thought I was gonna meld to my damn chair!" he growled, stretching his back exaggeratedly, nearly touching his head to the back of his boots.
"These pods are too fucking small!" an amazonian woman with fiery red hair growled, lurching out of her pod. She wore similar armor.
"Quit your bitching." A gray skin humanoid with red eyes commanded them, stepping out of his pod. He wore a slightly different armor, with the edition of skirting plates, perhaps signifying seniority.
"That's easy for you to say Captain!" the lizard seethed, "You could probably stand in there if... you..." the lizard man slowed as he realized he was stepping onto thin ice.
"What was that Rata?" the waist high commander barked.
"Nothing sir!" Rata yelped.
"Good." Shroter said, as he swiveled, "Because I'll have you know I actually had the worst of it, I had to ride with the supplies!"
"What supplies?" Rillo asked, a red skinned humanoid with short white hair, still examining his ship for damage from it's earlier collision.
"Good question." Shroter commented, shoving a box of supplies from his ship into his arms. "Pass them out."
"Yes Cap'n."
"These are your laser guns!" Shroter explained to the men.
"You rode with laser pistols sir?" the red head questioned.
"Doubly sorry sir!" Rata exclaimed, as he received his.
"Noted." Shroter sighed.
"But sir..." the red head paused, receiving her weapon, "Why are we being given this weakling's crutch?"
"Glad you asked Ikumu." Shroter frowned, "Listen up men, we're late to the party so let me catch you up quick-"
"Wait," Rillo interrupted, "Goose is still in his pod!"
"What?" the Captain growled.
Low and behold, the far left pod remained intact.
"Get out here Goose!" he ordered, pounding on the ship.
"The door's jammed!" a gruff voice whined from the inside.
"Are you kidding me!" he roared back, glaring at the bulky cerulean skinned lizard-ish man inside.
"What do you want me to to do! I've been fiddling with the button like crazy, it won't work!"
The captain's aura ignited at that. His red eyes gleamed, and his arm shot into the pod, grabbed Goose, and flung him out, but all without harming the ship. He had 'ghosted' him out.
"... Thanks sir." Goose said carefully as he picked himself up, contorted his green hair, and Rillo shoved a gun into his hand.
"Alright then people, now let's get started shall we?" Shroter roared, "Our job here is to round up every single living creature on this planet with a power level in the triple digits, and then bring them to Lord Chiller-"
"What!" Goose exclaimed, "Since when are recruitment standards so low! ?" he kicked over a dead body at that point, "Does Chiller have a hard on for these midget Ikumu's or what?"
"Shut up Goose," Ikumu growled angrily, "Besides, if anything, they're albino Rillo's."
"How dare you!" Rillo seethed indignantly, "You'd have to be blind to think I look anything like these wankers!"
"Actually, all you pointy nose types look the same to me." Bata surmised.
"Shut up!" Shroter roared, "Our orders are set! We're to bring every C class bio unit into Chiller's camp ALIVE. As such, we're to use these guns to more easily separate the wheat from the chaff! These guns are special order, as such anyone who survives a shot is the a fore mentioned 'wheat'!"
"Boy, the boss sure likes saying 'as such', doesn't he?" Bata whispered to Rillo.
"Shut up!" Rillo whispered back.
"Got something to say Rillo?" the Captain roared, practically livid.
"Gah!" he gasped, shooting a glare at Bata, "No sir, sorry sir!"
"Good." he seethed, "ANYWAYS, just shoot someone! If they don't die, hit them with the net function!" he pointed to a button on the device, " As such, we'll then carry them to base! GET IT, GOT IT, GOOD! MOVE OUT!"
"YES SIR!" the group roared in unison, blasting off in different directions.
"This is why I'm #3 in this army." Shroter growled, head in hand. "Squad Shroter was supposed to be Chiller's right hand men, damn it! But no, they had to give me all the idiots!"
His scouter started blinking then, and he swiveled on his heal, only to be a greeted by a bunch of humans.
"What the hell! ?" he exclaimed, slightly surprised.
"Come on, little boy! We have to get you out of here before those bad men come back!" the lead human said, grabbing his hand.
"'Little boy'?" the captain seethed, as his aura kicked up again.
A scream sounded, soon to be drowned out by an explosion.
"Great, now I'm the first one to break the rules!" Shroter growled to himself.
He blasted off, still grumbling to himself.