"A New Sunrise: Part One"
Planet: Unknown
Continent: Unknown
Territory: Unknown
Year/Time:Unknown
While it wasn't the most repugnant smell Mami had ever experienced, the creature's horrible odor was easily in her top ten. Maybe right around the fifth or sixth spot on the list.
The morgue-themed witch Mami encountered in her first year was very firmly at the top of that list and wasn't likely to leave it anytime soon.
Of course since Mami felt she had nothing to prove to anyone, the young girl had no problem dragging the beast a fair distance behind herself while doing her best to stay downwind in order to avoid the stench.
"Finally!" With her hat covering her face Mami carefully peered over the edge of the small canyon for a moment before nodding to herself, "Yes, this will do just fine. With it being that deep, we shouldn't have to worry about anything sniffing around for the corpse….I hope."
As she stepped away from the ledge, Mami looked at the carcass and noticed the odd green glowing…things… flying around it while she summoned her energy ribbons once more.
'Are those…flies of some kind?' Mami shook her head after a second as her ribbons quickly grabbed the carcass and lifted it into the air while the 'fireflies' dispersed rapidly. 'It doesn't matter,' She tapped her rifle against her shoulder, 'as long as they stay away me and the others, anyway.' The ribbons swung backwards before blurring forward and launching the beast over the ledge into the canyon below with a sharp crack. As she put her hat back on her head Mami gazed over the ledge to see the body land near a cave at the bottom. 'Well, that takes care of -'
Dozens of large spider like creatures poured out the cave, some of which began tearing into the carcass while many more spread outwards….searching…
'-that….Yep. I'm done here.'
Mami quickly turned around and began walking back to the 'ruins' at a brisk pace. After a walking a fair distance away, the young girl checked, with both her eyes and magic, for any signs of pursuit and found none. Her shoulders relaxed as her rifle faded away and she turned back to the 'ruins' at a slower pace.
Mami sighed and began rubbing her forehead, "Okay, we can add giant bugs to our list of problems in addition to: water, food, shelter, and most importantly of all, figuring out where the heck are we? 'Cause there's no way we are on Earth." Mami glared up the at red scarred moon hanging in the midday sky, "Can't see the sun at all, just light….reflecting off the moon? It is awfully bright. Weird day/night cycles then I guess? Great." She shook her head with another sigh before an uncertain look crossed her face. Hesitatingly, Mami reached up and pulled her soul gem free from her hair. Mami peered intently at the dull glow within and saw the darkness slowly but surely fading away with her soul gem's golden light getting stronger by the second.
"I can feel the corruption…fading? Almost…feels kind of like I'm using a Grief Seed but…not." Mami titled her head in thought for a moment before nodding "Yes, that's what it feels like. Somehow, the corruption is dissipating on its own…at least, it seems that way."
Mami thought about how Kyouko and Homura's own soul gems looked when she left. "The same thing might be happening with them too." Mami pinned her soul gem back onto her head and turned to gaze at the sky for a moment in thought, "It can wait. Just ask them if they're experiencing the same thing when you get back. No more. We don't have time for anything else right now…once we're safe….maybe. Doubtful any of us actually knows anything however."
As Homura moved Madoka to a more comfortable position in the shade near Sayaka and Kyouko she spotted the ring and rose shaped mark on her finger. Homura paused for a split second before laying Madoka next to Sayaka and sitting down next to a lightly dozing Kyouko who was munching on a pocky stick. Homura shook her head at that, 'Where did she hide that? Does she…ah never mind.'
Homura shifted to observe the distant figure of Mami dragging the smelly carcass a good bit behind herself. Homura huffed in amusement at the sight, very much glad she didn't have to be near the thing anymore. She and Kyouko could still smell it all the way back here.
"Ah." Homura winced as she tried to shift again. 'The bridges between the bones must be fading already…well…it's been awhile since the battle I guess.' The dark haired young girl raised her left hand and concentrated as the gem on her hand began to glow brightly for moment. 'There…that should last a couple more hours. Hopefully, more than enough.'
Homura hummed thoughtfully as she regarded her soul gem's dark purple gleam and the diminishing corruption within. 'I see. This…yes, that's what that feeling is. The corruption is being "vented" from the gem into its surroundings…where it harmlessly fades away…I wonder why.' Homura glanced at her shield with an interested gleam in her eyes, 'I wonder…if this…new…effect lasts…those things might be even more useful now. Given our…situation they might very well come in handy later.' Homura's eyes softened when she heard Madoka's cute snores. 'And…if this lasts…that's one problem I'll never have to worry about ever again, will I?' She lowered her arm and stared thoughtfully at the mountains in the distance.
