#LN'OM [Drabble]

[one-they-left-behind]

[ Send 'What Lies In Your Past?' for a memory from my muse's past! ]

@roleoflore

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It was another day with another set of tasks ready for the troops of the IDPD. The wastelands were utter chaos, but they did their best to keep order and prevent more catastrophe from happening.

That included sending out special ops troops to deal with certain, rising threats.

‘Lil Hunter’, as his code name, had been a special ops trooper for about a year now after graduation. He was getting all prepped in the ‘portal room’, a large part of the facility at HQ where troops geared up and prepared to leap into one of the many parts of the interdimensional chaos of the wastelands.

As he got his helmet on with the soft, air tight click, Rogue had come to see him off. She didn’t have a task today, and wasn’t paired with Lil Hunter which made the sniper less than satisfied.

But orders were orders.

But he had noticed something on her face when he turned to see her. Worry. He never liked seeing that look on her face, but he could understand it considering they treated each other as siblings.

“Don’t look like that!” Hunter moved on up to her, doing his best to give a reassuring look through the visor of his helmet.

“You’re going out solo, how can I not be worried?”

“D’aaaw, come on! You get to go out solo all the time, so what’s the big deal? I’m really good at this kinda thing! Sure we... uh... are usually together, but I’m not that bad alone!”

“It’s still a solo mission, and anything can happen. Just don’t be stupid out there, alright?”

“I’m never stupid! ...Okay that was one time and it was an accident.” Hunter gives a look. It was a playful but upset expression. Rogue merely squinted in return, but the two of them lightened their expressions.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry!”

“You better be, because if anything happens out there I’m coming to get you.”

“D’aaaaaw! I’m not gonna make you do that! I’ll be back soon, don’t worry about it!” Hunter moved and reached up, putting a hand on her shoulder with a bright look in his eyes. But soon enough, Rogue had scooped him up into a hug which he returned. Soon enough, it broke as a blue portal appeared in their generator.

“I gotta go. I’ll see you soon!”

“Be safe, brat.”

Hunter gave one more bright, reassuring expression before he turned to the portal, moving closer until he jumped right in.

And he never returned. Captain’s orders.

[one-they-left-behind]

💓- A memory about their friends

A memory so sweet, but so horribly mangled by the length of time and the strain his mind had been through.

Hunter was lucky he could even remember a portion of his life such as this.

It was only a couple months after graduation at the academy, a time where he was happy. It was like he couldn’t contain his excitement too well, even after already being fully settled within the IDPD as an official officer. All that happiness was practically vented out through a toothy smile, like he would explode if he didn’t.

He had just received approval for his new specialized position as one of the mobile snipers, which also stated that his personalized equipment would now be available to him. He just had to share this news with the person he was closest to in the entire IDPD!

Movement from his room was a blur, almost like static before a jump in such a memory. But he remembered nearly ramming face first into the dark skinned, black-haired woman he had learned to call F̷̩̳̃̔̊̍̈́̆̈́̂̇ ̷̢̹͉̫̜̖̱̘́͋̈͂̌̏͘Ŗ̶̮̞̙͖̯͒̆̆̐̈̄̀͂͜ ̴̠̤̰̻͈̪̱̩̌̉̽͂̅̕͘͝͝İ̸͈̇̄͒͌̕ ̴͓̦̝͈̽͌̔̕̕͠ͅĘ̸̆̂̀̅̒̇͊ ̸̣̻͇̙͎͉̬͉́̈́̓̋̏͝͝͠Ṋ̵̡̽̒͂̇̎͂̐ ̷̤͖̘̻͙̘̪̽͂̔̿͗̒͜Ḑ̶̳͚͍̮̫̳̫̝̽̅͘͝ .

For the life of him, he couldn’t remember her name. Any time he tried, it fazed out into static, but he remembered showing her the paper and talking like some sort of excited child. He was bouncing like an excited child. Some specific sentences could be remembered.

“I should see if they’ll let me have my own special code name, too!”“Oh really? Well, come up with one then, right now!”“Wait I need time to thi-”“You know you’re not going to get time to think out there, right? So come on, give me a code name for yourself right now!”Hunter had puffed his cheeks up, trying to think at a rapid pace before he got the metaphorical light bulb. “Hunter! Because... you know... I’m going to be out there hunting for targets so I can hit them from waaaaaay outside of their sight.”“Hunter is an intimidating name and you don’t look all that intimidating. How about ‘Lil Hunter’, since you can’t even reach five feet tall?”“Oh come on! That’s not even remotely cool sounding!”“It is to me. Small things are still pretty deadly.”“I... well... fiiiine. But only because you made it sound a little cool.”The young woman let out a snort of laughter. “You said little--”“Okay now you’re just being a bully!” He wasn’t hostile sounding at all. Hunter was smiling through all of this, even as the girl drove a knuckle hard enough against Hunter’s head for a harsh noogie just to mess up all of that hair on his head.

“Lil’ Hunter still isn’t a cool enough name to get me to stop ‘bullying’ you.”

The name stuck. If he ever saw that face again, her face, he’ll have to try to remember to thank her.

It’s the only name he can remember to go by nowadays.

[one-they-left-behind]

💚- A memory that makes them feel guilty

Two weeks. 

That’s how long it has been since he found out he was never returning to IDPD HQ.

Paranoia has had more than enough time to set in, and the mutations he had been inflicting on himself had only just started. It was hard to remember a time such as this, but this day, this memory, was intact enough to be fully ingrained with vividness in his mind.

Survival instincts were key to making sure he could stay alive out in the cold, ice covered nightmare that was the Frozen City. It was not a good time for him. Sure, he was used to dangerous operations, but he was a sniper whose missions were very much ‘in and out’.

This was different.

It was the dead of night, and the city itself looked more like ruins within the arctic instead of some poor, forgotten place where people once lived in happiness.

There was movement outside of an ice cave he had taken refuge in, the sound of snow crunching beneath feet. It made him anxious, fearful that something had come to attack him when he was most vulnerable. He could not allow that.

The threat must be dealt with before he even thought about closing his eyes for the night. 

He went out, rifle in hand, and scanned the perimeter. It took only but a couple minutes before a silhouette jolted out from behind a broken, jagged metal wall that was embedded within a pile of snow. Out of fear, paranoia, and raw instinct, Hunter did not hesitate before pulling the trigger.

It was over in moments, and he expected more resistance.

So he moved over to inspect what he had slain, only to see, up close, that it was a simple officer from HQ. A lone one, no squadron or anything. Their gun was not even removed from the holster. It only brought the worst assumption to Hunter’s mind.

What if they weren’t here to take him out? What if they were just here because they changed their minds at the base? Did Captain send out someone to retrieve him? What if he ruined his only chances of survival? 

These words were ones thought before Hunter had grown a thick level of hatred for the IDPD and spiraled into madness. But this memory still hurt him, feeling like he not only ruined the chances of him living a normal life, but because he took out some poor troop that didn’t even seem prepared for combat.

He had killed one of his brothers in arms in cold blood. 

Other soldiers after this were received with less guilt, as they came with hostile intentions. But he couldn’t help but feel like he had done nothing but gun down an innocent person on the spot without any time for working something out.

A fractured memory that occasionally kept the diminutive mutant up on certain nights. The memory of the only person he believed was innocent ended up as one of his first kills.