05-05-2015, 07:34 PM
Wartortle smiled as he closed the book and handed it off to one of his retainers. Turning back to his audience, the Warlord of the PLF found that the room had filled out over the course of his story. The normal younglings were all present, but behind them (and along the back wall) a larger group had amassed, both Pokémon and other ‘affiliated’ members of the movement. Some of them had heard the story before, but many of them had heard it for the first time. He could tell by the looks on their faces that they didn’t know whether to be impressed, disturbed, or some combination of the two.
“So it seems like you all enjoyed that story, huh?” Wartortle asked through a toothy sneer as his assembled crowd replied with a cacophony of hoots and hollers. After a minute or so, he quieted them down with a gentle hand motion. “It looks like we have time for another story… is anyone opposed to that?”
When no one got up and left (a good thing, since they would have been abducted and ‘disappeared’ afterwards), the Turtle Pokémon gestured for another of his retainers to bring him the next book in the series. The leather tome was rested upon his lap and opened up to the first page. With a grin, Wartortle cleared his throat and began to read.
Chapter 1: No Prayer for the Dying
Private Jonathan Stevens had never asked to be garrisoned at Mill Creek’s outpost. Hell…if things would have gone his way he would have left the planet a few months ago. Unfortunately for Private Stevens, all his careful planning and calculations had gone horribly awry, because here he was—hundreds of miles from friends and family on the frontline.
“Stevens!” The gruff voice of the youth’s superior snapped him away from his midday daze. Pushing away from the muddy slab of dirt and stone he had been sleeping against for the last few days, Jonathan turned his attention to his right side in an effect to locate the source of the voice. Clutching his rifle to his chest, Private Stevens ducked low and scanned the muddy trench. After a moment or so, his eyes picked out the extended hand of his sergeant from among the helmeted heads that filled the relatively cramped scar in the earth.
“Sergeant Sanders!” The private shouted as he shuffled his way down the earthen line toward his commanding officer. Once he made it through the bulk of nervous soldiers, Jonathan was ushered through a cramped tunnel into a reinforced room below about six feet of dirt and wire. As he moved down into a seat, the private glanced around the room and noticed that he was one of about four men.
“I need your assistance, Stevens,” the sergeant responded, shifting uncomfortably as he tried in vain to mask his nervousness. After a brief pause, Sergeant Sanders reached over to one of his subordinates and received a small leather-bound tube. With a grim expression on his face, the middle-aged army officer handed the parcel to the private and cleared his throat.
“What’s this?” Jonathan asked, rolling the cold, leather tube in his dirtied palm as he toyed with the knot that kept it tightly sealed.
“Please don’t open it,” Sergeant Sanders requested, placing his hand on top of the container. “These are intelligence reports that need to be delivered back to Saint Guinevere. Without the information in these documents, the capitol and the rest of this province will be bulldozed over by Wartortle and his legions.”
“Why me?” Stevens inquired, holding the leather tube to his chest as he stared at the three officers positioned in front of him.
“You’re the best up-and-comer we have in our battalion, Private,” the sergeant responded, glancing at the two corporals standing to each of his sides for a nod of confirmation before continuing his explanation. “It’s no secret that you don’t want to be here, Stevens, but Johnson, Jackson, and I feel like you’ve done an amazing job coping with the situation here. If things had gone down any other way, you would have been promoted, but unfortunately for the fifty of us, we got stationed at Mill Creek.”
At that moment, the poorly light underground room was shaken by the force of a nearby explosion. Before Private Stevens had a chance to react to the situation, the few lamps they kept the room illuminated were snuffed out as the first volley of gunfire tore apart the once anxious silence that saturated the Mill Creek valley. With a gasp, Jonathan was thrown from the chair as the unreliable ceiling above his head quivered beneath another bomb.
“Get your ass out of her pronto, Private!” The sarge screamed from the darkness as the ceiling began to crumble. Acting quickly, the private shoved the leather tube into his vest and shouldered his rifle. After a moment of hesitation, he ducked his head and jumped towards the small shaft of light penetrating into the dark chamber. A second later, he stumbled into the damp trench to find his entire battalion scrambling to stave off their attackers.