'The way things stand between Madoka and me…and the others…' Homura closed her eyes. 'It's fine. I have all the time in the world now to…fix that. We all do.'
Homura turned to gaze thoughtfully at Madoka.
'But… I wonder. What was your wish, Madoka?'
"Whatcha thinking so deeply about?"
Blinking, Homura turned to see Kyouko looking up at her with an amused expression. Homura tilted her head with a questioning look. 'Was I that obvious?'
Kyouko grinned, "Your eyebrows scrunch together whenever you're deep in thought."
'What? Since wh…oh.' Homura blinked. 'I think Madoka mentioned that before.' Homura raised an eyebrow when something occurred to her, "…When did you notice that?"
The red haired girl just shrugged while popping another pocky stick into her mouth.
Homura gave her a flat stare, "Kyouko."
Kyouko shrugged again and leaded back on the rock, " Feels like the corruption in my soul gem is washing away with every second." Kyouko closed her eyes in thought. "Yeah, sounds weird I know but it's like being able to smell purple I guess. Just feels like mud is being washed off or something. You?"
" It's...it feels like bad air is venting out." Homura hummed for a moment," As if being in a room or car for too long without the a/c on a hot summers day." At a flash of light, she turned toward Kyouko to see her turning off her magic girl armor and brought her soul gem up to peer at it. Following along, Homura did the same with her gem. Watching the darkness fade was soothing in a strange way she couldn't really describe. She simply felt lighter, as though an invisible weight was slowly being lifted from her shoulders as she gazed at it.
"Wonder if Mami's gem is doing this too?"
Homura turned her gem back into its ring form as she sat down next to Kyouko. "We'll ask her when she gets back. We're gonna have to figure out if it's this place or...if our gems have changed somehow." A weird purple tumble weed brought her attention to a nearby camping store and it's darkened interior as sweat trailed down her forehead. "It's getting too hot out here for Madoka and Sayaka. That store should have some generators for us to use. Just need to find an a/c unit that still works."
"What about a grocery store? Some of them have big freezers in them." Kyouko hummed for a moment before asking, "Hey, how well does food keep in your shield? Does it stay fresh?"
"A grocery store would work and," Homura tilted her head in thought as she answered Kyouko, "food stays fresh in my shield for quite a long time. Why?"
Kyouko innocently replied, "Because we've got a bunch of stores without power and with food we need. And we're in the middle of a desert with really weird plants and animals that might not be good for us to eat."
"Oh," Homura's cheeks flushed," that's right."
Kyouko laughed while rubbing the back of her head. "I just realized it too."
Both Kyouko and Homura were standing outside an old grocery store alongside a fairly good sized red American truck. Their brightly glowing soul gems resting on top of the hood. Mami could see a gas generator working off to the side of the building apparently powering the lights and air conditioning. She was sure Madoka and Sayaka were inside given she couldn't see them outside anywhere. The truck glowed a dim red before moving forward a few feet then moving back again with Kyouko looking rather proud while Homura looked on with interest.
'Well..what is this about?'
"What are you girls up too?" Mami asked with a bemused expression, "Where did you manage to find such a big trunk?"
Homura and Kyouko glanced at each other before the redhead spoke, "Homura was teaching me how to use my magic to drive it around and power it. You know, that kind of thing." Kyouko waved her hands dismissively before she gestured to the truck with a big grin. "We found the truck and the remains of a bunch of other suped-up vehicles in a warehouse behind the grocery store." Here she pointed toward the store, "Fricking weird. From the pictures in the office the owner looks like a kindly old man but the safe had like crack, some handguns, and a list of times for special shipments. So yeah, Homura figures evil grandpa was a black market seller." Mami had to suppress a smile seeing Homura dodge Kyouko's wild gesturing as she continued her tale.
The excited redhead picked up her soul gem with one hand and waved at the truck with the other hand. " I found the awesome truck-"
Homura's lips twitched up slightly as she flipped her hair, "She fell over-"
"-I found," Kyouko insisted as she turned away from Homura, "the truck in the back. It's been modded a lot, hardly any of it is original stock anymore."
Mami hummed in thought before asking, "For drag racing? That's what Americans use them for right?" She had seen teens drag racing police on a British TV show awhile back.
"I was thinking that too but it's all heavy duty stuff." Kyouko answered before turning to point dramatically at Homura, who in turn graced Kyouko with a deadpan look. With a huff, Kyouko mock whispered to the other girl, "Homura! That's your cue!"
