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itsuki-minamy · 4 years ago

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“K - THE FIRST STORY”

CHAPTER 9: PRISON BREAK (Complete)

* K - The First Story (List of Chapters) * Projects & Chapters

Translation: Naru-kun Raws: Ridia

"In the following, I would like to report on the contact accident between the Himmelreich airship owned by the wealthy international Adolf K. Weissmann and the helicopter of the Metropolitan Police Department. According to the police announcement immediately after the accident..."

The day before the school festival, Kukuri, who went to school early in the morning, was glancing sideways at the morning news on television in the student council room while she did the paperwork.

"Last night the distant sky glowed, maybe that's why."

When Kukuri said that, Asama opened her eyes.

"Hey, Yukizome senpai, did you see the airship explode?"

"No. It just looked like the western sky was glowing, and I didn't know if it was an explosion."

"But it's a shock. The whale in the sky has fallen."

"Whale in the sky?"

"It's one of the nicknames for that airship. That airship has been flying over Tokyo for a long time... it has been said that it has been flying over Tokyo since the end of the war, so there are various rumors and urban legends. Look."

On the television reported by Asama, there was a comment from the people of the city about the fall of the airship.

"Oh, that airship... wasn't it related to some new religion?" The clerk-like man didn't seem very interested.

"I heard that the man up there was like a living god, Ah, thank you, thank you." Said an old woman with a mysterious atmosphere, praying with her hands and holding some prayer beads.

"Well when he broke his heart, he got fluffy." "Nyahaha, it's impossible! It just crashed!" A flashy duo of high school girls giggled playfully.

Oh, this, Asama looks at the last high school girls in the picture and says.

"The urban legend of asking a blimp for help when it is sad or difficult is quite famous, and surprisingly many people believe it. There is an app for that... huh. I wonder if it was called 'Candle'. It seems to be one app that only lights a red light like a candle on the screen, but for some reason that light seems to be visible even from a very long distance, and targeting the blimp is the SOS signal somehow."

It was an interesting story, but purely questionable, and Kukuri bowed her head.

"What do you do after the blimp picks you up?"

"There are several theories about it. The simplest is that the foreign on board will listen to you."

"Hey, it's a flying counseling room for problems."

"After that, it can give you a mysterious power."

"Oh, the story is about to begin."

"It can take you to another world where everyone can be happy."

"Hm, isn't that scary?"

"It's a bit scary, isn't it? The official name of the airship, Himmelreich, seems to mean heaven."

"I wonder if it's romantic or scary."

After getting excited, Kukuri shook her head, remembering that that was the subject of the accident.

"I wonder if the person who was traveling there died..."

"Oh, by the way, it hasn't been reported for some reason. But this is an accident..."

"You guys…"

She hears a loud voice from the side. Student council president Hyuga Chiho, who was quietly processing the work, stopped and looked at Kukuri and her friends.

"It's nice to talk, but can you take your job seriously? The school festival is tomorrow."

It's scary when a beautiful woman silently gets mad. From the back of her glasses, she kept staring intently, Kukuri shrugged. Asama was holding her request for some reason.

Kukuri changed her mind and went back to paperwork. As Hyuga says, the school festival will finally be tomorrow. They have to prepare everything to finish on time.

Asama, who had returned to work to check the necessary items that day, said, "What?"

"Yukizome senpai, what is going on with the purchase of the missing fireworks?"

"What? What happened...? I'm sure I asked someone to buy them the day before yesterday..."

Surprised that she couldn't remember, Kukuri rolled her eyes in black and white. It was strange. Although she was busy, she Kukuri is not a person with a bad memory, and it is not something to forget who she asked for.

"Um... the day before yesterday someone went to buy them... who... but that person... hasn't come back yet...?"

Hyuga frowned suspiciously as she rolled her eyes.

"Yukizome? What's wrong, are you tired?"

"Well, is that so...?"

When she couldn't understand herself and made a pitying face, Hyuga looked a bit worried and sighed a little.

"Well, I'll fix it here. Originally, it was mainly to replenish the fireworks that were missing due to the statement that young man made to Yukizome. Yukizome, it sure was difficult to stand up to those people."

Kukuri turned red when she was mentioned about the case of Mishina's confession.

However, a few days ago she asked someone to buy the fireworks because she didn't have enough. But he couldn't buy them at the time, or there was something that disappeared because of some trouble along the way. That was the day before yesterday, she should have asked him to buy it again, and also asked for some other necessary items.

Kukuri puts her hand on her head and struggles to remember. However, the contrast between the strangely clear and the important that she couldn't remember was strange and terribly confusing.

"Yukizome? If you're not feeling well, you can rest..."

Hyuga was worried, Kukuri quickly smiled.

"Oh, no! Ok! I'll check the progress."

Kukuri fluttered out of the student council room before it bothered her further.

When she was busy touring the school, she was able to forget the unclear haze.

She asks the people who were practicing the final stage of the work if there were any problems or shortages, she toured the food stores to verify the handling of the ingredients and verified if there were any deficiencies, and if everything was ready for tomorrow. She looked around her to see if there was anything that seemed unlikely, and if there was a danger, she turned around to the staff that was ready and had free time, and confirmed the assembly of the costume parade, which was the event main of the school festival.

"Hello! Is the costume okay?"

When she went to the group that was making costumes in the room, they said, "Kukuri, it's perfect!"

They said they had all the costumes, but the warehouse room was full and they had problems with storage space and left them in the classroom. "I'll be using this classroom tomorrow, so I have to get rid of this. I don't have a place to put them." Kukuri hit her chest, in front of the student who had a worried face.

"Ok, I'll do something about it soon."

Kukuri headed towards the Dorm Manager's room. When she discusses the situation and negotiate if she could use the empty room, she immediately agreed. It would be convenient to put the costumes of the dormitory students there.

However, it seems that the room was empty for a long time, so it might be tiring for her to clean it by herself, so Kukuri headed to the central plaza first.

"Hello everyone, thank you for your hard work! This is the student council. Is there anyone who does not have equipment, needs to turn in a document, or is available to do extra work?"

In the central square, there were Mishina and Inaba who finished making portable shrines. Inaba turned to Kukuri and smiled bitterly.

"Ah, everyone is busy on this street!"

"Are you looking for him again? He must be somewhere around here."

Mishina spoke of "Him" with a friendly feeling.

"Ahhhhhhh!"

Kukuri responds with a smile that is a good idea and it solidifies.

"Are you okay?"

Certainly, Kukuri's head must have had the same "someone" that Mishina had in mind. However, that "someone" disappeared from Kukuri's head in an instant. In the student council room, Kukuri had the same feeling of not being able to remember "someone" that he should have gone shopping the day before yesterday.

"Who was he…?"

Mishina opens his mouth with a laugh, wondering how she forgot. Kukuri waited for the name that should come out of Mishina's mouth, but Mishina also turned his head with his mouth open.

"Mishina, we are fine here. You can go with her."

A student who was finishing the portable shrine with Mishina told him that, and Mishina turned his eyes towards Kukuri, who looked a bit confused.

Since the confession case, Mishina and Kukuri have been feeling a bit uneasy. However, even though Kukuri had no romantic feelings, she would like to continue associating with Mishina as her friend. She smiled awkwardly and bowed slightly.

"Ah… well, thank you very much."

"Oh, yeah..."

Inaba laughed a mocking face when they were both embarrassed.

She put an excuse in her heart that it wasn't because she was awkward, but because she needed a little more manpower, and personal recruitment, saying, "Well, a few more people."

In the end, Inaba and another boy went as well, and Kukuri told them that she would like them to help her clean the empty room as she walked to the bedroom.

"Bedroom?"

"If you put the finished costume in its place, they can change clothes directly that day."

Upon Kukuri's explanation, Inaba says, "Oh, I see."

Kukuri was confused with her busy schedule, and the haze had returned. She felt as if she had forgotten something important.

Suddenly, she saw a vending machine. She thought she bought some juice here the other day, so what happened to that juice? She feels like she gave it to someone, but to whom...

"What are you doing?"

When Inaba called her, Kukuri suddenly returned to her.

"Oh, sorry, nothing."

She now she had nothing to do with it.

Kukuri quickly caught up with Inaba and her friends, who had gone a bit ahead, and entered the bedroom.

"So we have to clean the bedroom before we put our things inside. They told me we could throw everything away."

Kukuri laughed and opened the door to the empty room.

The room was filled with strangely unoccupied air. Cleaning is done by a large number of "Tsukumo 99" cleaning robots in the school, so even if it is not dusty, it does not have the taste of "a room that was left unattended until now".

"This feeling of life, I mean..."

Perhaps Inaba thought the same, she looked around the room and turned her head. Mishina thought so too.

"Looks like someone lived here."

"Well, I guess he was taking a nap without permission. See, that guy?"

At Inaba's words, Mishina and his friends laughed at each other. When they talk about "Him", everyone just smiles.

Inaba smiled too and said, "That boy…", and then she probably tried to say the name. Suddenly, she changed her expression.

"Huh, that boy?"

Gently away from Inaba and her friends, who were staring at each other mysteriously, Kukuri quietly walked over to the kitchen and took the rice cooker.

She was frustrating and lonely.

Such feelings arise in Kukuri.

Someone was cooking rice with this rice cooker. A vague but sure impression remains on Kukuri. Shiro, happily helping himself to another rice, and that's it.

Kukuri looked around the room as she held the rice cooker.

She doesn't know why, but the feeling of throwing things from this room into the trash has disappeared from Kukuri.

++++++++++

As the Himmelreich, which exploded and burned up close, approached, Kuro's swift decision saved the lives of all three.

