06-16-2018, 12:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-16-2018, 02:22 PM by Thaal Sinestro.)
The pistons of the power armor hissed along with the thump and clang of the massive metal boots as they hit the ground. The spiteful sun glared down, glinting from the ragged edges and catching the pits beneath the chipped red paint as it swayed and lurched on its path through the compound. “Hm,” the wearer’s voice quipped through the speaker in the helmet and a heavy metal finger flipped a page in the massive tome that the other hand held, “interesting.” The armor slowly crawled to a stop, a warm golden glow slowly illuminating it more with each dwindling step. “But disappointing,” the heavily armored figure tossed the book to the side flippantly, allowing it to land in the sand in a heap.
Gauntleted hands reached up and depressed the releases on the helmet with a puff of steam. The woman shook her dark red hair loose, and Yellow Light reflected from her emerald eyes. A shiver spot up Jaclyn’s spine that only deepened the longer her attention lingered on it, nerves buzzing all the way down to the tips of her toes. Her hands trembled gently, even as she lifted it, holding it before her. She took the most timid step forward, reluctant fingers flitting with trepidation. Closer, and closer, and closer, until finally they met the sleek, perfect surface of the Sinestro Corps’ Power Battery.
Terror sprinted through her body like a pack of irradiated mongrels. Her teeth chattered, her body quaked. Amber light flowed into and through her, burning from her eyes with thick, rolling smoke joining it. The lantern stared down at her as its power diffused into every cell of her body and every servo of her armor. It towered there, only a thousand feet from the nameless oasis of the Dunes, imposing the Yellow Light of Fear upon any that would dare glance upon it. And it knew her. It knew who she was, deep down beyond anything that anyone else ever knew. Could ever know.
It was fear, pure and undiluted, the deepest most primal sensation any sapient species knew. And yet, it was more than that. It took her into its arms, cradled her, swaddled her in a dense and inescapable dread that she had only known in the embrace of a lover. What if tomorrow never comes? What if that boring book with its disposable information was the last thing she ever read?
What if she never knew the touch of the lantern ever again?
Her hand jerked away, and she took several ragged, rapid breaths. She held her hand to the chest of her armor and closed her eyes, giving herself a a moment to allow the fear to exit her body. With a heavy sigh, she lifted her helm and placed it back onto her head, concealing the unnoticed tears that had been streaming down her face. The armored hissed to life once again, plodding as it turned her to face the ramshackle wooden structure where she would be spending her morning.
A viscous grin spread unseen on her chapped lips. “Training day,” she purred through the crackling amplifier.
---
Pitch blackness was all that met the group of recruits that had been dumped onto the floor when the black bags were removed from their heads. Only the sound of hard breathing and the swish of nylon being yanked off faces revealed to the recruits that there was anyone else in the room but them. That and the firm, steely hands that bullied them around, shoving their bound and shackled bodies to the ground once the sacks had been removed. One man began to speak, only to be silenced by the sound of a heavy boot impacting his rib. “Quiet,” a distorted voice commanded.
It seemed like forever that they sat in the darkness, sniffing, breathing, silently agonizing over whatever wounds had allowed them to be brought here. Then a voice shattered the quiet, thundering out and filling the space all at once. “What are you afraid of?” it boomed, static clinging to every syllable. There was a scrambling against the dirt floor, somebody being wrestled to their knees, and a long, corpulent pause.
“Nothing,” a man’s voice barked, trembling but proud. He had a thick accent, twangy and shrill, like an old drunk from the local tavern. “I ain’t afraid of nothing!”
“Well,” the commanding voice answered, “you’re either lying to me…” There was the sound of a switch flipping, and two dull red lights appeared in the pitch. A high pitched electric whine filled the relative silence, then an electrical whir. “… or telling the truth.” A blue LED screen illuminated, casting a dim light over the silhouette of the large, boxy, mechanical weapon.
“Either way you’re useless to us.”