Mami couldn't hold back a snicker at the resigned look on the brunette's face. She then noticed the slight smile Homura had before she hid it when she brought a hand to her forehead and faced away with a sigh. 'I saw that Akemi! Not as stoic as you pretend to be, huh?'
"The modifications are more suited for heavy duty off-roading." Homura explained to her, interest audible in her voice. "Very expensive ...everything. The whole truck has been reinforced. There's also a bed hood that hasn't been welded on yet."
Kyouko openly smirked behind Homura and Mami felt some amusement as the brunette supported her right arm with her left while pointing pointing up as she continued to explain. 'She looks like an anime character standing like that. Does she not realize that or is she screwing with us?'
"The store where Kyouko and I got the generators also had campers and other such gear. Most of them are too damaged or destroyed but at least one or two can be fixed with the tools in the store's warehouse. It will take at least a day to safely remove them from what's left of the store let alone repair them however."
"Hmm?" Kyouko turned to glanced at the grocery store with a curious look on her young face.
Mami frowned as she considered that. "So we can't just stay inside a camper? Are they that bad?"
Homura nodded her head and answered while Kyouko started walking toward the store front, "I'm afraid so. We'll also have to do a lot more than fix them. Kyouko spotted what looked like another of those monsters you fought earlier in the distance. We'll need to armor them up somehow. "
"So we'll have to hole up somewhere else. Will this store..?" Homura shook her head. Mami noticed Kyouko peering into the window now. "Hmm. Have you two checked the tower yet?"
"Not yet but the way it fused with the cliff face-"
Kyouko came running up to them waving her arms, "Hey guys! I think Sayaka is awake!"
A piercing scream tore though the air and the three girls bolted to the store as fast as they could.
Planet: Pandora
Continent: Arimathea
Territory: Samaria Mountain Range.
Year/Time:6025 A.D.; 11:26 p.m. Standard Galactic Time.
Not far from where the girls were frantically trying to help their friend sat a small settlement. The short squat buildings were haphazard made of metal panels and it was surrounded wall adorned with human skulls and half-eaten bodies. The inhabitants that walked around and worked wore masks or bandannas with a strange triangle like shape over their faces as they grunted and screamed at one another. Most wore very little showing off not only scars and tattoos but grotesquely deformed limbs.
They had many names for themselves but the people of Pandora just called them bandits.
A giant of a man with a red mask and sickeningly short left arm casually kicked a bare chested midget aside as he walked toward the largest hut near the wall.
As the screaming midget sailed through the air the big hut exploded killing several of the bandits sitting around it and setting others on fire. The giant stared slack jawed at the burning remains of his home while the others around him laughed at the burning figures desperately trying to put themselves out.
"Who dares!" The giant yelled before grabbing a man with a jacket sitting next to him. "Was it you?" He asked the struggling man before the bandit's head ruptured into an expanding cloud of red mist.
Before the giant could react, a large mental shape rammed into him sending him flying into and destroying another hut before turning to shoot and kill another bandit with one of its hand held sub-machine guns. As everyone scrambled to get away, they could see it was a large black and orange bipedal mech with thick angular armor panels on its shoulders, legs, and torso. The head was more rounded with two small white slits on the front where the eyes would be. As gun fire sparked off its slowly weakening shields, the large mech continued to quickly gun down five more men with its sub-machine guns before jets on the legs and arms boosted it up into the air as panels on its back opened. A barrage of micro rockets burst from its back and homed in on several bandit below, each missile killed two or three at a time in great fireballs.
"Aahhhh!" Mental and wood flew though the air as the giant tore himself free, a scream of rage on his lips as he brought his overly large double barrel shotgun to bear on the mech. "Take this, you piece of Hyperion junk!" He pulled the trigger and instead of slugs it fired two large rockets at the black mech.
The explosion ripped through the weakened shields with an electric pop and damaged the mech's armor. The machine's smoking form stumbled and fell to one knee as the giant took his time to walk over and gloat with his surviving men falling in behind him.
"You see! That's," The giant cocked his shotgun and laid it against his shoulder, "what you get for messing with me and my boys tin man. I'm gonna rip you to pieces and shove what's left down your master's throat!" The other men shouted insults and nonsense as he aimed the gun at the mech's head.
With a flash, something smacked into the mech and the blue glow it caused played over its body and seemingly repaired the mech's armor while its shields were brought back to full strength.
"What is," Before the giant could fire another flash knocked his gun away and a handful of the men around him died as blood burst from new holes in their heads. The mech kicked the giant away and started firing at the crowd, the sub-machine guns' explosive rounds popped shields and tore fist-sized holes in many of the bandits. More men either dropped to the ground from head shots or had their hands or knees blown off and what damage the mech suffered was quickly fixed with another blue flash. By the time the giant managed to get on his feet with a dead man's pistol only five of his men were left standing. With his remaining men surrounding him and facing the mech with their weapons trained on it, he shouted out loud into the sky, "You...you! Come out here and face me like a man you coward!"