From a few feet behind Jonathan, a jet of dirt and fire knocked him into the mud wall as the meeting room fell into itself. Liberating himself from the sloppy earthen surface, the private scurried up the trench to where a few of his brothers-in-arms were hiding behind a reinforced wall. Wiping the mud from his eyes, the young soldier glanced through the small slit in the barricade in an effort to see the force that was bombarding the trench.
“It’s the Warlord,” one of the infantrymen replied, ducking back below the barrier as a gust of flames blazed a few feet overhead. Stuffing his binoculars into one of his vest pockets, the soldier readied his rifle and turned his attention to Jonathan. “We got about forty seconds max before their infantry line plows right through us.”
“Any idea what the army is comprised of?” Private Stevens asked—glancing to and fro as he tried to locate the rest of his brigade as they scrambled for cover from the intense shelling.
“From what I could tell, it’s Wartortle’s usual combination of shock-, fire-, and avalanche-based melee troops. I think I saw a few flyers, but it was too foggy to tell for sure. The ‘torbers are beyond the scope of these binoculars, but I wouldn’t put it past Wartortle to have them right behind the frontline,” the infantryman replied, shouldering his rifle and sliding it through the small slit in the concrete wall.
“Number of soldiers?” Jonathan inquired as another of his comrades climbed his way up out of the trench and took a position at a nearby amalgamation of steel bars and crude, concrete slabs.
“Too many…” the man muttered, placing a hand on his chest as he looked toward the ashen sky for salvation.
Without another moment’s delay, a well-aimed explosive shell (also known as a Voltorb) struck the barricade and reduced it to rubble. Losing his vision and hearing amidst the blast, Jonathan felt himself falling back into the wet darkness of the trench as the first of the Pokémon began to punch their way through the ragtag defensive of the Mill Creak Outpost.
Bullets whizzed passed Private Stevens as he hugged his rifle and dove behind a chunk of metal. Just as his feet had vanished behind the impromptu border, a jet of fire scorched the earth to his immediate left. Once the embers fizzled out, Jonathan swung out around the blockade and fired a quick burst of bullets into the gut and abdomen of the nearby Charmander.
“Watch out!” Turning his head in the direction of the voice, Jonathan watched as one of his comrades intercepted a dense bolt of electricity that had been intended for him. As the poor man’s innards were charred into oblivion, the private quickly fell back toward the trench and dove behind a small mound of dirt and stone to conceal his location. After taking a few seconds to catch his breath, he proceeded to reload his weapon and reassess the situation.
Hundreds of miles from Mill Creek, a group of seven robed individuals made slowly trudged their way through several feet of snow and ice. A thousand feet above their benumbed bodies, a small black dot stood out among the blizzard. Although they had lost half their ranks in the past week, it was only a matter of time before they had the prize they sought above all.
With a piercing howl, a gust of wind struck the group—staggering all of them but the leader with its fury. As his followers stumbled and struggled to protect themselves against the elements, the robed figure at the front of the party came to a halt. As the wind knocked the hood from his head, the blue-skinned reptile simply grinned in the face of the subzero wind-chill. Twitching his fur-covered ears, the bipedal turtle reached behind his head and pulled his hood back over his cranium.
“Soon,” the Pokémon muttered, resuming his march toward the mountain’s summit. “Your secrets will be mine.”
In the span of twelve minutes, the outpost had fallen to Wartortle’s Forces, and with the utmost desperation, the surviving ten soldiers were scampering toward the creek. At their helm, Jonathan Stevens lead the way—keeping his head low and his feet fast as the sound of innumerable footsteps closed in on the group.
“To the water!” The desperate private shouted, waving his free hand toward the darkness in front of the panicked soldiers. “We can try and lose them in the creek!”
“We won’t make it!” A voice screamed from the blackness behind Stevens. “There are too many of—” the man was silenced as a vibrant explosion illuminated the night sky. Although he was a few yards ahead of the group, Jonathan could still feel the scorching heat sting at his back as it reduced his comrades to ashen scars on the earth’s surface. Unwilling to turn around, the private reached inside his vest and ran a trembling finger across the leather tube.
“I can’t fail them,” he muttered as another mortar shell struck the ground about a dozen yards to his left. Closing his eyes as a few pounds of uprooted earth slammed into him, Jonathan Stevens reached into a different pocket and pulled out the last grenade on his person. Holstering his rifle on his back, the private came to a screeching halt and drove his left boot into the earth.