Facing the flame of the red lotus that stained the night sky, alongside the boy and Neko who had hardened with his eyes wide open, Kuro quickly swooped down from the helicopter to avoid the direct hit of the blast. In a violently shaking helicopter, Kuro held Neko's body with his left arm and said to the boy, "Hold on!" The boy quickly understood and grabbed onto Kuro's neck, and he grabbed onto a distant place with the force of his right hand, distorting the space, and he jumped out of the helicopter that crashed into the blimp like a bullet.

Although they were safe, both the boy and Kuro were exhausted and confused, and after wandering through the night to find a place to rest for the moment, they arrived at a motel at the end of the field.

It is a place where you can calm down without revealing your identity, which is why it is an embarrassing place, which is why Kuro entered with a bitter decision.

The boy, who was more tired, was lying on a heart-shaped double bed and fell asleep. Having been a disaster both mentally and physically, now, he was thinking that he should take a break and recover even a little bit.

And Neko.

"You... you seem fine..."

Neko was fine.

The motel she first walked into seems to be a weird place to Neko, and instead of being unpleasant, she enjoys the interior of the room filled with things like an amusement park and juice in the bubble bath with a strange mechanism. So when she came out of the bathroom, she sneaked out next to the sleeping boy, with her bath towel and no clothes on, and when Kuro stopped her, she started a fight against Kuro again.

When he was frightened by Neko's naked body, she intentionally showed her nakedness, and when he tried to dress her, she jumped across the room and ran away from him, after working together they were exhausted and sat on the floor.

"Hmm... I'm always fine like this."

"I'm afraid of that inexhaustible physical strength, but please calm down a bit." After a long battle, Neko was half finished, but he managed to put her clothes on. During the process, Kuro sighed for a long time and looked at the boy on the bed, who was still sleeping without any sign of waking up even though he was very noisy.

"If you're depressed you go crazy, well, I don't care if you're okay. However, you should reflect on it properly."

"Reflect? Oh, Kurosuke, Wagahai moved the helicopter, are you still angry?"

"Oh, yeah, think about that too! Thanks to your irrationality, the three of us were almost caught in an explosion and charred!"

With Kuro's scolding face not working, Neko sharpens her mouth. Kuro changed his expression with raised eyebrows, took a small breath and then lowered the tone of his voice.

"But that's not what I'm talking about now. It's Shiro."

"Shiro?"

Kuro lowered his gaze lightly.

It was a short time for Kuro, but he felt comfortable when he was in Gakuenjima and got involved with Kukuri and the others. It was the same for the boy. The boy believed that Gakuenjima was his place, and that Kukuri and the students in Gakuenjima were his friends. Considering how he felt when he found out that he was a ghost, he had an indescribable feeling.

"Hey, Neko."

Kuro turned to Neko. Neko held back for a moment as if the fight had continued, but when she saw that Kuro's eyes were serious, she lowered her hand.

"Shiro won't get mad at you, but your power is terribly powerful. If you feel like him, you can make someone else's life your own."

Neko shook her shoulders at Kuro's words. She seemed like she was afraid to remember something.

"But if you wield that power, you could destroy something important to others. If you force him to do what you want, it is false. The reward will come soon."

"Hey..."

What should he do?

As he said that, Neko turned around and shrugged.

Kuro put his hand on Neko's head.

"Isn't it just a matter of saying you want to stay with Shiro without doing that?"

Neko opened her eyes and looked at Kuro. Her beautiful strange eyes shone with surprising color, as if they had just dropped the scales.

For a brief moment, Neko looked at Kuro with a respected look, but she soon returned to her and turned around.

"Hmm! You're trying to cut Shiro with your power though, Kurosuke!"

It hurts when they hit him there and Kuro got stuck on words.

Kuro has an important mission. If the boy is bad, Kuro must kill the boy for that "reason".

The feeling of not wanting to cut it was already welling up clearly in Kuro. Kuro believes in the current boy. And he hoped the last boy wasn't bad.

"If Shiro isn't evil, I won't cut it. When all this mess was cleared up, I would cook rice again. We would go to Gakuenjima and this time there would be no lies. Shiro will greet Kukuri and the others, they will be friends again and we will eat together."

It is a story when everything is done the way you want. However, he felt that fantasy gave him the power to face the things that he had in front of him.

"Will I have fish?"

"That's right. The fish may be the horse mackerel you liked, and the horse mackerel is delicious this season. The shiny teriyaki and horse mackerel simmered with radish are good too."

When he thought of the food he wanted to prepare for them to eat happily, several things occurred to him. Cooked rice with salmon and mushrooms will surely please them. Pork soup with abundant tuber and juicy fried tofu with fried eggplant. Which is better, omelette rolls or sweetly roasted eggs?

He saw Neko drooling. Kuro secretly loosened his expression.

Looking forward to a delicious meal, they will face off today. It is simple, but he believes that it is something important that forms the basis of human beings.

The uncertain boy who was built on illusion is also a flesh human who eats well, sleeps, laughs and cries.

Kuro closed his eyes.

When the boy wakes up, they will talk about the future. Aiming for the future they want, but fighting without running away, no matter what reality gets in the way.

With her determination on her chest, Neko leaned slightly against his back. Feeling a bit forgiven for the stray cat, Kuro giggled a bit.

++++++++++

Munakata stood in front of the Mihashira Tower.

The skyscraper tower, which stands out in the seven areas of Kamado where Japan's central institutions are concentrated, is the residence of the "Golden King" Kokujoji Daikaku, and a huge institution that divides the political economy of this country from behind.

Looking up at the majesty of the tower, which added a Japanese design to the modern and functional construction, Munakata silently pulled up his glasses.

Last night, the Himmelreich, surrounded by helicopters from "Scepter 4", suddenly exploded and burned, involving a helicopter and crashing.

"Scepter 4" immediately cooperated with the police and fire department to extinguish the fire at the scene of the accident, evacuate and rescue the general public, they searched for Adolf K. Weismann, the "Silver King", who should have been to aboard, and members of "Scepter 4" who were aboard the seventh helicopter involved.

The helicopter that had crashed into the river was immediately identified, but the interior was unmanned and no bodies or injuries were found. At first, a desperate search was carried out as if they had been dumped, but in the end they were found intact in a completely different location. None of the three crew members of the crashed No. 7 helicopter boarded the helicopter. They were found passed out in the warehouse and had no recollection of what happened just before boarding.

In other words, there were other people in the helicopter who made suspicious movements just before the Himmelreich explosion, and they were probably alive and on the run. Munakata laughed when he heard the report that he was the man he couldn't catch.

On the other hand, Adolf K. Weismann was stepping on the line that suddenly disappeared and was the thickest, but to his surprise, the body was found.

The immortal "King". The First King is said to be immortal, but he easily died that way.

However, Munakata did not see it with his own eyes, because the "Rabbits" had arrived.

The men of the Golden clan "Tokijikuin", and guard of Kokujoji Daikaku. They are a group like a shikigami who hide their faces in the form of a rabbit, wear a kimono as a bandage, erase their individual characteristics and quickly carry out the orders of Kokujoji Daikaku.

Rabbits. Their moving was nothing more than Kokujoji Daikaku's order. The police, who were in charge of the scene, immediately said: "I accepted the offer of the rabbit and handed over the scene.", And the media they were interviewing also said: "The rabbits, we can no longer get new information from here."

"Scepter 4" is also formally like a subordinate organization of that system. At the site's discretion, "the rabbits could not go against their will, and Weismann's body found was recovered by the Rabbits without explanation."

But this time, he couldn't get it out if it was his intention.

Weismann is an important reference in the case, and if the "Golden King" was able to hide it in his own way, it cannot be overlooked, even if it is too big.

That is why Munakata Reisi went to the Mihashira Tower in person.

"Wait here."

He ordered the companions, Kamo and Goto, at the entrance of the tower, and when he removed the saber from his waist and entered the place leaving it to Kamo, the "Rabbit" immediately greeted him and led Munakata.

The room where the Dresden Slate is embedded is the top floor of the tower, which is high enough to pierce the sky. The closer he was to the Slate, the more the power of the "King" in his body felt like a buzz.

"The Fourth King, Reisi Munakata, will initiate the interview."

The "Rabbit's" voice echoed, and the door like a shoji opened automatically.

In the center of the great hall, which had a glass floor, he saw a tall and strong old man over six feet tall.

The Second King, "Golden King" Kokujoji Daikaku. Next to the old man, who was 95 years old but did not show the shadow of decline, was a capsule large enough for a person to lie down. He thought there was something he wanted in front of him, but Munakata walked slowly over the Slate without showing his expression.

As he got one step closer, the pressure released by Kokujoji increased. Even though they were both kings, the aura of Kokujoji, who had been a "King" for almost 70 years, was exceptional. It seemed that the universe revolved around him.

Munakata has met and exchanged words with Kokujoji several times in the past. However, the pressure from Kokujoji that he felt now was stronger than at any other time in the past. Munakata inwardly understood that this was evidence that Kokujoji was disturbed.

He didn't know if it was out of anger or sadness, but Kokujoji's energy was rippling now. The wave turned into a pressure as if trying to eliminate Munakata from that universe, and attacked Munakata.

However, Munakata was also a "King", even though he was only two years old from Kokujoji's perspective. Munakata also has a Munakata universe, and there is providence.

Munakata walked to the correct position without losing his temper.

"King who has come to the Slate, I ask you, are you here to fight or speak?"

Kokujoji Daikaku said.

"I come without my sword. I am here to speak."

Munakata replied.

The meeting place between the "kings" was a form-oriented way of fighting, confirming that it was a meeting, not a war.

"It's been a long time, Excellency."

"Let's skip the introduction."

It was a terrible reaction, but Munakata kept smiling without caring about it.

“First of all, let me thank you. Thank you for interceding in the recent Royal Blue situation. All information obtained through extralegal measures will be used for the public good."

"I'm telling you to get to the point."

