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Post by Lucien DeChain on Apr 28, 2013 18:15:40 GMT -8
Thirteen days later.
The sun was beginning its 48 hour sunset. After it was down, it would stay that way for 5 days straight, covering the aging world in a veil of darkness, where all manner of creature could thrive and hunt. Kill.
All, that is, except for the Human. They no longer hunted for sustenance. They no longer felt the primal urges. All they felt was their sense of perfection, and it consumed them, making them more machine than animal.
***
Mau's inner-eye HUD flashed with a new message.
Pvt Mausser,
Orders have been received. Please standby for transmission:
Our sensors indicate Engel activity in the immediate area to the South of the city. One Engel in question has been observed to be extremely fast. Our scouts have been so far unable to make contact with it, or deal with it peacefully.
Your skills are required to dispatch this Engel. Whether you choose to drive it away from the city or kill it, it will be your choice.
The last known location of this Engel is marked with coordinates sent. You shouldn't encounter any other Engels in this area, as the one in question seems to be quite territorial.
With Speed,
Major Blackthorne
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Post by Vespyr on Apr 29, 2013 15:38:00 GMT -8
Mau sat on his bedding space with his chin propped on his fist as he peered down with glazed eyes at the ancient book he was not supposed to have. Day by day he absently flipped through its delicate pages, understanding nothing, but only growing more curious the longer he spent running his fingers over the leather cover, and the words "HOLY BIBLE" which resounded eerily in his mind though he knew not what they meant. But apparently it was a dangerous thing. He should have destroyed it earlier, and he would probably destroy it soon. Probably.
Distracted from the object by his new orders, Mau let the cover fall shut, its pages emitting a faintly dusty breeze as they fluttered to a close. Fast, huh. The threat of engels wasn't the least bit intimidating, and proposed more of a challenge to the young man, if anything. It had been a fair amount of time since his last outing from the city and he was almost itching to face one of nature's abominations again.
Mau tucked the bible discreetly under his bed, made a mental note to get rid of it when he got back, and prepared to leave for his mission.
. . .
Wearing his red bandana with all of his usual gear and then some, Mau strode forth from the city's South gate and followed the coordinates to the supposed location of the engel. The weapon he'd brought with him for this particular mission was a simple plasma sword, at first glance. But it was more than just a sword.
Mau entered the engel's territory in predatory silence and jumped agilely onto one of the middle branches of a tall tree to observe the area, hoping to catch the beast unaware. |
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Apr 30, 2013 13:05:53 GMT -8
Mau would reach the coordinates, but there was nothing in sight, except a small pile of twigs and leaves. Suddenly, an Engel came into view, stopping abruptly and placing a smaller creature on the bed of twigs. The Engel in question looked to be about as tall as Mau, but was extremely agile! Mau would be able to clock its speed at a little over 100 kilometers an hour. How fast! The Engel didn't notice the hidden assailant, but continued to poke and prod at the nest before finally taking a large bite out of the smaller Engel. |
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Post by Vespyr on Apr 30, 2013 14:44:05 GMT -8
Mau watched intently as the predator appeared, and once it was distracted with its meal, he lifted the sword and flicked the tip of it in the beast's direction. The sword appeared to dislocate into separate links like a spinal chord, extending now like a flexible whip rather than a sturdy blade*. Mau's intent was to catch the creature around its neck with the plasma whip, like a lasso or a noose, and deal with it that way.
(*see ivy's snake sword for reference) |
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Apr 30, 2013 20:45:05 GMT -8
As Mau was about to strike, the Engel suddenly went stiff, shot its head up to look right at the man, and bolted. Mau's super-cool weapon wouldn't have time to wrap around, or even make contact with the creature.
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Post by Vespyr on May 19, 2013 16:58:17 GMT -8
A tight frown tugged at the corners of his mouth as Mau watched the creature dash away in no time at all. With such superior agility as that, this would be a little more challenging than the human initially planned for. He'd have to get creative, with this one.