The mech merely stood still as a purple tumbleweed rolled past.
"Yeah..That's what you are! A coward! Too afraid to face us?"
A crash sounded out from behind and the bandits quickly turned around while the their leader continued to stare the mech down. As they searched around themselves, one of the men briefly glanced at the ground and noticed a growing shadow. When he looked upward he only had time to shout a warning before a red-headed woman wearing a brown coat and gray armor brutally slammed into him from above. She twisted around on her right knee breaking the bandit's neck and knocked the leader's legs out from under him with her left leg. Before the others could react, she lashed out with a large knife and sliced open the closest bandit's throat while firing her sniper rifle, killing two more with a single bullet through their necks.
The last bandit standing tried to fire his rifle at the woman but the mech quickly interposed itself between them, tanking the shots on its shields and then killed the bandit with a short burst to the head from its guns.
The woman quickly fired again, blowing the giant bandit's arm off at the elbow when he attempted to aim his pistol at her.
"Finish him off," The woman ordered while reloading her rifle, "and don't waste any bullets on him either."
As the bandit leader screamed in pain, the mech brought its foot down on his head, the sheer power behind the stomp shoved his head into the earth. The giant survived however and continued to feebly try to escape with his small arm pulling on the machine's leg but the mech stomped once, twice, three times before he finally died with a loud crunch.
The red-head took a moment to straighten her brown long coat out before she walked over to the mech, "You okay, Delta?"
Delta answered after wiping his foot off a nearby barrel, "Oh yeah, I'm fine. Just have gross mutant meat all over my foot. Why couldn't I just shoot him ma'am?"
"I didn't tell you to stomp on him. You could have just grabbed something to bash his head in," The woman laughed while she looked the deformed corpse over before she took out a small device and waved it over what remained of the bandit's head, "and it looks like that spook was right after all. I owe him money now. That sucks." A large holographic screen formed over the device in her hand and displayed a much more normal man's face with miscellaneous information.
"Adam Smith huh? A list of minor crimes and what not. Nothing that would have had him doing hard labor or whatever did this to him," Delta mused out loud. The A.I. looked over the other bodies, some more mutated than others but all having that strange symbol on them in someway, and asked his superior, "Think they were the same way? Minor criminals and petty crooks that Dahl press ganged into this before they were changed, Agent Sakura?"
The woman, Agent Sakura, sighed as she turned the screen off and put the device away with a flash of strange digital light.
"This isn't the Confederacy ,Delta This is just how the corporations run things out in 'civilized' space after the old governments fell. I'm not surprised, honestly. Well, the mutations are new though." Her red eyes narrowed in thought. " The spook said it was some sort of artifact in a mine that did this though."
The mech turned away and looked over the camp once more.
"Also stop being so formal."
Delta turned back to Agent Sakura and asked with a slightly confused tone, "What do you mean ma'am?"
"We're going to be on this planet for a long while," The woman explained with a grin, "and it'll drive me insane if you keep calling me 'Agent Sakura' or 'ma'am' all the time.
The mech seemed to shrug in reply and pointed out, "What do you want me to call you then? I was never told your given name ma'am."
The woman grinned even wider as she replied.
"My full name is Momo Sakura. Just call me Momo, okay Delta?"
Delta nodded his head after a moment.
"Sure thing...Momo."
Momo laughed at his answer, "That's better." She hummed as she looked around before she started walking off, Delta following after her. "Lets head back to camp, I don't think-," A blue glow amongst the wreckage of a hut caught her attention, "hold that thought." Momo stepped over a few bits and pieces to find a small recorder.
Delta leaned over her shoulder, "That must be what those bandit scouts brought in before we attacked. Do you want me to check it over Momo?" Delta held out his hand to her. Momo handed it over to him and Delta placed the recorder into a slot in his chin. "This is...Strange."
Momo raised an eyebrow at that and ordered, "Show me what's on it."
He nodded before a holographic image faded into view between them to show what looked like skyscrapers and other buildings in a small rocky valley.
Momo stared at the sight.
"Well, they did order us to investigate anything that might involve Jack. This is...strange enough, you think?" She looked slightly lost as she asked Delta.
"Yeah.."
The robot was just as mystified as she was.
And that's chapter two at long last. Yay.
Please point out any mistakes you see please.
8/20/16 More corrections added