A heavy voice blocked Munakata's mouth. His roughly carved face didn't move, and it was hard to tell from the facial expression what kind of emotions were building up in his chest.

Munakata said clearly, forgiving the intimidating feeling emanating from Kokujoji.

"Bluntly then. I believe that the body obtained by your men from the Himmelreich is of the First King, Adolf K. Weismann."

"That's right."

Munakata stared at the capsule placed next to Kokujoji. Content cannot be viewed from distance and angle from where Munakata is.

"Weismann, the 'Silver King', was the origin. His attributes are immutable, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"The sudden death of the 'Immortal King' that kept his youth and power at its peak for over half a century. There are many mysteries in this situation. Please allow me to inspect the body."

Munakata's words changed Kokujoji's attitude. He placed his palm on the capsule as he looked at Munakata. He could see that his hands were clenched and trembling slightly.

The air moved gently. The pressure emanating from Kokujoji increased dramatically. He became almost a physical force, swelled and spread throughout the Slate.

His skin prickled. The Rabbit, who was standing next to him, backed away as if frightened. Munakata did not step against the pressure and stood up straight. He floated but stood with a smile on his face.

"It's fine."

Suddenly, the pressure of the road disappeared and he broke free.

Kokujoji removes his hand from the capsule and steps back to make way for Munakata.

Munakata bowed slightly to thank him and approached the capsule.

He saw a white man with long silver hair, stretched out through the lid of a transparent capsule. Appearance appears to be twenty years old. He was a beautiful man who seemed to be a gentle person with his eyes closed.

"The capsule that holds it is not a coffin to cry on. How can I open this capsule, which looks like it is meant to preserve the body?"

"If you feel like it, just do it. However, if you are a 'King', you will understand even in this state. This body is not alive."

The power of the "King" could not be felt from Weismann's body. The heart doesn't move either. He wasn't breathing. He can't see dilated pupils, he has all three signs of death.

Munakata looked at Kokujoji's face. After all, emotions cannot be seen. He wondered what it would be like to find an old friend who had fallen silent for the first time in decades.

In the vague imagination, the "Silver King" was more like a monster, and was a person with the same intimidation and dignity as Kokujoji, but the figure lying in this way was only a young man of the same generation as Munakata. Rather, he made him imagine that Kokujoji was once a young man and once aligned himself with this young man as an equal existence.

A man who stopped time almost 70 years ago. A man who could have lived forever is now cold again, stopping in front of him.

(Is the "Silver King" really dead? The "King" with immutable attributes was killed simply by the crash of his airship. Why? What was that explosion in the first place? Situationally, it's hard to imagine anything other than the "Silver King" exploding, but if so, is this suicide?)

The questions were endless, but it was certainly useless to ask the body.

++++++++++

After cleaning the empty room in the dorm, Kukuri and her friends left the room once to bring their costumes.

In the end, she does not throw or take out the luggage in the room, but simply clean and tidy it up, putting the leftover items back. The rice cooker, bowls, and other dishes in the room also showed signs of being used with care, and she felt that she couldn't bear to dispose of them or pick them up.

"I think I can put my costume on with this."

"Yes. Thanks to everyone's help, we ordered in no time. Thanks!"

As she walked down the hall while laughing with Mishina and the others, a student from the same class came from the front.

"Hello."

"Ah..."

He exchanged a relaxed greeting with Mishina and they crossed paths. Kukuri also raised her hand slightly with a smile.

"Oh, that boy, is he a residency student?"

A few seconds after crossing each other, Mishina suddenly tilted his head. Kukuri also remembers "that?" His shoulders were stiff. The student was standing at the end of the hall, fox-faced. Before Kukuri made a voice, the fox-faced boy opened a room door and entered.

"Eh?"

The fox-faced boy walked into the empty room that Kukuri and her colleagues had just cleaned.

"Kukuri? What's wrong? Let's go early."

Looking back at Kukuri who has stopped, Inaba called out to her.

"No."

She thought it was probably due to her mind. She doesn't think he has anything to do in the empty room, and she was sure that he visited those in the next room. She was shocked for a moment because the fox face was a bit creepy, but now there are many people who are preparing for the school festival and they are dressed strangely. Maybe it's part of the costume parade tomorrow or something.

Kukuri regained her temper and quickly followed the others who were worried.

++++++++++

How many days have passed since then? He was getting tired of sitting still.

Suoh sat on the bed in the "Scepter 4" underground detention center and closed his eyes.

All he repeated was a bad dream. However, in this place, he was thankful that his conscience wasn't so blamed even if something happened, and he thought that if he came across the glasses guy, he would hit him.

He does not know the outside situation. Munakata did not show his face except when he came to give him unscrupulous advice, and he spent his time eating the prisoner food they gave him and lying down without knowing if the situation had progressed.

Suoh wondered how long he should wait. If things change a lot, Kusanagi will probably try to inform him through Anna's responsiveness. He thinks the news comes first, or the other party comes first, but Suoh is not a suffering person.

As he calmly watched the flames waving and swirling inside his body, he thought about going to find answers with his own feet if he had to wait too long, then he heard something fall with a slight noise.

When he opened his eyes, a red dial-type telephone was lying randomly on the floor of the dimly lit cell. The phone was made of cheap materials and looked like a toy. It was lying on its side, the headset went off and rolled, and the phone line was broken and not connected to anything.

A phone that was not connected to anywhere began to ring.

Suoh looked at the phone, which kept ringing with a toy-like sound, without expression.

Apparently, he was hallucinating from someone's mental interference. To the extent that he received something like this, his spirit seemed to be exhausted.

There was a small click and the handset lifted by itself.

"Hello? Hello? Do you have a minute?"

From the raised handset, he heard a frivolous voice with a sign of insanity.

"Who am I, are you wondering? I am the man you are looking for. If I remember correctly his name was… Totsuka?"

Laughter can be heard from the other side of the receiver. As if the jarring laughter was embodied, something like white smoke came out of the phone.

"I'm the one who murdered him!"

The smoke from the phone formed the face of a creepy fox and presented itself to Suoh.

"No, I'm sorry for him. He probably sits alone in the other world, so I'm going to kill everyone from Kusanagi to Yata as well. Should I? Eh?"

The smoke fox revolves around the Suoh like a play. Suoh silently lowered her eyes as he fought against his voice.

"What's your reaction? Maybe next time, I'll entertain myself with that young woman. You know, the one who is always with you. Anna-chan. I'm sure it will be fun, right? I like young girls."

He opened his eyes downward. The smoke fox was in front of him and cheerfully raised the edge of his mouth.

"Oh, I got you!"

When the fox focused on the smoke body finely and turned into a needle, it jumped into Suoh's eyes. The inside of his head swayed. The fox's laugh echoed through his head and body.

"Hahahahaha! Hahahahaha! You did it! If you come here, this! You'll catch me!"

There was a feeling that Suoh's flames were sucked into something that had entered his body.

Suoh's expression twisted into a smile even though he didn't want to laugh, and the edge of his mouth sharpened. A laugh escaped his mouth.

Suoh thought and said.

"I see. This is how you do it."

The distorted smile recedes and Suoh returns to his original expression. He found out that "that guy" in Suoh was upset. Suoh's heart screamed as "that guy" swayed.

If he wanted so much to eat the flames on Suoh, he felt that he could feed him, but the cause of "that guy's" death was that Suoh's drinking did not diminish.

Suoh closed his eyes again and focused his attention on the flames within him.

The boiling flame was always there. A sea of flames that propels and inflames Suoh.

He has lived holding it and screwing it so it doesn't get rough and overflow Suoh and swallow the things around it.

He temporarily entrusted the image to the sea of flames.

The image that naturally arises is a ferocious beast made of flames. The beast repels the "boy" who has entered Suoh and raises its fangs. He found out that "that guy" was scared and ran away from Suoh.

Still, Suoh didn't let go of the fangs he had put on "that guy". A beast that is a mass of Suoh's power chases "that guy" who was trying to escape.

It was a bit like the feeling he had when he was sensitive to Anna. The contents of him and the others were intertwined. Someone's soul and part of Suoh's power flew in sync. He went through the "Scepter 4" camp, through the city, across the sea, dived on an island in the bay, and headed for a room in a building.

A fox-faced person was seen through the flames in the room. The body covered with a fox face is the host of "that guy".

"There?"

The fire beast barked without hesitation or adaptation. He attacked the fox-faced person and Suoh's power exploded.

Suoh slowly opened his eyes. Suoh's consciousness returned from a short trip to the dark cell of "Scepter 4."

He found it. However, he could not be stopped by a remote flame. Of course, he doesn't think it's that easy to get rid of Suoh.

Seeing where he went, Suoh stood up in a refreshing mood. He plucked the magnificent willow with a chain that was holding his hands. The shackles, which appears to have been an extraordinary suppressor, were shattered.

He released the flames a little from his body. The flames that surged from Suoh's body lightly knocked on the prison door and melted the surroundings with the excess heat. Suoh came out of the hole and started walking.

An alarm sounded and several bulkheads closed one after the other, trying to prevent Suoh from walking, but the flames that erupted without caring about everything pierced it. The bright red molten iron wet his feet like a puddle. Suoh continued as he stepped on it.

Right now, perhaps with the glow of running a part of the flame in search of the "Colorless King", the power increased and he wanted to start running again. Suoh did not suppress him by force, but instead he let the flames he wanted to overflow and proceeded while he burned the area.

He felt pretty good even though he had a rage that overwhelmed him.

Maybe it's because he wasn't against the raging flames and trusted himself.

Maybe it's because he decided to walk the way he wanted without being tied to anything.

Suoh literally walked with the heart of the beast released from prison.

++++++++++

Fushimi clicked his tongue as if he had finally arrived.

He knew that he would not be quiet in prison forever, but more than that, he frowned at the bad time Munakata was absent.

