For all those reading, I have to say its good to be back writing again, though I should inform you of a couple things, my life has become much busier than before, so I will only be posting one chapter per month, I ask you all to be patient because I intend to follow through with this story like the last one. I know you were looking for some new elements with this story, and I intend to bring them in, just keep watch, in fact I'm throwing in a little twist starting with this chapter, please review and no flamers.
Ch2: The Rogue
"The desert is truly merciless, it can take everything from you if you let it."
The desolate wasteland is vast, full of wide open areas filled with sand, mountains, sand, storms, and more sand. But the true mysteries are the ones hidden from the visible eye, numerous treasures and lost chambers remain buried over countless years lost to the test of time. However numerous sandstorms churn the sand revealing these lost relics, although not all the wastelands secrets are hidden below the sand. Rocks do more than just litter the landscape of the desert, there are numerous tunnels formed from the natural passage of terraforming. Inside one tunnel located on the south end of the wasteland, right next to a massive stone structure protruding out of the rock, housed an individual living the life of a true-blue survivalist. Right now, he was driving back in his modified desert off-road vehicle, dubbed the Dune Striker. It had four large knobby tires, a trio-powered turbo thrust, ultra-slip differential, and roof mounted machine guns for any threat the wasteland threw at him. He knew how treacherous the desert was having grown up in it all his life, but learned to cope with all the hardships it brought, and fight off whatever it threw his way, be it sandstorms, marauders, etc...
His Dune Striker pulled up to the side of the south end stone structure and pushed the opener button on his dashboard, raising the boulder in front of him on hydraulic cylinders which slowly revealed an opening in the mountain, the garage to his hideaway. He drove inside and closed the door behind him.
"You did good today Cal, you did good today," he said to himself.
The wastelander named Calidan, AKA Cal was dressed in full desert gear, complete with a desert tan colored armored vest with loose shoulder and gut plating, fingered gloves and wrist coverings, a utility belt with ammunition and survivalist tools, suede sand boots and a bandanna and goggles combo around his head. He was greeted by a black-furred wasteland wildcat that trodded up to him as he exited his vehicle.
"Mrrowr"
"How ya doin Rob?" Giving him a rub on the head, he was actually quite big for a desert wildcat, considering how much he had grown since Calidan had found him hiding in his home 10 years ago. As for his home, it was ramshackle, yet quite spacious, aside from the garage lot that housed his Dune Striker and tool room, he had all the makings of home, a lone staircase led up to a small kitchen, then a small outhouse, finished with a lone bedroom. There was also a lookout fort above the garage that he could access via a ladder on the wall. Most of the room of his home was housed with his hobby, tinkering. All across the garage there was tools along with small projects he had been working on using materials he scavenged from the wasteland and even marauder camps. Inventions like a retractable sword, an electrified shield, and a miniburst eco cannon were among a few of his toys. Though there was one project he was currently working on now, and it was the one that had his utmost attention right now. It was something he had been dreaming of, but was still a ways away from completing it.
Calidan pulled out a bag from his Dune Striker and emptied the contents into a bin on the floor labeled "Scrap". To him scrap was recycled gold, and provided him the supplies he needed for his projects. Returning to his vehicle he also pulled out a dead desert muskrat, and dumped it in a bowl labeled "Robin".
"Dinners here buddy" he told Robin. The wildcat started nibbling at the carcass as he enjoyed his meal.
Calidan then ran over to the wall ladder, and started climbing up the walls of his home to his lookout tower. Once he reached the top he took some binoculars off his utility belt and started scanning the horizon surrounding the area. He could see the wasteland ocean to the west, where his secret entrance was located. In front of him was another matter, there were numerous land mounts extending from the ocean, all leading to an island just off the coast. Calidan knew what it was, the Monk Temple, he knew because of all the traveling expeditions he had seen jumping across on leaper lizards towards it. He never dared to make the journey himself, survivalist he was, he preferred not to mess with the secrets of the Precursors, for he believed it would lead to nothing but trouble.
Far across the extent of the Temple land mounts, he was searching for anything out of the ordinary, mainly Marauder troops. He had always made sure to cut off their advance before ever coming home, otherwise he would have to relocate. Once he saw nothing was in sight, he jumped back down to ground level.
"Looks like those Marauders are keeping their blind reputation true Rob, nothing within sights," he told his wildcat companion.
"I may have an armory here, but there is only one me, and if I were to take out even any of them, they would come hoarding in like a swarm of gnats."
