FCS Founding, Chapter one

This is a parody/satire of a fun little message board I'm a member of.

First off: I'm a member of a board dedicated to Freya in particular and Burmecians in general. I thought it would be amusing to write a little set of stories involving the board's members, since we're such a strange little bunch. Kabra, Seratna, and Shiva/Agnes are my own characters I created to balance things out, and to serve as the outsider's perspective. The first two chapters serve as an introduction to the changed face of future Gaia, then it gets weird. Look for parallels! It's funniest if you know the board members I'm talking about, but should still make for interesting reading if you don't (a link to the website and to the message board are in my profile, since won't let me put them here)

Sullivan City, Forgotten Continent, Gaia, 2004

"Could you please remind me why I'm doing this?" Seratna asked as she shifted her position, trying to get comfortable in the claustrophobic backseat of her friend's '69 Gord Stallion. The backseat wasn't cramped because her friend was tall; he was only about 4'8", though muscular and very solidly built for his height. And Sera wasn't much taller than her friend; she was only about 5'6", and slimly built even for a Siamese-type demihuman. I don't think this car was built for people to sit in the backseat at all. That, or it's just that massive tarp-covered thing taking up about half of what space there is back here.

"Because they finally declared radiation levels at the old Cleyran Battlefield to be safe for most species of demihuman," the green-skinned orc-dwarf replied, absently stroking his goatee. Sera was sorely tempted to run a hand through his meticulously spiked hair in retaliation for that. He knew she'd read all there was to read on the subject – about how an eidolon had used a nuclear weapon against Cleyra, making it uninhabitable for decades afterward. And how after the war was over, thousands of Burmecians had died trying to cross the irradiated desert. Including, (or so it was believed) Freya. She'd last been seen leading a seemingly well-prepared group of some two thousand, with provisions for weeks of travel. None of them had ever been heard from again.

Instead, she answered, "That's why it's i physically possible /i for us to go. I'm asking why I'm risking my scholastic reputation for this."

"Okay. One; you just graduated high school. You don't have a scholastic reputation yet. Two: because Agnes wanted you to, and she's your friend. Third: because you've always wanted to see the battlefield. Fourth: most of the other heroes of the Eidolon War already have shrines dedicated to their memory; but our favorite doesn't. Fifth-"

"Alright, alright! I get it," Sera interrupted with a sigh. "Now, where's Agnes?"

"Inside the museum."

"I know that; I saw her go in after we parked here. I mean, what's taking her so long in there? She said she just wanted to grab something. It's not like the gift shop there's ever busy."

As if on cue, a young female wolf with long unkempt hair on her head, three silver earrings in her ears, baggy pants and a black t-shirt, no shoes on her clawed feet, and a three-foot bundle in her left hand burst out of the museum's double doors.

"There she is! But why's she running?"

Kabra didn't answer; instead, he reached over and unlocked the door, managing to somehow push it open at just the right second. As Agnes jumped in, Kabra brought his overpowered coupe's massive eight-cylinder engine to life and pushed hard on the accelerator. He was a skilled enough driver to not floor it from a standing start; the result was no tire squeal, but still fierce enough acceleration to shut Shiva's door.

"What's going on?" Sera squealed as she was thrown back into her seat.

Ignoring his friend for the moment, Kabra hauled the old Stallion around in a tighter curve than the cat would've thought possible, steering it down a (thankfully) empty street. "You got it?" he asked Agnes.

The she-wolf sounded less gruff than usual when she answered, "And I don't think they even saw me. Of course, it's retracted, so it's only half its normal size . . ."

"Get what?" Sera demanded. "Who didn't see you?"

"In a minute, Ser. You want the 71 west onramp, Kab."

"Got it."

Seratna forced herself to restrain the urge to ask again; she knew her two friends well enough to know that if she hadn't gotten an answer by now, no amount of badgering would get it out of them. Instead, she decided to calm down and think a bit, to analyze the situation and try to reason out what "Shiva" might have and why she'd been running. She finally reached a tentative conclusion.

"Agnes, what'd you steal?"

As Sera was asking, Agnes reached over and turned the radio on and up. Ironically enough, the text display on Kabra's MP3 stereo deck proclaimed the title of the song to be "Metallica - Of Wolf and Man (S&M version)". Completely ignoring Sera, Agnes (who preferred to be called "Shiva" in mixed company) immediately started headbanging. Kabra joined her, and was by some miracle able to keep the car on the road while doing so.

I can't believe it. She stole something from the Eidolon War Museum, and Kabra's inattentive driving's going to kill us before we can even get arrested . . . Kabra and Agnes had allowed themselves to forget that the normally mild-mannered Seratna had a temper that would have made her distant domestic feline relatives proud. "What in the HELL did you steal, Agnes? And turn down that damn music before I start crossing wires back here! I WILL short your amp, Kabra!" To show she meant business, the cat reached back for the wires leading from the subwoofer to the amp . . .

"Okay! Geez, Sera, can't you take a little joke?" Kabra wondered aloud as he turned the stereo down.