Fushimi had come out in front of the main building of "Scepter 4" after ordering a nearby member to evacuate. It is the monster's escape progress route.

The moment he felt that the temperature of the atmosphere had risen, the entrance to the main building turned red and exploded. A blast of intense heat puffed. Even Fushimi, who was far away, felt that the aftermath of the heat would likely burn his skin.

The shadow of a man appeared swaying through the dust and heat haze. A bright red flame rose from the man's body. Man himself is an extremely hot source of heat and the residual heat that melts into the air is visualized as a flame. He looked like this.

Suoh Mikoto. With fiery red hair, sharp eyes that press on people with just the eyes, and a boxer body covered in taut muscles in a short-sleeved shirt, standing in a winter look, even repainting the seasons warms the winter air.

"Fushimi-san!"

A member called out to Fushimi with a voice asking for instructions.

"Even if he does something, don't do anything. Those were our orders."

"But…!"

He hears footsteps approaching. When he looks, Awashima was with a special task force behind the front door. Fushimi shrugged. Now that Munakata is absent, Awashima is in charge of this occasion. Her eyes shone with the will not to retreat even in front of the "King".

"Third King, Mikoto Suoh! You are under the control of "Scepter 4". You are not allowed to leave."

Whether or not he listened to Awashima's recommendation, Suoh didn't stop walking, but he didn't move his facial expression and walked towards her with a relaxed step as if he was taking a walk.

Awashima bit her teeth and drew her sword.

"Stop!"

Awashima concentrated the blue power in the hand that held the sword and launched the attack from him. It is Awashima's great ability that specializes in long distances, in which she uses her power to cut from a distance.

The slashes turned into a grid and attacked Suoh from the front. Suoh refused to avoid or receive it. He just kept walking down the path that he decided to go at the same pace. Before touching Suoh's body, the cut of the blue lattice flew as if the glass had been shattered due to the heat.

Awashima took a deep breath and withdrew.

Suoh stopped once with a face that he had just noticed his way was blocked.

Suoh took a breath. Just with that, the flame that enveloped Suoh grew larger, just like a flame that received oxygen and gained momentum.

Suoh exhale. The scorching power is exhaled with the breath, Suoh's feet make an ominous noise and collapse into a crater, and a small tile is rolled up.

Suoh gently spread both arms. A flame was held on his arm. The gesture seemed gentler, but the tornado of fire that appeared on his arm was fierce.

Fushimi clicked his tongue and ran away. Slipping in front of Awashima, who was still standing, he stabbed blue-powered knives into the ground and raised a shield to protect them.

The twister of flame released by Suoh scraped the stone pavement and burned the surroundings to destroy them.

Fushimi's barrier extinguished like a paper shield in the face of Suoh's flames, but it still helped kill the momentum. Fushimi didn't fall down just kneeling, even though he was hit by the flames that broke through the barrier and the heat dampened him. Awashima who was behind was not dead.

Fragile on the ground that had turned into a pile of tiled stones, Fushimi repeated heavy breathing at best. It looked like air.

He heard footsteps in the sound of flames. Mikoto Suoh was coming.

Fushimi touched his sword.

Suoh walked through the flames and dust.

++++++++++

Kusanagi greeted the boss who came out of "Scepter 4" in a striking way, as if he was erasing what was blocking his way, with a bitter smile.

"Yes, good work."

His friends bow deeply, saying, "Hello!", Like a younger brother welcoming the boss who was released after finishing his duties.

"Mikoto-san..."

Yata was impressed by Suoh's appearance, which he saw for the first time in a few days.

Anna ran to Suoh silently and grabbed his hand. Suoh looked at Anna without saying anything.

It was Anna who felt that Suoh would come out. At the same time that Anna's responsiveness caught Suoh's growing flames, Kusanagi summoned all the members of "Homura". Only the men from the bar rushed here, but soon all the members of "Homura" will join in at the end.

"Boss. Did you finally find his location?"

When Kusanagi said that, Suoh looked at his friends and raised the edge of his mouth a little.

"It's a school island."

An edifying air boiled among the friends. "Kah! Just like I thought!" Yata was excited and clenched his fist.

After all, Anna was right. Kusanagi was also studying the search in Gakuenjima.

Gakuenjima is a very original school that is physically and informationally isolated from the outside world. If they really want to search for it, they either have to put in the time and effort, or they have to go through a lot of hard work.

And now that Suoh has left, the option to dedicate time has already disappeared.

When he looked towards the "Scepter 4" headquarters, Fushimi was behind the destroyed main gate. With a tattered appearance, he was looking at Suoh in a position to stop other members who were about to get up with his hand.

Guilty Fushimi's eyes seemed to be directed at what was ahead of Suoh, not at the destructive action he had just taken.

"Come on."

Suoh said softly and started walking. Yata and other members of "Homura" cheered loudly and followed Suoh.

From his position, Kusanagi could see that Anna was holding Suoh's hand tightly.

#K #k project #k the first story #k novel

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kimmimaru · 5 years ago

Text

Yet more remake randoms.

One thing I really did enjoy about the remake was that at least two (or maybe it was the same guy, can’t be sure) infantry/security soldiers recognised Cloud. That’s one thing in the OG I got confused over, HOW did no one recognise Cloud when he would’ve been known to at least a few people. He obviously went through training, he would’ve worked with some of them, surely? I’m glad we got those moments. Also Kunsel got mentioned! I assumed they were trashing most of Crisis Core, obviously not. Judging by the posters for Banora we can assume that it exists/existed. Hojo’s mention of project G suggests the existence of Genesis at least...I’m not sure how I feel about that since I was never a massive fan of Genesis. His part in Sephiroth’s descent into madness annoyed me, he’s a big boy and can go mad perfectly well on his own lol. Hints of a possible deepground is also interesting, I mean if they have a secret base under sector 7 then maybe deepground does exist too? There’s no solid evidence of it but logically it makes sense. Although DoC has it’s issues, obviously I didn’t mind the reveal of secret bases, ShinRa is a dodgy company I don’t see why they wouldn’t have underground places full of nasty monsters. Also, the main reason I cling to DoC is because of the Vincent content tbh, Vincent is one of the main three characters I used in the OG (Cid being the other) and he’s amazing. I get people’s issues with the remake, I really do. It DOES lack the grittyness the OG had. It feels...more fantastical which is kind of annoying. If the characters didn’t swear so much I’d have thought it was a game aimed at younger audiences. As an adult playing it that grates on me. I love the characters, Cloud especially is better than I had hoped, I was worried they’d make him all soft and woobyish, I’m glad they kept his hard edges. And the fact that Cloud knows how security stuff works, like the emergency locks and how to access the computers etc is yet more hints that he’s not all he thinks he is. Pretty sure SOLDIER’s wouldn’t know half the stuff he does, they wouldn’t have any reason to. I was...disappointed to see that Sephiroth didn’t cause anywhere near as much chaos as he did in the OG. I don’t understand why they didn’t do that. That moment in the OG when you realise the doors to your cell have been opened and then you have to follow a trail of blood and you see scars on the wall from Masamune. It was...so powerful. And eerie. The dead bodies along the way and then the president lying across his desk was like; :O It was scary and intense. That scene in the remake was lame. No blood. No corpses. Just a trail of purple bubbly stuff. Yeah no I didn’t like that. Sephiroth shouldn’t give a fuck WHO he kills in his quest for power. He should have stormed through ShinRa with his sword swinging but all he did was stab the president only after Cloud got there. That scene should have been handled much better. I love the fight with Rufus though. That was actually fun, although i’m not one for dodging or blocking so I took a beating lol. And that trick with the coins just...suits him? Wasting money like it’s nothing to him. His possessiveness and all the quips he makes while fighting. Just perfect Rufus. Honestly, out of everyone (for me), they got Rufus, Reno and Cloud perfect. I do like Tseng too and Rude...i thought Rude would be somewhat more callous but it’s cute that he feeds birds from his hand. I love Reno’s anger. Don’t know why he’s so angry but it’s fun and his foul language. The fact that Rude actively saves Tifa was a bit of a surprise for me, I know in the OG Rude likes Tifa (she could break his neck if she wanted, as I’ve always thought Rude is into that, the kinky bastard) but was very shocked to see him actively interfere and save her. I need to replay it but I always thought in the OG when you fight Rude and have Tifa on your team he never actually attacks her...or maybe that was just my game? I don’t know if that was deliberate. So it is faithful to the OG if I didn’t just imagine that. Also, on the subject of Rude, did I imagine it or did he hit the button to drop the plate because Reno couldn’t do it? I know Cloud attacks Reno before he can do it but his hand hesitates. Again, may have imagined it but it looked like he hesitated so Rude did it for him. (that rockstar slide under Cloud’s sword WAS cool. Not something I would have expected of Rude but I LOVED that). Also not sure why they didn’t have Tseng slap Aerith. He does it in the OG. Maybe they were worried about the reception of a move like that? Violence against women etc. I personally didn’t mind it, it was a shocking moment and the Turks ARE supposed to be bad guys. I did notice he does raise his hand to her, looking like he’s about to back hand her but the security guard seems to pull her away before he can. In the OG I believe that Tseng’s supposed to be putting on a front? Like, it’s hinted that he didn’t do it for any other reason than the fact that he thinks Aerith SHOULD be afraid of the Turks and maybe to stop himself from getting too close to her? Either way, they could’ve and probably should’ve left that bit in. It also doesn’t give me hope for later on when they do the temple of the ancients bit and Cloud loses his mind and beats the crap out of Aerith. Somehow I don’t think they’ll put that in anymore, which is a damn shame. Honestly, I like all the tiny gestures and body language they put in. It really goes a long way to make the characters much more human. All the little smiles, the hand gestures and everything. Like having Reno restless, unable to keep still. Short, sharp, angry gestures. Constant cursing. Rude’s calmer motions, the little moments of fear they both have when one of them is injured or possibly dead (when Rude’s helicopter crashes and Reno picks up his glasses). It shows how close they are and yeah they are bad guys but I have always been against making a bad guy ‘pure evil’ and inhuman (only exception is Sephiroth in this case because he IS part alien monster). Even the Turks are human, they should feel fear, they should care about something and have motivations beyond the simple; we are bad so we will try to defeat the good guys. I don’t want pure good guys either, I want them to have flaws and failings which is why I loved the OG so much. They were all just...human. And obviously we didn’t get QUITE as much Turk actions as I would have preferred but now that we are getting it I’m pretty happy with what we have. Edit to add; my issue with the remake’s version of the plate drop is it lacked that sense of helplessness. And a lot more people seemed to have survived. Maybe if they’d added a mission to go through and help look for more survivors, have people trapped, people you can’t save etc. I wanted to feel that despair when I played it, the same feeling I got when I played Zack’s final battle in CC. You know he doesn’t survive, you fight over and over again and that feeling of knowing that no matter what you do he’s going to die anyway. I loved that. It’s so real. It shows that even a hero can’t save everyone and it’s a hard fact of life. It definitely lacked the sheer horror and evil of the act. I mean I did cry when I played it...but the end ruined it for me. Having it turn out that people are alive who should have died, kind of destroys the whole emotional aspect. There’s no real consequences to anything in the remake. And, judging by all the hints at changing fate and stuff, there won’t be in the coming parts either. Makes me really quite angry. Everyone lives and nobody dies, totally unrealistic and pointless for a game like final fantasy 7. I am silently begging square to reconsider their direction if what they’re hinting at is true and they’re going to keep Aerith alive. Please, please don’t do that. It will totally ruin the game and it’ll lose all meaning. I love Aerith but her death is a poignant, emotional tragedy and Cloud’s (or the players) helplessness is a key factor in that. If this ends with ‘and everything was fine and everyone was happy’ I’m going to puke. Anyways, will stop here. This got LONG.