Darkness was replaced with light, everything in the room suddenly visible in strobes of furious red. It was blinding, but what it revealed was impossible to look away from. Each shot was a snapshot of violences, a time lapse of directed energy beams ripping into the wasteland vagrant’s body. The hulking power armor was cast in splashes of crimson, deep shadows only deepening the contours of its horrifying frame. The man, bound on the ground, barely had a chance to yelp as his torso was perforated with more beams than the witnesses could count, his flesh splitting from the super-heated beams of light with hissing steam and sprays of blood. The others felt his body raining down upon him, some only a few feet away. Soon there wasn’t enough torso to hold his body together, and his arm slumped gruesomely onto the floor before the weapon powered down.
Again they were subsumed by shadow and silence. All sat still, frozen by the scene they had witnessed. Somewhere in the room there was gentle sobbing and murmuring. “Shut up,” the voice snapped, and the pitiful noises quieted.
Two more heavy footsteps thumped and the power armor hissed menacingly. The metallic reticulation of the gauntlet rang out as she grabbed the next recruit by the collar. “What are you afraid of?”
Another man, his voice thick with a fremen tones, stammered, “You! I am afraid of you!”
“Hm,” the voice huffed, “and why are you afraid of me?”
“You just killed that man!” he yelped, the frantic tightness of his voice turning everything into a high pitched yowl.
The switch clicked, and the red lights appeared. “You’re getting warmer,” the person behind the mask purred.
“Please!” the recruit squealed, “Please don’t kill me! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!” The sound of his manacled feet scraping across the floor drowned out he whir of the electronics.
The gatling laser’s head began to spin. “I’m still waiting for an answer,” the voice crackled coyly, clearly taking no small amount of pleasure from the man’s panic.
“I don’t want to die!” he pleaded, thrashing helpless against his restraints and the steel grip of his captor.
“I didn’t ask what you wanted!” the power armor roared, “Tell me why you’re afraid!”
The fremen’s answer didn’t come soon enough. Lances of pure light blasted through his chest, a momentary scream gurgling out before his head was split into several pieces and his corpse dropped into the dirt. All those that had sat near him felt the warmth of his bodily fluids oozing onto their feet and legs as they knelt.
The sobbing voice shifted into screams for help, and the metal wall rattled as his frantic flailing brought him in contact with it. “I said shut up,” the voice growled and a few rapid blasts from their weapon made her demands come to fruition. There was less waiting, less quiet, less stillness now. A manic energy had shifted into the room, the unsurety of long they would survive taking root. The recruits shuffled, and the executioner took less time taking hold of her next victim. “What are you afraid of!?” she boomed.
“Death, mon! I be afraid of death!” a woman yelled back instantly through her thick tusks.
She was hurled across the room with the sweep of the exo suit’s arm and stiffly landed near the doorway with a cloud of dirt. “Was that so hard?!” the beast of steel yelled in apparent frustration, the distortion of the suit twisting her words into a crumpled screech. The next recruit was in her powerful fingers in a moment. “What are you afraid of?”
“Death!” the boy hastily barked back.
Everyone heard his head being spiked into the gravel below. “Give me a different answer!”
His voice muffled by the sand and stone, the recruit spat out some of the blood that had seeped into his mouth and shouted back, “I don’t know!”
“You’d better figure it out fast,” the voice rumbled, the click of the switch following shortly after.
“The dark?” he asked, clearly unsure of his answer. The gatling laser was flipped back off and he was tossed into the woman by the doorway.
The power armor lurched towards the final recruit, and she paused in front of it. The creature’s head turned to the side, her goggles glinting in the darkness as she stared up at her captor. “Can you even talk?” the voice in the armor asked. Only silence answered. “You did those war cries before, so I know you can at least make noise. The Power Battery is translating for me, so I know you can understand. But,” the switch clicked, “can you talk?”
Silence.
The gatling laser spun up, blue light showing just enough to see a gauntleted finger hovering just over the trigger. In the dim light, the sand fury’s gaze drifted from the towering butcher that loomed over her and to the corner of the room where the other two had been unceremoniously thrown into a pile. Soundlessly, she held her bound hands up to the power armor and dipped her head in a motion of supplication, exposing the back of her cloth-wrapped head in something close to submission. The two stayed there, neither moving, the hum of the weapon that had just dispatched three others still filling the blood-scented air. The power armor’s finger twitched, touching the trigger. It flexed, the trigger halfway engaged. The fury did not move.