As he pivoted, the soldier yanked the pin from the grenade and hurled it at the closest reptilian visage. The grenade soared through the air, but then the impossible occurred—it began to slow down until it froze in midair. Glancing around, Jonathan noticed that nothing was moving around him. It was as if someone had pressed the pause button on the entire battlefield.
“Remarkable, isn’t it?” A relaxed, female voice inquired.
“What is this?” Jonathan shouted, yanking his rifle off his back and gritting his teeth. From the ranks of Pokémon in front of him, a robed figured pushed its way through the unmoving monstrosities. “Who the hell are you?” The panicked soldier demanded, resting his twitching finger on the trigger of his gun.
“You can go ahead and try to shoot me,” the figure said, lifting a pair of gloved hands and pushing back the black hood to reveal a young, female face. “But I honestly doubt it’ll be that effective.”
“You never answered my question,” Jonathan stated, his hands still firmly gripping his assault rifle.
“My name is Maria,” the woman answered, smiling faintly at the weary soldier. “I’ve come here to warn you of things to pass.”
“Why?” Jonathan asked, relaxing his stance as he tried to process the words of the mysterious woman.
“I am a demigod,” the woman replied. “Right now I am hundreds of miles away at the roof of the world. In a matter of time, the doors of my temple will be torn asunder, and I shall be struck down by the lord of your enemies.”
“Wartortle?” Jonathan stammered, his eyes filling with rage and avarice.
“He shall soon come for me,” Maria stated. “But before he has the chance, I shall impart unto you part of what he seeks.”
“That being?” The private inquired, arching a dirtied eyebrow at the enigmatic words of the strange woman.
“My essence,” Maria answered, smiling as she took a step forward and placed her hand upon Jonathan’s chest. A moment later, a strange burst of energy exploded through the private’s body. The man’s eyes widened as the feeling slowly started to subside, but before he could ask a question, the demigod raised her hand to silence him. “Good luck, Jonathan Stevens. Now I’d run if I were you.”
“Why?” The soldier asked, furrowing his brow as the woman lifted her hand. With a snap of her fingers, time once again to pass and he was hurled into the depths of the nearby river. Maria smile faintly as she faded from sight amid all the chaos and upheaval of stone and earth.
“So it seems like you all enjoyed that story, huh?” Wartortle asked through a toothy sneer as his assembled crowd replied with a cacophony of hoots and hollers. After a minute or so, he quieted them down with a gentle hand motion. “It looks like we have time for another story… is anyone opposed to that?”
When no one got up and left (a good thing, since they would have been abducted and ‘disappeared’ afterwards), the Turtle Pokémon gestured for another of his retainers to bring him the next book in the series. The leather tome was rested upon his lap and opened up to the first page. With a grin, Wartortle cleared his throat and began to read.
***
Chapter 1: No Prayer for the Dying
Private Jonathan Stevens had never asked to be garrisoned at Mill Creek’s outpost. Hell…if things would have gone his way he would have left the planet a few months ago. Unfortunately for Private Stevens, all his careful planning and calculations had gone horribly awry, because here he was—hundreds of miles from friends and family on the frontline.
“Stevens!” The gruff voice of the youth’s superior snapped him away from his midday daze. Pushing away from the muddy slab of dirt and stone he had been sleeping against for the last few days, Jonathan turned his attention to his right side in an effect to locate the source of the voice. Clutching his rifle to his chest, Private Stevens ducked low and scanned the muddy trench. After a moment or so, his eyes picked out the extended hand of his sergeant from among the helmeted heads that filled the relatively cramped scar in the earth.
“Sergeant Sanders!” The private shouted as he shuffled his way down the earthen line toward his commanding officer. Once he made it through the bulk of nervous soldiers, Jonathan was ushered through a cramped tunnel into a reinforced room below about six feet of dirt and wire. As he moved down into a seat, the private glanced around the room and noticed that he was one of about four men.
“I need your assistance, Stevens,” the sergeant responded, shifting uncomfortably as he tried in vain to mask his nervousness. After a brief pause, Sergeant Sanders reached over to one of his subordinates and received a small leather-bound tube. With a grim expression on his face, the middle-aged army officer handed the parcel to the private and cleared his throat.