"Not when it involves us squealing away from the museum like the thieves we are!"

Shiva sighed. "Fine. I took her triblade, okay?"

"WHAT?"

"Well, if we're going to make a little monument we should have at least i something /iof hers on it, don't you think?

"Yeah, I guess so . . . but that doesn't justify stealing it!"

"Oh c'mon, Sera. It's not like it's serving some higher purpose by getting dusty in that museum. It's sat there for decades; don't you think that if she were here, she'd rather it be near where she fell?"

Sera stewed on that for a while before sighing and asking, "How far is it to the docks again?"

"Like you don't have the numbers memorized," Kabra deadpanned. "It'll be a few minutes. The road there ought to be pretty deserted - and that means we can take the curves as fast as my baby can handle!"

"Ha!" Shiva scoffed. "Bet this rattletrap can't even take a fifteen-degree curve without rolling and sliding."

"I've been working the engine and suspension for months. How much you willin' to put on the table, Miss Fang?"

"I'm broke and you know it, ya green-skinned Neanderthal."

"Figures . . . Here we are . . . the exit to the docks." Kabra exited smoothly, but had to slam on the brakes as soon as he rounded the first bend; for there, hidden from the highway by trees, was a roadblock. Or nearly a roadblock; the police cruiser and military hovertank that sat on the asphalt had barely enough room between them for a car to pass. "Crap." As they neared the almost-a-roadblock, a human police officer got out of the cruiser and approached them, motioning for Kabra to roll down his window.

"Good afternoon, kids. Where you headed?"

"The docks," Kabra supplied. "We're, uh, making a documentary. Hey, Sera, get that camera out . . ."

The officer chuckled. "A documentary, eh? Well, be careful – that sea monster that attacked last month caused a lot of damage. The roads are passable, but they can be dangerous if you're not careful."

"We know, sir – that's what we're documenting. 'Course we'll be careful," the half-orc assured. "Wouldn't want my baby to get any scratches, now." The officer waved them through, and Kabra rolled his window back up as he accelerated gently away, wiping nonexistent sweat from his brow. As soon as he lost sight of the roadblock around the next bend, he floored it.

" Anyway, I really did bring my camera, you know, and plenty of extra battery packs and memory cards. I recorded that little exchange, and I'll be recording a lot of this."

"You're not really thinking of making a documentary on this, are you?" Shiva asked.

"Sure. Why not? 'The Founding of the Shrine'. I'll just have to get permission to use the spear after the fact, I guess . . . and pray no one presses charges."

"That's the spirit," the wolf replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Just as Kabra had said, just a few nausea-inducing minutes later, they were at the docks. "Sorry, ladies . . . guess I need to do some more work on the suspension," Kabra sheepishly admitted, while Sera clutched her head and Shiva held her own head out the window.

"Is it over?" Sera asked.

"Yeah, we're there."

Shiva got out of the car, looking about as she stretched. "So, which floating wreck are we on?" And her words weren't far from the truth – most of the vessels that i were /i still afloat seemed ready to sink. Their berthing lines groaned and creaked in time with the swells in the harbor, and one could imagine them asking to be put out of their misery.

The docks themselves didn't look much better. The sea monster, though none had actually seen it (it attacked at night, during a rainstorm, of course), had toppled gantries, leveled warehouses, tossed ships against (and onto) rock jetties, and wrought general havoc throughout the area. The condition of the ships could, in some cases, be blamed on the monster's attack; in other cases, it was simply age or neglect.

Sera crawled out from behind Shiva's seat, joints audibly cracking as she stretched. "Kabra, next time, we're bringing i my /i car, which has an actual back seat. That, or you sit in the back."

"You have no sense of adventure . . ." the orc grumbled to himself as he extracted himself from the driver's seat. Shiva shouldered the triblade and hefted the package that'd been in the backseat, Sera got her rifle out of the trunk, and Kabra kissed his beloved car good-bye. "I'll come back for you!" he promised the machine, and Sera rolled her slit-irised eyes.

In spite of his professed sorrow, however, Kabra started whistling to himself as he rummaged through the trunk. Shouldering two enormous black duffel bags, he shut the trunk with his broad chin.

Sera's eyes widened a bit. "What's in those?"

"My survival kit," was all Kabra was willing to say.

"You got mine, too?" Shiva asked.

"Yup. Sera, where we going again?"

The cat pulled a neatly folded piece of paper from her shirt pocket, carefully opened it, and squinted. "I think it says, 'pier 51'. We just parked next to 47, so it shouldn't be far. The way they've got them numbered, we need to go . . . that way." She pointed to the right, and everyone looked.

And saw nothing that looked big enough to make it all the way to the Mist Continent. They looked at each other, shrugged, and started walking. It didn't take long; the side of the harbor they were on contained only odd-numbered piers, so 51 was only two down from 47. What they found was somewhat less than they'd been expecting. A single assault landing hovercraft – the old-fashioned airskirt-and-propellor kind, not the new antigrav type – awaited them.