The lights died as the weapon lowered, and Jaclyn snatched the creature by the scruff of the neck. “Good enough.”
Gauntleted hands reached up and depressed the releases on the helmet with a puff of steam. The woman shook her dark red hair loose, and Yellow Light reflected from her emerald eyes. A shiver spot up Jaclyn’s spine that only deepened the longer her attention lingered on it, nerves buzzing all the way down to the tips of her toes. Her hands trembled gently, even as she lifted it, holding it before her. She took the most timid step forward, reluctant fingers flitting with trepidation. Closer, and closer, and closer, until finally they met the sleek, perfect surface of the Sinestro Corps’ Power Battery.
Terror sprinted through her body like a pack of irradiated mongrels. Her teeth chattered, her body quaked. Amber light flowed into and through her, burning from her eyes with thick, rolling smoke joining it. The lantern stared down at her as its power diffused into every cell of her body and every servo of her armor. It towered there, only a thousand feet from the nameless oasis of the Dunes, imposing the Yellow Light of Fear upon any that would dare glance upon it. And it knew her. It knew who she was, deep down beyond anything that anyone else ever knew. Could ever know.
It was fear, pure and undiluted, the deepest most primal sensation any sapient species knew. And yet, it was more than that. It took her into its arms, cradled her, swaddled her in a dense and inescapable dread that she had only known in the embrace of a lover. What if tomorrow never comes? What if that boring book with its disposable information was the last thing she ever read?
What if she never knew the touch of the lantern ever again?
Her hand jerked away, and she took several ragged, rapid breaths. She held her hand to the chest of her armor and closed her eyes, giving herself a a moment to allow the fear to exit her body. With a heavy sigh, she lifted her helm and placed it back onto her head, concealing the unnoticed tears that had been streaming down her face. The armored hissed to life once again, plodding as it turned her to face the ramshackle wooden structure where she would be spending her morning.
A viscous grin spread unseen on her chapped lips. “Training day,” she purred through the crackling amplifier.
---
Pitch blackness was all that met the group of recruits that had been dumped onto the floor when the black bags were removed from their heads. Only the sound of hard breathing and the swish of nylon being yanked off faces revealed to the recruits that there was anyone else in the room but them. That and the firm, steely hands that bullied them around, shoving their bound and shackled bodies to the ground once the sacks had been removed. One man began to speak, only to be silenced by the sound of a heavy boot impacting his rib. “Quiet,” a distorted voice commanded.
It seemed like forever that they sat in the darkness, sniffing, breathing, silently agonizing over whatever wounds had allowed them to be brought here. Then a voice shattered the quiet, thundering out and filling the space all at once. “What are you afraid of?” it boomed, static clinging to every syllable. There was a scrambling against the dirt floor, somebody being wrestled to their knees, and a long, corpulent pause.
“Nothing,” a man’s voice barked, trembling but proud. He had a thick accent, twangy and shrill, like an old drunk from the local tavern. “I ain’t afraid of nothing!”
“Well,” the commanding voice answered, “you’re either lying to me…” There was the sound of a switch flipping, and two dull red lights appeared in the pitch. A high pitched electric whine filled the relative silence, then an electrical whir. “… or telling the truth.” A blue LED screen illuminated, casting a dim light over the silhouette of the large, boxy, mechanical weapon.
“Either way you’re useless to us.”
Darkness was replaced with light, everything in the room suddenly visible in strobes of furious red. It was blinding, but what it revealed was impossible to look away from. Each shot was a snapshot of violences, a time lapse of directed energy beams ripping into the wasteland vagrant’s body. The hulking power armor was cast in splashes of crimson, deep shadows only deepening the contours of its horrifying frame. The man, bound on the ground, barely had a chance to yelp as his torso was perforated with more beams than the witnesses could count, his flesh splitting from the super-heated beams of light with hissing steam and sprays of blood. The others felt his body raining down upon him, some only a few feet away. Soon there wasn’t enough torso to hold his body together, and his arm slumped gruesomely onto the floor before the weapon powered down.