#final fantasy 7 remake #remake spoilers #long post

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simonxriley · 5 years ago

Text

End Up Here

Pairing: John Price x Elizabeth “Liz” Walker

Summary: Price finally kills Makarov, now all that’s left is for him and Liz to talk about what the future holds.

Words: 2,315

Warnings: light angst.

A/N: I needed to get this out of my system, so enjoy some Price and Liz fluff. Also if anyone wants me to do one-shots of Price and his son, let me know.

Also on Ao3 and FFN

Glass crackled and crunched under Liz’s booted feet as she made her way to Price.

The war was finally over, Makarov was finally dead, all thanks to Price. Makarov’s death didn’t come without a price though, they lost more friends and family they could ever imagine, and now all that was left of Task Force 141 was two people.

Liz stopped at the door, her hand resting on her lower abdomen. She closed her eyes, caresses her thumb over her stomach as a million emotions flooding inside her. Happiness, relief, fear, and love. A moment later she opened them and walked in, seeing Price sitting on the floor having a cigar as he watched Makarov’s lifeless body.

She walked over to him,glancing at Makarov’s body as she took a seat right next to him, and sighed. “You did it.”

“Yeah.” He took one last drag of his cigar and flicked it away, never turning his attention to her.

A few seconds later Liz smacked his arm, forcing him to look her way with an offended look on his face. “Don’t you dare do something like that again John. We can’t afford to lose you too.”

“We?”

Tears welled in her eyes, she quickly wiped them away. “I’m pregnant.”

His face softened, something she never thought she would see, and he locked eyes with her. “Okay, we should get you checked out and make sure the baby is alright.”

Price began to stand up, only to have Liz grab his arm and shake her head. “In a moment, I want to take this in a little more before someone comes to collect the body.”

He nodded and sat back down, scrunching his face at the pain in his back. She chuckled, making him glare at her for a brief moment. “What?”

“I think you need to get checked out first, you are the one who ran, leaped and crashed a helicopter than fell down a floor onto your back. You’re lucky it’s not broken.”

“You’re the one carrying our child. You should get checked out first.”

Liz sighed through her nose, looking over at Makarov’s body once more. This was supposed to be a one way trip, she didn’t expect to live neither did Price. Yet here they were, alive and with a future to think about.

It was a week after Soap’s death where she found herself in Price’s bed and every night after that. They were careless back then, all that was on their mind was finding and killing Makarov, not protection. In a way she thought he would freak once she said she was pregnant, only he seems..happy or maybe he knew it would happen eventually.

“I thought you would be upset and maybe even a little angry about this, yet you almost seem a little happy.”

“I knew it was going to happen eventually with how careless we both were. We thought we were going to die, we didn’t. Now we have a child to worry about.”

She gave him a small smile, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I’m surprised you even want it. You don’t seem like the man who would want to be a father.”

“Things change Liz!” He grabbed her hand, giving it a squeeze. “And you’re the only thing I have left in this world.”

“We started off as acquaintances, now we’re leaving as a family, quite literally. We’ve been through so much in the past five months and I didn’t think I would survive.” Her hand came to rest on her stomach, a small smile spreading across her face. “This war took everything from us, yet it gave us a child in return. It doesn’t make sense.”

Price stood up, offering his hand that she graciously accepted and pulled her up onto her feet. “It doesn’t need too.”

xXx

Liz and Price were at a nearby hospital getting looked over. Price was fine, minus from the few bruises on his back and he would need to take time off to rest, she was going to hold him to that. Liz on the other hand didn’t get injured, a few minor cuts and scrapes, nothing to worry about. Now they were waiting for the ultrasound tech to come in.

She glanced around the room, looking at all the little decor around the room, then settled on Price who was seated in a chair reading a pamphlet of some kind. “I was thinking if we have a boy, we should name him John. After Soap.”

He set the pamphlet back and stood up, walking over to her and placed himself between her legs, arms on each side of her. “Will he be a junior?”

“No.” She chuckles. “I was thinking his middle name should be Riley, after Ghost. If you’re okay with it.”

“Johnathon Riley Price. It rolls nicely off the tongue, and I like it.” He kissed her forehead, then pulled away. “What if we have a girl?”

“It does roll off the tongue nicely. And I don’t know, I’m sure we’ll come up with a name.”

The door opened a few seconds later, forcing Price to sigh and move to the side to let the ultrasound tech do her job.

Liz laid down, taking Price’s hand into hers and gave him a small smile. The nurse came over, moving her shirt up to reveal her stomach. “Before I start, I just want to say there’s a good chance the baby might have an irregular heartbeat from what you’ve just been through….”

“What if it does?” asked Price.

“It’s nothing to really worry about, as long as she takes it easy for a few weeks the baby’s heartbeat should go back to normal.”

Price looked down at her. “She will, I’ll make sure of it.”

The nurse gave him a soft smile and got the gel and the ultrasound wand. Squirting some of the gel onto her stomach Liz took a deep breath, calming her nerves. She didn’t even know why she was nervous to begin with.

Both of their attention was on the monitor as the nurse placed the wand on her stomach. It wasn’t long before they heard a heartbeat and they saw the little one on the screen. Tears started to well in her eyes, she wanted to turn to Price but couldn’t, her eyes were locked to the screen. Little did she know, his own eyes were glistening as well.

“It looks like the baby is completely healthy, the heartbeat is perfect. You also look to be close to three months along, do you remember your last menstrual cycle?”

“I remember having spotting in November and very little in December, but it was nothing like my actual cycle, which is pretty heavy.”

The nurse nodded her head and took the wand off her stomach. “It sounds like you conceived in October, which would explain why you’re almost three months along now. That also means your due date is towards the end of July.”

“October huh?” She glanced over at Price to see him look away, avoiding her eyes. “Good to know.”

The nurse grabbed a towel, taking the gel off her stomach. “I’ll get the ultrasound pictures for you and then you’re free to go.”

“Alright, thank you!” Liz sat up as the nurse left the room, and turned to Price. “I conceived this child when we started having sex. Wow!”

He looked back over at her, slightly narrowing his eyes. “At least we know.”

“At last we know.” She tapped her fingers on the medical table and sighed. “Please tell me we’re going to a hotel after this? I just really want to take a shower and go to bed.”

Price sat down on the edge, wrapping his left arm around her waist. “We are. We leave for base tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yes I get to sleep in.”

The nurse came in seconds later with the ultrasound pictures and handed them to Liz. “You guys are free to go and congratulations!”

“Thank you!” They both said in unison.

She hopped off and stretched, then all three of them headed out the door.

xXx

After a much needed shower, Liz was sitting in bed under the covers looking at the ultrasound photos. She figured she was pregnant before, when she was spotting and truthfully when she told Price she wasn’t entirely sure, it could have been just stress. Nope, she was indeed pregnant, in a way it doesn’t seem real. Regardless, she was very happy.

Price came out of the bathroom, after taking his shower and sat on the edge of the bed. Liz looked over seeing a softball size bruise along with some cuts from the glass, thinking he was very lucky. A few moments later he got under the covers beside her, scrunching his face at the pain in his back.

“Can I see those?”

“Yeah.” She handed him the photos, watching him examine them. “How do you really feel about this John? I know you said you expected this to happen, expecting and having it happen are two different things.”

“You almost sound like you want me to be mad about this.”

“No.” She chuckled. “I’m actually happy you’re not. I just still picture us looking for any clues on finding Makarov and when night fell we would go back to your room. Not really caring about anything. Now we’re going to be parents’ in six months, it doesn’t seem real.”

“It’s very real Liz.” He showed her the photos and she glared in return. “After Soap’s death I just didn’t care anymore, all I wanted was to find Makarov even if I died in the process. Then you came to me after we rescued the Russian president and lost Sandman, that you were afraid of losing me too. I was so angry at the world and Yuri, I never saw what was still in front of me. You!”