With a terse swish of his tail, Mau hopped down from his tree branch and curiously observed the dead animal in the nest for a long moment. Surely the engel would return for its kill at some point, or so he could hope. The man fiddled with a blade of grass between his fingers as he pondered for a few minutes, how to go about trapping and killing the creature. As the expected epiphany lit up his eye, he reached into his pack and withdrew a small object that fit in his palm: an AED, or alternating explosive device.
A very small, compact interface on the grenade allowed the holder to choose from a variety of presets such as timed, heat-sensitive, motion-detecting, or contact detonation. Mau chose the latter, placed the grenade inconspicuously in the carcass of the engel's kill, and pressed the button to activate it. Any slight jostling from the beast biting into the carcass would set off an explosion that would vaporize any organic matter within about five feet in any direction.
Carefully withdrawing, Mau snuck back into a tree standing at a safe distance of about thirty feet, this time careful to keep out of sight as he waited for the engel to return.
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Post by Lucien DeChain on May 19, 2013 19:18:59 GMT -8
The AED being planted in the carcass, Mau could now wait for the return of the Engel.
After three hours and twenty minutes of waning twilight, the Engel returned to the nest with a swiftness that was unlike anything Mau had ever seen. It looked around suspiciously, sniffing about, as if expecting something. Satisfied that nothing was going to jump out and trap him, the strange creature turned its attention back to its meal, nudging it slightly with its nose-
BOOOOOOOOM.
Let's see, with a blast radius of 1.5 metres, the high-velocity spatter would travel at approximately 14 metres per second for a maximum distance of... Yep, Mau is now covered with tiny, tiny droplets of red blood. A large droplet would have felt like a bullet, but since they were so small, they hit the skin harmlessly. Though, Mau was now soaked with blood and possibly vapourized guts of an unknown Engel.
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Post by Vespyr on Jun 16, 2013 21:28:14 GMT -8
Mau braced himself as the blast goes off, calmly closing his eye as the blood splattered over him. He blinked. Where the engel had been standing, there was now... nothing but a mess of red.
Mission accomplished.
Mau shrugged with a devious half-grin and swung down from the branch, to make his way home in moderately high spirits.
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Jun 16, 2013 21:37:12 GMT -8
Mau was about to leave, just hitting the ground as he spotted something in the bush.
It could have just been a glisten of light from the spatter of blood, but... No, it was the wrong colour. The waning sun reflected off of them... white. Almost like a pair of eyes. Human eyes, not the pale yellow of the Engel eyes. The longer he stared, the more he was sure.
After a few seconds, the pair of eyes would swing themselves over to stare right at Mau, fearful. Then, they were away, along with the owner of the eyes. Mau heard footsteps pounding their way away from his position, easily distinguishing them as bipedal.
It didn't make sense. No humans lived outside the City. They couldn't.
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Post by Vespyr on Jun 16, 2013 21:46:44 GMT -8
Mau's eye flicked immediately to the curious glint and he found himself staring... and after a moment, being stared at. It didn't make sense, but it didn't need to. His keen ears swiveled forward, alerted to the sound of footsteps, and not an instant later Mau was bolting after the sound like a cat after an invisible mouse.
As he ran, confusion tugged at his mind, where he should have been thinking about pouncing what he saw in front of him. Instead, he could only gauge how close he was by the sound of the footsteps over his own; if and when he caught up to the sound, he would outstretch a lanky arm to snatch at the air in front of him.