Again they were subsumed by shadow and silence. All sat still, frozen by the scene they had witnessed. Somewhere in the room there was gentle sobbing and murmuring. “Shut up,” the voice snapped, and the pitiful noises quieted.
Two more heavy footsteps thumped and the power armor hissed menacingly. The metallic reticulation of the gauntlet rang out as she grabbed the next recruit by the collar. “What are you afraid of?”
Another man, his voice thick with a fremen tones, stammered, “You! I am afraid of you!”
“Hm,” the voice huffed, “and why are you afraid of me?”
“You just killed that man!” he yelped, the frantic tightness of his voice turning everything into a high pitched yowl.
The switch clicked, and the red lights appeared. “You’re getting warmer,” the person behind the mask purred.
“Please!” the recruit squealed, “Please don’t kill me! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!” The sound of his manacled feet scraping across the floor drowned out he whir of the electronics.
The gatling laser’s head began to spin. “I’m still waiting for an answer,” the voice crackled coyly, clearly taking no small amount of pleasure from the man’s panic.
“I don’t want to die!” he pleaded, thrashing helpless against his restraints and the steel grip of his captor.
“I didn’t ask what you wanted!” the power armor roared, “Tell me why you’re afraid!”
The fremen’s answer didn’t come soon enough. Lances of pure light blasted through his chest, a momentary scream gurgling out before his head was split into several pieces and his corpse dropped into the dirt. All those that had sat near him felt the warmth of his bodily fluids oozing onto their feet and legs as they knelt.
The sobbing voice shifted into screams for help, and the metal wall rattled as his frantic flailing brought him in contact with it. “I said shut up,” the voice growled and a few rapid blasts from their weapon made her demands come to fruition. There was less waiting, less quiet, less stillness now. A manic energy had shifted into the room, the unsurety of long they would survive taking root. The recruits shuffled, and the executioner took less time taking hold of her next victim. “What are you afraid of!?” she boomed.
“Death, mon! I be afraid of death!” a woman yelled back instantly through her thick tusks.
She was hurled across the room with the sweep of the exo suit’s arm and stiffly landed near the doorway with a cloud of dirt. “Was that so hard?!” the beast of steel yelled in apparent frustration, the distortion of the suit twisting her words into a crumpled screech. The next recruit was in her powerful fingers in a moment. “What are you afraid of?”
“Death!” the boy hastily barked back.
Everyone heard his head being spiked into the gravel below. “Give me a different answer!”
His voice muffled by the sand and stone, the recruit spat out some of the blood that had seeped into his mouth and shouted back, “I don’t know!”
“You’d better figure it out fast,” the voice rumbled, the click of the switch following shortly after.
“The dark?” he asked, clearly unsure of his answer. The gatling laser was flipped back off and he was tossed into the woman by the doorway.
The power armor lurched towards the final recruit, and she paused in front of it. The creature’s head turned to the side, her goggles glinting in the darkness as she stared up at her captor. “Can you even talk?” the voice in the armor asked. Only silence answered. “You did those war cries before, so I know you can at least make noise. The Power Battery is translating for me, so I know you can understand. But,” the switch clicked, “can you talk?”
Silence.
The gatling laser spun up, blue light showing just enough to see a gauntleted finger hovering just over the trigger. In the dim light, the sand fury’s gaze drifted from the towering butcher that loomed over her and to the corner of the room where the other two had been unceremoniously thrown into a pile. Soundlessly, she held her bound hands up to the power armor and dipped her head in a motion of supplication, exposing the back of her cloth-wrapped head in something close to submission. The two stayed there, neither moving, the hum of the weapon that had just dispatched three others still filling the blood-scented air. The power armor’s finger twitched, touching the trigger. It flexed, the trigger halfway engaged. The fury did not move.
The lights died as the weapon lowered, and Jaclyn snatched the creature by the scruff of the neck. “Good enough.”
![[Image: sig2.jpg]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/KrimTheUnsettler/sig2.jpg)