Liz’s face softened and she softly smiled. “I don’t blame you, I would’ve been the same way if I was in your shoes. And truthfully as long as we were together I didn’t care what happened between us. I am very happy with how it turned out. Now I have to tell my ‘wonderful’ family.”

She rolled her eyes and scoffed, that was the last thing she wanted to do.

“I am too! And what? They won’t like who the father is?” He set the photos down between them, and sighed.

“My father is emotionally abusive and neglectful, only to me though. My brothers’ were the prodigy of the family, I was just the disgrace. I never did anything right in his eyes and I’m sure getting pregnant by my captain is on the list of things I’m capable of doing.”

He clenched his right hand and his jaw, feeling his blood boil like it did when he found out Yuri knew Makarov seconds before Soap left this world. .

“I would very much like to meet him someday. What about your mum?”

She shook her head. “She died before I was two. Car crash.”

He nodded. “What about these brothers’ of yours? Are they like your father?”

“Hesh is, he always wanted to be like dad.” She sat up, placing her hands in her lap. “Logan isn’t, he seemed to be the only one that actually cared about me. We were the closest growing up. But my dad always encouraged us to join the military and had us go through ridiculous tasks, like finding our own food and water, and shelter. I tagged along until I started thinking for myself and decided military life was not for me.” She scoffed. “I could be getting my PHD in astrophysics right now, but nope. I joined the Army at seventeen because I knew my accomplishments wouldn’t mean a damn thing to him.”

Price scoffed and shook his head. “He’s a wanker. Now the war is over, maybe you can go for that PHD now?”

“Another lifetime. It would take me away from being the parent I want to be.” She yawned, grabbing the ultrasound photos and putting them on the nightstand. “Besides I haven’t felt passionate about it in years.”

Liz fixed her pillow than laid down, waiting for him to do the same. Only he didn’t, he stayed where he wasn’t.”You’re not coming to bed?”

“Not yet, you get some sleep. You both need the rest.”

“Oh alright.” She turned on her side, away from him and let out a small sigh, then closed her eyes.

xXx

It was the middle of the night and Price couldn’t sleep, his mind was reeling. He killed Makarov, ending this war and avenging Soap’s death. He should be happy and in a way he was, yet the only thing in this world that made him truly happy again was the young woman sleeping in bed beside him, and the child she is now carrying.

His thumb traced over the pictures, a small smile spreading across his face. Then he placed the pictures back on the nightstand and laid down, wrapping his arms around her and pulled her against him. He has no idea how to be a father or if he would even be a good one, all he knows about is military life and what to do in a fight. Now he was responsible for another life, another life that only came to be because of his carelessness.

It wasn’t that long ago where he sacrificed himself to make sure an injured Soap and the rest of the team got out. Now they were all gone, the only people in the world he considered family. Only the universe gave him another one instead. He didn’t understand, thinking he was the last man on earth who deserved love and a child, yet he got them both. All because of a Corporal named Liz.

#liz x price #oc liz walker #john price #call of duty

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kidletkorner · 7 years ago

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Charlottesville

First off- R.I.P to all of the Americans who lost their lives, and love to those who have been injured and their families, in the hateful crime that took place in Charlottesville, VA.

One question that has been floating around in my mind for the past year - Where the hell is America going?

Sorry - not just America, Kenya, Korea, or Venezuela… the world?

If you don’t know the backstory, here it is:

A protest in Charlottesville, VA, started it all, a protest over the removal Robert E. Lee statue, which turned into a rally, involving the KKK, along with white supremacist, which quickly turned violent. Hundreds of people were breaking out into fights against each other, which at that point it was just pure hate, then turned to pure tragedy. A car, driven by 20-year-old James Alex Fields, Jr, rammed itself through a crowd of anti-racists, killing a 32-year-old woman. Fortunately, now, the suspect is in custody, along with three other people with a connection with the protest. Along with this death of an innocent American, 2 other deaths have been recognized, Lieutenant J Jay Cullen, 48, and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates, who’s birthday is, sadly, today. These officers died in a helicopter crash, as they were trying to respond to the protest.

After the first death, the white supremacist rally was then ceased by police.

A civil rights investigation has been opened since for the car crash.

A “Unite the Right” rally, which was flooded with white supremacist, in which they shouted homophobic, racist, and hateful slurs.

Counter-protesters also attended, along with activists, anti-fascists protestors, and interfaith leaders. City Officials and Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency.

A torch-carrying through UVA was held on Friday, with marchers shouting Nazi words, punching and fighting counter-protesters, and people spraying counter-protesters with chemicals.

"The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence. From here on the agency will not be commenting on the situation."

The driver, Fields, has been charged with second degree murder, three counts of malicious woundings, and one count of fleeing the scene, and has been booked a jail cell at Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Fields was soon arrested after the attack, and is now in custody. His mother told Toledo Blade, that Fields told her he was going to an “alt rally” in Virginia, and that was all she knew about it. “I try to stay out of his political views. I don’t get too involved.” She told the Blade.

“I told him to be careful… if they are going to a rally, to make sure he is doing it peacefully.” She said, just before breaking into tears.

Witnesses describe the car hit into protestors as “flinging people out of the way”. Leaving one dead from the car attack, two dead from a helicopter crash, and 19 injured, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, told citizens who attended the protest to “go home”.

McAuliffe said he had spoken to Donald Trump and told him, “the only way to move forward was to bring people together to stop the hate speech.”

"Our message is plain and simple: Go home. You are not wanted in this great commonwealth. Shame on you. You pretend that you're patriots, but you are anything but a patriot. You want to talk about patriots? Talk about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who brought our country together." -Terry McAuliffe

The crash victim who sadly lost her life has been identified as a 32-year-old woman named Heather Heyer, who was a paralegal with the Miller Law Group. She was crossing the street just as the car was driven through the crowd, killing her instantly. “She died doing what was right.” Her mother said.

The number of injuries are up to 35. 19 citizens were injured in the crash, and another 14 were injured, as the result for the clashing of the white supremacist and counter-protesters.

"The premeditated violence that our community experienced today was completely unacceptable." --Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas

A FaceBook account, supposedly run by Fields, includes memes about the alt-right, and supporters of Donald Trump, including Pepe the Frog, pictures of Fields, and a portrait of Donald Trump sitting on a throne, along with nazi and white supremacy symbols. Earlier posts from Fields evoke theories that Fields might be planning to join the military. An army spokesman did not verify if Fields did serve in the military or not.

The other three arrested for the connection with the attack are-

Troy Dunigan, 21, Chattanooga, Tennessee; arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Jacob L. Smith, 21, Louisa, Virginia; arrested and charged with misdemeanor and assault and battery. James O’ Brien, 44, Gainesville, Florida, arrested and charged for carrying a concealed handgun.

Now, Donald Trump has something to say-- Brace yourself.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides. It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. It’s been going on for a long, long time.”

“My administration is restoring the sacred bonds of loyalty between this nation and its citizens, but our citizens must also restore the bonds of trust and loyalty between one another. We must love each other, respect each other, and cherish our history and our future together. So important. We have to respect each other.”

"We have so many incredible things happening in our country, so when I watch Charlotte's, to me it's very, very sad,"

Trump said in his speech that violence was “on many sides”.

A White House spokesperson said the president was “condemning hatred, bigotry and violence from all sources and all sides."

And, of course, instead of addressing the situation with respect and sympathy for the victims of the attack, Trump decided to boast about his policies and the impact they have had on economy and jobs.

Subtle.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

So here is my opinion on it.

While yes, you are allowed to have your own opinions, but you are not allowed to kill or harm someone to show those opinions. And, apparently, this 20-year-old decided to harm and kill people in order to show his opinions, which is unacceptable. For now, the police and FBI and the court are going to try to find as many more charges against Fields as they can, hoping to give him more time in jail, and maybe even the death penalty.

For this post, I have decided not to share my opinions about the death penalty on Kidlet Korner.

Anthony Scaramucci, former White House Communications Chief and current-and-always lunatic, stated that Trump should have been “much harsher”.

Because that’s what America needs right now.

It would be a dream if we could live in a peaceful, happy, and loving world, but sadly, from what it looks like today, we might never get that. Because today, people are too busy hating and discriminating against other people for what they think or how they look or what their gender is or what their sexuality is or what their skin color is or what their race is. This event has played a huge role in discrimination, and really puts a label on what America has turned into.

Our founding fathers built this country on courage, not on fear, hate, or discrimination. It’s mind-blowing once you look at why people do these things today, or why they did them.

Here is what people, like Fields, don’t understand. You cannot judge someone just based off of their beliefs, their sexuality, their race, their skin color, their gender, their religion, or even what they are for and are not for. You also cannot judge them for their personality…

In conclusion,

Love over hate,

Peace over discrimination,

Equality over war.

Thanks for reading,

Kidlet.

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my-tas-modern-world-history-blog · 6 years ago

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The Vietnam War: The River Styx

By Sofia Chun

The River Styx January 1964 to December 1965, I think it was during the rising action to climax. It more focused on the South. In South Vietnam, it was a disaster because after Diem was assassinated the people were happy at first and greeted new governors and along side their American leaders. But, the governors weren’t promising so couple more of South Vietnamese leaders were taken down in less than a year.

Mean While, North Vietnam had still the same leader, whom people still follewed and admired him. Ho Chi Minh. They were promoting peace and trying to solve the problems without war but it had started.