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Jun 16, 2013 22:05:21 GMT -8
Mau would find he was much faster than his prey. Much, much faster. He would catch up to it in a matter of seconds, and the outstretched hand would meet flesh, toppling the whatever-it-was onto the ground. In the process, the thing yelped, desperately trying to grab onto something as it fell... Which happened to be Mau. There's an upside and a downside to only being 10 kg. One downside is that when someone grabs onto you as they fall, you probably end up falling on top of them. - Mau was now pinning... it... to the ground. Looking it over, it looked female. Curvy. Soft. Very unlike the women of the city, in fact unlike any human he'd ever seen before. She looked around 1.2 meters tall, with pale skin, and from Mau's estimation looked to be just reaching adulthood, which by his standards was around 8-10 years of age. She looked up at him, eyes wide, with a certain quivering of the lower lip which Mau assumed signified fear. The "human" opened its mouth, which only had 32 teeth, only 4 of which were sharp. It breathed hesitantly, then began to speak in a language which Mau could not understand. Her voice was soft, and quiet. "Please, please kill me first. I've heard what happens when we run into your kind. Rape, skinning, torture... I only ask that you kill me first." Her voice became more strained near the end of her speech, which Mau could understand none of, but could easily memorize for later analysis. Small droplets of fluid began to build up and expel from her eye ducts. She started to squirm under Mau. |
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Post by Vespyr on Jun 16, 2013 22:28:47 GMT -8
As the primitive human creature beneath him began to speak, apparently and appropriately fearful, Mau stared in glassy-eyed awe. He had seen many strange things, many-- but this was almost beyond fathomable. She resembled what could have been a primitive homo sapien, but still alive millions of years after that branch of the species had to have evolved out of existence? The only thing that came close to this sort of find was the so-called 'Endarkened', an ancient human female that had been unearthed some years ago in a cave, apparently still living after a billion years. There was a cult following and everything, but those were all horseshit rumors, right? The cultists refused to give up the location of the so-called immortal, so there was no proof.
On top of Mau's initial surprise, the foreign language spilling from the frightened creature's crude-looking maw was all but inscrutable. Mau lifted his brow sympathetically and leaned back on his haunches, off of the female, though he kept a firm hand gripped around her ankle so that she could not run. With his other hand, he made a flat palm and held it up in hopes that she would stop being so intimidated by him.
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Jun 16, 2013 22:55:55 GMT -8
The girl looked up at him, blinking curiously. She still looked fearful and hesitant, but something, maybe pure curiosity, made her lift her hand to touch his, gently pressing her palm against his, and then backing off.
Yep, it was a high-five. 999 million, 977 thousand years later.
She looked into his eyes, seeing that he was about as curious as she was. Softly, quietly, she spoke again, mouthing words that Mau couldn't understand.
"Why.. What are you? You're one of them, right? Why are you.. ohgoddessdidijusttakepartinyourmatingritualorsomethingohpleasenoicant." The last part was blurted out in an even more incomprehensible mesh of word. Mau didn't know it was possible, but she was now more difficult to understand.
Her cheeks were flushed, though. Mau felt her heartbeat increase. Also their faces were very close.
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Post by Vespyr on Jun 16, 2013 23:04:02 GMT -8
The female lifted her hand as well, a good sign that-- wait, what. As her hand touched his, Mau blinked. He leaned back a little further, still crouched at her feet, and tilted his head curiously to the side. His thin lips were drawn straight in a contemplative frown. She was speaking again, more strings of words Mau couldn't comprehend. He shook his head, sorry, and hoped that she would at least realize he couldn't understand her. To make things even more difficult, he was unable to speak back to her. She probably wouldn't have understood him, anyhow.
For a long moment the man, towering over her in stature even as he crouched, glanced away and thought hard about how to carry on from there. His eye wandered back to her, and down to his paw on her ankle, and back to her face. She still seemed afraid, but maybe she would be less afraid if he wasn't still pinning her. Maybe she would bolt. If she did, he could follow her.
Mau released the female's ankle and drew his hand away, resting both of them on his knees as he peered wide-eyed at her. He shook his head again, completely at a loss.
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Post by Lucien DeChain on Jun 16, 2013 23:21:57 GMT -8
The female eyed him, even more curious. She took the head tilt as confusion, and the head shake... maybe it wasn't a mating ritual. But, usually, Metahumans spoke, didn't they? As he edged away slightly, she drew herself forward, enamored with him. She had never seen one, only heard the stories from those brave enough to venture close to the Dome.
"Um.. Can you talk...? Or, can you understand me?"
Curiosity kept her from bolting. It was the pinning factor, even without the physical pin, though something in her told her to run, run and not look back for a second, she stayed.
She raised her hand, then, to her mouth. She made motions of sound coming out of her mouth, and then her hand moved to her ear, which she cupped to kind of ask... Well, English, motherfucker, do you speak it?
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