"Mrowr" the wildcat groaned in between bites, Calidan deciding to tease his pet a little bit and act like he had actually spoken to him, just a running gag for the two at times.
"Don't start that again, I am not journeying out toward the desert city, way too crowded, plus their king is a hard nose, don't follow what he says and your back out on your own any way. And if I'm supposed to be stuck here, it will be on my own terms and no one elses."
Calidan well knew of the city of Spargus, ruled by the desert king Damas. The city was supposedly a paradise in the wasteland, filled with survivalists and refugees, but he never considered making that place home. He wasn't for playing well with others, and he was already fighting for survival where he was now. Plus he answered to no one, he was content living in his own isolation, it made no sense to have to fight again just to live somewhere else where he wasn't his own boss anymore.
"Enough of that, the suns setting and I haven't had my own dinner yet," he said as he went up the stairs to the kitchen to finish the fish and fruit he had gathered from the oasis yesterday.
Setting: Deep Space
Nothing unrivaled the vastness of space, completely open, completely devoid of oxygen, occupied by nothing but countless forms of matter, asteroids, planets, nebulas, just a few among the list. But it is always considered a great trek to fly through it, no matter the destination. But there are always unknown dangers among it, no matter where you go, and one such danger was about to make its presence known real soon. A dark ship filled with deadly cargo was making its approach to its intended destination ever so swiftly. However, on the side of the ship, a chamber opened up and out came a second vessel, a pyramid shaped pod which ejected itself from the ship and sent itself off flying in another direction.
The journey was long distance, but took short time due to the pod's superluminal space drives. A lush blue and green planet was within the pod's path, and the crew aboard had it in their sights. The pod had entered the atmosphere and was starting to light up with heat as it picked up speed within the planets gravity while passing through its atmosphere.
Down on the surface, a group of locals within a nearby city were enjoying another peaceful day, unbeknownst to them, it would soon be interrupted. The light of the day hid the anomaly from most of them, as a red streak flew across the sky, and made its way toward a distant volcano, and ended up disappearing right behind it. Those that did see it enjoyed the sky show they had breifly experienced and went back to their business.
The pod was smoking upon impact, the crater it had made was twice the size of the pod, though not very deep thanks to the landscape turf they had landed on. A port hole opened on top of the capsule, and out came an eerie long dark claw, followed by a head, an eerie elongated head with quills atop his head, that shook indicating the alien's excitement to bring another world to their knees. The alien invaders were ready to make themselves known to an unsuspecting planet.
The aliens lurked themselves slowly by air and land to their destination, the volcano where their ship had landed. They knew what their task was before they came here, and they were eager to complete it. The volcano was dormant, though it did show signs of being previously active, due to a large catastrophic event that occurred on this planet over a year ago. The aliens did not know the full details, all they knew was what their contact had known, and it was limited as well, save for the fact that he knew what they had been sent here to collect. Upon approaching the mouth of the volcano, they halted, and the flying aliens lowered themselves so their land counterparts could climb on. They began descending inside the immense opening to the planet core. Their trek took a good 30 minutes, but they eventually came to a floored chamber made of volcanic rock that had been solidified. The land creatures set their feet on the rock and surveyed their grounds, they had a rough idea what they were looking for, but within this dormant volcano it could be anywhere. After scouting for a few minutes, a flying alien with its built in scanner picked up some anonymous high energy readings and lowered itself toward the ground and rubbed it with its claw. A dark purple gem shown through, and its fellow aliens gathered around it. After clearing most of the dust away, they could clearly see the gem glowing from its deep center, within it was some sort of animal figure. They were unfamiliar with it, but they knew they had found what they were looking for.
One of the aliens grumbled in its foreign language to another alien, who brought what appeared to be some sort of capsule with what appeared to be talons at the end and a glowing power source up top. The rest of his crew had dispersed, and the alien reached up and jabbed the capsule into the gem, a low hum sounding from it. All of them stood back from it as the humming grew louder. The power source up top finally hit its peak and let out a direct force of energy which plowed through the gem, causing it to crack under extreme force.
BOOM!
The shockwave was felt by the aliens who cringed from the blast. The device was dead smoking from its one time use. Unfortunately it had done its job, for gem shards were shaking underneath, slowly giving way to what had been buried for over a year. A dark purple claw burst from the rubble, and gripped the ground as the figure pulled itself free from its prison.
The planet's greatest fear had been realized, the Dark Master was free again.
The first of my little twists, and there is more to come, read and review, because I am just getting started!