After Johnson was elected President after JFK assassination more American Advisers and more Americans soldiers were shipped to Vietnam. The event in this episode that I remember the most was when Viet Cong took over Binh Gia and the South troops were on their way to take it back. it was interesting to watch it because it showed the survivors of the event in the interview from both sides explaining what happened that day. Tran Ngoc Toan, (South side) said that he was on his way to take the dead bodies of the 4 American advisers who died in the helicopter crash when Viet Cong attacked them. Later, the South Vietnamese soldiers were surrounded by the Viet Cong and they started shelling. Ngoc Toan, played dead and he had 3 bullet wounds. I wondered how could this man have survived? If I was him couldn’t have played dead because I would be too scared and I would start to shake in fear because enemy is right beside me.

I think this event was the first time where the North actually started to fight because before they tried to solve it without violence like when the French came back and when Americans were neutral with the Vietnamese. Van Tong, Viet Cong said that after that fight all he could was Saigon soldiers bodies and that they could have won if Americans weren’t involved.

President Johnson started sending aircraft because Viet Cong was rising. I think 1966 was the time where Americans started to feel threatened by them since they started to use more force. They formed I think unnecessary strategy to bomb in the North. While the soldiers were listening to the President talking about how North was beautiful and in a way people built it, the soldiers had to bomb it ACCORDING to the order. It’s very ironic.

The American citizens had been growing their attention to the war, like university students were having a debate and supporting that it should end. Morley Safer showed what was happening in South of Vietnam that American soldiers were burning the house of old people, children etc who followed Viet Cong when they spent whole life building them. The Americans were in shock because when they supported them they didn’t know about the other side.

One of the American soldier remembered when the bomb struck them accidentally he saw them dancing in the fire. despite all this stories and attacks from the Viet Cong for months, I think the President Johnson didn’t want to give up or admit that they had no chance of winning because he sent more than 100,000 thousands of men. I think it would have been better and saved more lives of American soldiers if Johnson made a deal with North Vietnam, it would have saved lives and costs. If you were a president sometimes you should know how to bend your ego to save your citizens.

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juliandmouton30 · 7 years ago

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"The architectural world seems to be responding to Charlottesville with deafening silence"

When Neo-Nazis are marching in the streets, architects need to step up and confront the issues surrounding colonial monuments, argues Phineas Harper.

Baying Neo-Nazis grasping flaming torches on the steps of the University of Virginia's Rotunda, designed by president-turned-architect, Thomas Jefferson in the 1820s, was the chilling prelude to the events of Saturday 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville.

The fascists came from far afield in an organised display of white-supremacist hatred that left 19 injured, one murdered, two troopers dead in a helicopter crash and America reeling. At the heart of their stated mission was a local authority planning decision �� the proposed removal (and sale) of a poorly executed bronze statue depicting a defeated Confederate general made 59 years after the end of the civil war.

The extraordinary events of Charlottesville have revealed the terrifying emboldenment of white supremacism under President Trump and show that the question of memorialisation in public space has become the most incendiary architectural debate of our time.

The demolition of monuments is as much a symbolic act as their erection and just as old. From the British destruction of Beijing's Gardens of Perfect Brightness amid the second Opium War to ISIS bombing the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul two months ago, monuments have been made and torn down to further political projects of all creeds.

The question of memorialisation in public space has become the most incendiary architectural debate of our time

Recent iconoclastic campaigns, however, are not set against a backdrop of imperial war. They are instead taking place domestically, as populations wrestle with the appropriate manner to reflect on the dark moments and contested figures of their past. My question is this: where on earth are architects in this discussion? The contemporary iconoclasm movement is no passing parochial fad, but marks a profound global shift in public agency over our streets. It wraps some of the most challenging discussions of colonialism, anti-racism and the built expression of public values into a fundamentally spatial problem. The design of the civic realm is at the absolute core of our expertise and yet the architectural world seems to be responding to this urgent conflict with deafening silence.

It cannot be to right to take a back seat, passively waiting for battles over public monuments to run their course, when acute suffering accompanies each struggle. How many neighbourhoods must endure mobs of Neo-Nazis marching past their homes? How many antifascist demonstrators will be hurt or killed in the counter demonstrations? This is not a situation that should be left to fumble along in bursts of violence. It calls for urgent creative attention and bold proposals. It calls on architects not to step back, but to step up.

In 1991, Hungarian architect Ákos Eleőd began work on an open-air museum several miles outside Budapest's city centre, to relocate the city's many Soviet statues erected over decades of occupation. With the fall of the USSR, central and eastern European nations had entered protracted periods of rediscovering their cultural identity. As the Red Army had crept west, they had become trigger-happy makers of monuments to idealised workers, soldiers and the grandfathers of communism. Often the new sculptures would deliberately replace existing ones, expunging the folk memories that once resonated in those districts and supplanting them with Russian propaganda.

This situation calls for urgent creative attention and bold proposals. It calls on architects not to step back, but to step up

After the Berlin Wall fell, Budapest, like other Eastern Bloc cities, had to look at redesigning its urban landscape, which was now littered with concrete Lenins. The USSR had effectively controlled Hungary for half a century, perpetuating violent suppression, forced labour and man-made famines that left millions dead. Yet it also constituted a huge chapter in their nationhood and was thought of nostalgically by many, especially older generations. The statues were a schizophrenic symbol of both abject suffering and paternalistic care. The challenge was to detoxify the stain of Sovietism but in a nuanced way – a way which could be more sympathetic that the USSR's top-down rewriting of local history.

Eleőd's Memento Park, completed in 1993, is a calm but surreal space in which the giant frozen figures are arranged along six circular gravel paths. A free-standing neo-byzantine brick portico forms a gatehouse accommodating cubist sculptures of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. But it feels deliberately thin – a nod, not an endorsement.

The rest of the park is grand in scale, but not opulent. The statues are treated with basic curatorial respect but are not venerated. Even charging of an entry fee rather than relying on public subsidies seems like a carefully considered decision to establish the appropriate tone for these equivocal monuments. Memento Park is not necessarily the perfect model to be rolled out across the world but it demonstrates how architecture can navigate extreme political differences to articulate bitter moral conflict more effectively than language can.

"Nelson's Column should be next" thundered the Guardian in a predictably clickbaity attempt to test the logical next step after Charlottesville. It was a provocative thought experiment but the bullish reduction hard moral questions to a churlish "keep it" vs "knock it down" binary that is typical of a media-led public debate will ultimately fail to provide meaningful restitution on any side.

Even universally lionised heroes of the past measure up abysmally to the ethical expectations of subsequent generations. The Suffragettes' links to early British fascists are well known – should Emmeline Pankhurst's memorial in Westminster therefore face the chop? Mahatma Gandhi is recored to have harboured racist thoughts about Africans – should his statue in Nelson Mandela Square be removed as a similar one was at the University of Ghana?

Or what of George Washington? At the time of his death, 317 people were enslaved at Washington's family home, 153 of whom he owned personally. What coherent moral argument can necessitate the removal of a Robert E Lee statue but spare the founding father? Surely if Lee must fall then so must Mount Rushmore and the one dollar bill.

Barack Obama remains an inspiration to many. But it's not hard to imagine iconoclasts of the future citing the tens of thousands who died in Iraq during his presidency, or the waves of drone bombings he authorised in support of an Obama Must Fall campaign.

It is not possible to simplistically set an ethical bar when weighing the actions of a supposed hero's right to a plinth

It is not possible to simplistically set an ethical bar when weighing the actions of a supposed hero's right to a plinth in public space. This conception of human morality is too narrow. Context is crucial. Winston Churchill's statue might be acceptable in London's Parliament Square, but it would be sick in Dresden.

Eric Foner, professor of history at Columbia University, argues that commissioning should be considered and that the symbolic authenticity of the confederate statues is disingenuous, adding to the case against them. Many were built long after the civil war. Their rushed construction, Foner argues, was not about mourning dead soldiers, but really triumphalist intimidation of black Americans suffering under the infamous Jim Crow laws.

Architects must not stand on the edge of this debate. Our leaders are failing to bring forward effective proposals to deal promptly with our tainted public spaces, while our media frames the struggle in unsatisfactory terms. We cannot sit aside, letting the struggle play out as a series of deadly skirmishes, handing Neo-Nazis easy opportunities to grab headlines and causing trauma to communities. Instead architects should pour creative energy into this issue, bring bold new ideas to the table and at the very least speak out against against those who turn our public spaces into platforms of hate.

Phineas Harper is a critic and designer. He is deputy director of the Architecture Foundation and former deputy editor of the Architectural Review. He is author of the Architecture Sketchbook (2015) and People's History of Woodcraft Folk (2016). In 2015 he co-created Turncoats, a design-based debating society which now has chapters in four continents.

Photograph shows the Robert E Lee statue in Charlottesville.

The post "The architectural world seems to be responding to Charlottesville with deafening silence" appeared first on Dezeen.

from ifttt-furniture https://www.dezeen.com/2017/08/29/phineas-harper-opinion-column-architects-respond-charlottesville-deafening-silence-monuments/

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hippiemanx · 8 years ago

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Fast and Furious in Space

We open on a quiet city street in a sleepy mountain town, a friendly older policeman sips his coffee in front of the regional bank. A woman is struggling with a baby stroller and the curb, the policeman says “Allow me mam.” As he bends down to get the stroller the woman turns a gun on him. It is Michelle Rodriguez. Seconds later the windows of the bank explode and masked me run out with cash flying in the air. Two incredibly awesome sports/muscle cars pull up. The masked men hop in and a epic police chase ensues.

The police chase the two cars with awesome hand brake turns, flips, cop cars exploding, people diving out of the way. The 2nd get away car makes a wrong turn and crashes and explodes, the last get away car being driven by Vin Diesel makes a harrowing turn to slide under a semi truck, flips through the air and crashes.

Everyone appears dead, as the director yells cut. It was just a movie! OMG. A little bruised the stunt men climb out to be revealed as our heroes from Fast and the Furious. The director is some hipster art student punk who is yelling at them about his artistic vision. The lowly stunt men are ushered off set so that the “real” stars can take their place. Maybe it’s some people from Armageddon, Bruce Willis perhaps.