“What’s this?” Jonathan asked, rolling the cold, leather tube in his dirtied palm as he toyed with the knot that kept it tightly sealed.
“Please don’t open it,” Sergeant Sanders requested, placing his hand on top of the container. “These are intelligence reports that need to be delivered back to Saint Guinevere. Without the information in these documents, the capitol and the rest of this province will be bulldozed over by Wartortle and his legions.”
“Why me?” Stevens inquired, holding the leather tube to his chest as he stared at the three officers positioned in front of him.
“You’re the best up-and-comer we have in our battalion, Private,” the sergeant responded, glancing at the two corporals standing to each of his sides for a nod of confirmation before continuing his explanation. “It’s no secret that you don’t want to be here, Stevens, but Johnson, Jackson, and I feel like you’ve done an amazing job coping with the situation here. If things had gone down any other way, you would have been promoted, but unfortunately for the fifty of us, we got stationed at Mill Creek.”
At that moment, the poorly light underground room was shaken by the force of a nearby explosion. Before Private Stevens had a chance to react to the situation, the few lamps they kept the room illuminated were snuffed out as the first volley of gunfire tore apart the once anxious silence that saturated the Mill Creek valley. With a gasp, Jonathan was thrown from the chair as the unreliable ceiling above his head quivered beneath another bomb.
“Get your ass out of her pronto, Private!” The sarge screamed from the darkness as the ceiling began to crumble. Acting quickly, the private shoved the leather tube into his vest and shouldered his rifle. After a moment of hesitation, he ducked his head and jumped towards the small shaft of light penetrating into the dark chamber. A second later, he stumbled into the damp trench to find his entire battalion scrambling to stave off their attackers.
From a few feet behind Jonathan, a jet of dirt and fire knocked him into the mud wall as the meeting room fell into itself. Liberating himself from the sloppy earthen surface, the private scurried up the trench to where a few of his brothers-in-arms were hiding behind a reinforced wall. Wiping the mud from his eyes, the young soldier glanced through the small slit in the barricade in an effort to see the force that was bombarding the trench.
“It’s the Warlord,” one of the infantrymen replied, ducking back below the barrier as a gust of flames blazed a few feet overhead. Stuffing his binoculars into one of his vest pockets, the soldier readied his rifle and turned his attention to Jonathan. “We got about forty seconds max before their infantry line plows right through us.”
“Any idea what the army is comprised of?” Private Stevens asked—glancing to and fro as he tried to locate the rest of his brigade as they scrambled for cover from the intense shelling.
“From what I could tell, it’s Wartortle’s usual combination of shock-, fire-, and avalanche-based melee troops. I think I saw a few flyers, but it was too foggy to tell for sure. The ‘torbers are beyond the scope of these binoculars, but I wouldn’t put it past Wartortle to have them right behind the frontline,” the infantryman replied, shouldering his rifle and sliding it through the small slit in the concrete wall.
“Number of soldiers?” Jonathan inquired as another of his comrades climbed his way up out of the trench and took a position at a nearby amalgamation of steel bars and crude, concrete slabs.
“Too many…” the man muttered, placing a hand on his chest as he looked toward the ashen sky for salvation.
Without another moment’s delay, a well-aimed explosive shell (also known as a Voltorb) struck the barricade and reduced it to rubble. Losing his vision and hearing amidst the blast, Jonathan felt himself falling back into the wet darkness of the trench as the first of the Pokémon began to punch their way through the ragtag defensive of the Mill Creak Outpost.
Bullets whizzed passed Private Stevens as he hugged his rifle and dove behind a chunk of metal. Just as his feet had vanished behind the impromptu border, a jet of fire scorched the earth to his immediate left. Once the embers fizzled out, Jonathan swung out around the blockade and fired a quick burst of bullets into the gut and abdomen of the nearby Charmander.
“Watch out!” Turning his head in the direction of the voice, Jonathan watched as one of his comrades intercepted a dense bolt of electricity that had been intended for him. As the poor man’s innards were charred into oblivion, the private quickly fell back toward the trench and dove behind a small mound of dirt and stone to conceal his location. After taking a few seconds to catch his breath, he proceeded to reload his weapon and reassess the situation.
***
Hundreds of miles from Mill Creek, a group of seven robed individuals made slowly trudged their way through several feet of snow and ice. A thousand feet above their benumbed bodies, a small black dot stood out among the blizzard. Although they had lost half their ranks in the past week, it was only a matter of time before they had the prize they sought above all.
With a piercing howl, a gust of wind struck the group—staggering all of them but the leader with its fury. As his followers stumbled and struggled to protect themselves against the elements, the robed figure at the front of the party came to a halt. As the wind knocked the hood from his head, the blue-skinned reptile simply grinned in the face of the subzero wind-chill. Twitching his fur-covered ears, the bipedal turtle reached behind his head and pulled his hood back over his cranium.
“Soon,” the Pokémon muttered, resuming his march toward the mountain’s summit. “Your secrets will be mine.”
***
In the span of twelve minutes, the outpost had fallen to Wartortle’s Forces, and with the utmost desperation, the surviving ten soldiers were scampering toward the creek. At their helm, Jonathan Stevens lead the way—keeping his head low and his feet fast as the sound of innumerable footsteps closed in on the group.
“To the water!” The desperate private shouted, waving his free hand toward the darkness in front of the panicked soldiers. “We can try and lose them in the creek!”
“We won’t make it!” A voice screamed from the blackness behind Stevens. “There are too many of—” the man was silenced as a vibrant explosion illuminated the night sky. Although he was a few yards ahead of the group, Jonathan could still feel the scorching heat sting at his back as it reduced his comrades to ashen scars on the earth’s surface. Unwilling to turn around, the private reached inside his vest and ran a trembling finger across the leather tube.
“I can’t fail them,” he muttered as another mortar shell struck the ground about a dozen yards to his left. Closing his eyes as a few pounds of uprooted earth slammed into him, Jonathan Stevens reached into a different pocket and pulled out the last grenade on his person. Holstering his rifle on his back, the private came to a screeching halt and drove his left boot into the earth.
As he pivoted, the soldier yanked the pin from the grenade and hurled it at the closest reptilian visage. The grenade soared through the air, but then the impossible occurred—it began to slow down until it froze in midair. Glancing around, Jonathan noticed that nothing was moving around him. It was as if someone had pressed the pause button on the entire battlefield.
“Remarkable, isn’t it?” A relaxed, female voice inquired.
“What is this?” Jonathan shouted, yanking his rifle off his back and gritting his teeth. From the ranks of Pokémon in front of him, a robed figured pushed its way through the unmoving monstrosities. “Who the hell are you?” The panicked soldier demanded, resting his twitching finger on the trigger of his gun.
“You can go ahead and try to shoot me,” the figure said, lifting a pair of gloved hands and pushing back the black hood to reveal a young, female face. “But I honestly doubt it’ll be that effective.”
“You never answered my question,” Jonathan stated, his hands still firmly gripping his assault rifle.
“My name is Maria,” the woman answered, smiling faintly at the weary soldier. “I’ve come here to warn you of things to pass.”
“Why?” Jonathan asked, relaxing his stance as he tried to process the words of the mysterious woman.
“I am a demigod,” the woman replied. “Right now I am hundreds of miles away at the roof of the world. In a matter of time, the doors of my temple will be torn asunder, and I shall be struck down by the lord of your enemies.”
“Wartortle?” Jonathan stammered, his eyes filling with rage and avarice.
“He shall soon come for me,” Maria stated. “But before he has the chance, I shall impart unto you part of what he seeks.”
“That being?” The private inquired, arching a dirtied eyebrow at the enigmatic words of the strange woman.
“My essence,” Maria answered, smiling as she took a step forward and placed her hand upon Jonathan’s chest. A moment later, a strange burst of energy exploded through the private’s body. The man’s eyes widened as the feeling slowly started to subside, but before he could ask a question, the demigod raised her hand to silence him. “Good luck, Jonathan Stevens. Now I’d run if I were you.”
“Why?” The soldier asked, furrowing his brow as the woman lifted her hand. With a snap of her fingers, time once again to pass and he was hurled into the depths of the nearby river. Maria smile faintly as she faded from sight amid all the chaos and upheaval of stone and earth.