Our stunt men walk off, the camera pans up, we see the palmtrees and city bustle of L.A. As they relax in their shitty trailer on set they lament about how fake hollywood is, how this isn’t real driving, it’s all stunts. How the open road calls them. They are sad for Paul Walker again.

Day turns into night, the director quits, typical hollywood drama our heroes are having none of. Some how after drinking (but not being drunk) they decide to have a real race. Instead of taking their own cars, or the production cars they steal the cars of the hollywood stars in the movie. Funny moment to make their vanity license plates be a joke about the star, maybe Bruce WIllis’s car says “YIPKIYA” or something.

They drive through downtown LA in a path that makes no sense if you map it out, but it looks hella sweet. This is a race of fun, so while daring, the characters enjoy themselves. Nitro boosters are found in at-least one car. Someone puts on some music that is “Their Jam” (maybe the Rock and it’s some kick-ass broadway show tunes).

They finish their race in Santa Monica at the pier with the water. Someone finishes first, and is chilling all cool like in front of the car. They all get out and laugh and joke. Suddenly they are hit by spot lights from helicopters, and navy seal dudes show up out of the water and from everywhere. They are surrounded.

Someone jokes about Bruce being pissed or something equally funny. Dame Judy Dench approaches our heroes. She is here representing British Secret Intelligence on a joint mission with the Americans. They will need to come with her.

In a cool quick montage, the heroes are flown somewhere top secrete and down into a super secret area with lots of cool tech and shit to keep it ultra secret. This is serious business.

They are joined by their other Fast and Furious team members. Nobody knows what is going on. Several agents enter the room (it’s a conference room). Dame Judy Dench arrives with a man, probably Billy Bob Thorton who is the president.

What they are about to tell the team is ultra super top secret. There is an impending threat to the entire world, set to impact earth in 72 hours.

“A meteor is going to hit Texas?!” one of the members ask. “It’s actually a comet, mostly made of ice and frozen gas” replies an agent in the back, it’s Agent Coulson from the Avengers movie.

He explains that the comet is the size of something we can all relate to. It is spinning as it moves past the Sun. The only way to stop it is to detonate several charges at key locations. “You mean like in that movie?” someone asks. Coulson replies “No, this is based on science.”

He then explains that because the comet rotates, one team will have to land and drive at break-neck speed across the comet in order to stay ahead of the tail. If you rotate into the tail, you will get ripped apart by rock and ice being shed by the comet. A 2nd team will land on the far side and establish the rendevouz point.

There are 3 paths that must be taken along the comet, a short, medium and long path.

Coulson then introduces a British woman who was in the back of the room. She is a famous Formula One racer and a British intelligence officer. It is her job to train the heroes on how to race. “You race like Americans, with no style or grace.”

We begin a training montage. Our heroes are introduced to their new vehicles adapted for the low gravity and harsh reality of space.

The heroes make customizations to the equipment. They learn the finer points of racing. They are fitted for space suits. We watch the NASA guys try to fit the Rock in a space suit, his muscles make it difficult. He smiles at the camera in the way only the Rock can.

Someone develops romantic feelings for the British officer. Maybe a another lady, this is a modern film, it’s no big, love is love.

Something happens, the team can’t gel. It’s too much pressure. Someone is hurt, they need a replacement. Vin knows just the person. We get another member, maybe someone from their past, maybe it’s Chris Pratt, fuck who knows, it’s just awesome. Now the team is working again, they might just pull this off.

We see something worrying the British officer, she knows something the others don’t. We get a sense there’s a secret, something she does not feel she should keep from the others. She has family, maybe a child, she’s crying like she will never see them again.

The team launches into space. They turn it into a race like everything, one team launching early. It’s good comedy, not serious.

They float in space, getting ready for their mission. More music montage. They remember Paul Walker again. They look down on earth. Serious shit is said. More romantic stuff with British officer lady, but she pulls away, not wanting to get close. Something’s going on with her.

Now it’s go time. The first team lands, and the 2nd team, with a minor problem to up the tension lands and gets to work. We get to see the tail edge of the comet where rock and shit is flying off at the glaring sun. Someone mentions to Vin that they will need to stay out of the sunlight where it is pitch black (OMG!).

The teams head off, enjoying it. The first team deploys their bomb. The 2nd team deploys their bomb. The 3rd team taking the longest route deploys their bomb.

Each team has more than one vehicle. The 3rd team now has a long stretch before the next bomb. It is not a difficult path. Vin is doing the math on it. It does not work out. There’s no way to get the last bomb in place and make it to the extraction point.

The first team finishes with their bombs, we see the extraction process of them getting into their escape rocket.

The 2nd team is going fine. Then something happens. Not serious but one of the vehicles is toast. The 2nd team can’t fit all into one vehicle. They make the decision to leave Rodriguez behind and the 3rd team’s 2nd vehicle can break off and pick her up.

Ultimately this puts Vin Diesel, Rodriguez and the British Officer (and maybe one other person) in the same team.

They reach the final extraction point and get out to place the bomb. It just seems to take longer. They are now very close to the edge of the trail (the comet rotates the entire time). Something happens, gas or something and the team falls into a pit that just opened up.

There’s something strange about the cave they are now in. It’s glowing. The British Officer admits that they knew the comet was from un-natural origins. It is her mission to personally detonate the devices. She knew this was a suicide mission. The rest of the team is pissed. She has found love and now will die.

They fight and argue. Everyone agrees to let her do this selfless act, but they don’t like it. They manage to get a rope down into the pit (maybe one person didn’t fall in) and get on with the mission.

As they get everything ready, Vin Diesel grabs the last bomb, cuts the rope and jumps into the pit, sacrificing himself for the team. Tearfully he makes them leave to escape in time as he places the last bomb.

The team drives to the extraction point, angry, sad and confused. They exchange looks with the rest of the team, none needs to say it.

They blast off the rock, with broken radio communication with Vin who is still on the comet, they say good bye.

Vin, places the charge, he has to wait until the exact moment to detonate the charges. Then he finds something. Writing and a machine, something alien. The machine activates and somehow Vin can understand it. He detonates the bombs, but is awash in green energy light before the explosions reach him.

Our heroes celebrate on earth, but now remember those who died. Someone else probably died during the mission above to make it more dramatic.

The comet explosion can be seen in the sky. The hollywood director on set screams as it is ruining his movie and throwing the script around. Dame Judy Dench is happy, so are the agents. British Officer kisses her love person.

Credits

Post Credits, we are in a cell made of metal, but looks futuristic. Vin wakes not sure where he is. He is in outer space on a starship. We see a huge Necromonger ship in the background. Another man laughs in the darkness, he leans out, it is Riddick.

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virtuosinovel · 8 years ago

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Ch 46 - Revelations

At Victor’s request, the meeting was held in his hidden library office. This time Dudley was patted down before entering, which seemed superfluous since he had been escorted all the way from his cell to the Hive by armed guards watching his every move. As he entered the room, Victor waved from his desk chair; the same one he was sitting in last week when Dudley pointed a gun at him. Before taking his own seat, Dudley scanned the room for killer teenage ninja nieces. This time he and Victor were alone.

“Thanks for meeting with me Benjamin. It seems for the first time ever, we are utterly alone. No recorders on you. No control panel wristband on me. The cameras and audio have been disabled,” said Victor. For the first time since the tuxedo for opening ceremonies, Victor was dressed in typical business attire: a navy suit, a red power tie, and a serious demeanor.

“I guess I should thank you for meeting me considering your laws and the circumstances. I understand it can only get better for me as a result of this,” Dudley replied. He wasn’t so sure about the last statement, especially if the cameras weren’t rolling. Who would care if Victor just pulled a gun out of his desk and ended him right here? Maybe Victor would show some restraint since Dudley hadn’t fired any shots.

“Correct,” confirmed Victor. “Depending on how happy you are with your organization now and your moral compass, you stand to do quite a bit better than you are currently.”

“What do you propose?” Dudley asked. He wanted to get down to business. Why was he here?

“A lot has happened in the past week, much of it while you’ve been detained. Just so we start on a level playing field, why don’t I put a few of my cards on the table by catching you up. I wouldn’t want you to consider my proposal without proper context,” said Victor.

“Fair enough. I’d appreciate that,” answered Dudley.

“You know about the helicopter crash of course, but what you might not know is it was no accident. They ran into a force field which protects this island from exactly that type of belligerent act of aggression. Depending on your personal philosophy, you’ll find this either brilliant or abhorrent. Personally, I love it.

“In the United States, if a burglar gets hurt on your property while trying to rob you, you could actually be held liable. Here, we don’t give a rat’s ass if you booby trap your whole fucking property. Anyone brazen enough to be trespassing without your permission deserves what they get,” exclaimed Victor. His calm demeanor had given away to righteous indignation.

Dudley thought back to the emergency drill on the airplane. That’s why Meena was on the phone immediately. They knew an attack was coming even before Dudley knew.

“After word of the crash leaked to the world press, there was a backlash on multiple fronts. The U.N. called an emergency session to discuss sanctions against the United States. World stock markets had their biggest one day drop since Black Monday in 1987 and are still unstable. The underground movement in the U.S., which was a slight groundswell, has turned several of your major cities into free-for-all riot zones. The attack was the tipping point on a house of cards crashing down as we sit here,” Victor summarized.

Now everyone else’s role during the plane’s emergency drill became clear. Brandon was moving assets around to prepare for the crash, perhaps helping to partially cause it in the first place. Greta probably made diplomatic pre-warning calls. Donovan and Victor no doubt orchestrated it all. Victor continued.

“After you decided not to shoot, which I do appreciate regardless of the bulletproof force field, you were subdued by what is known as Angel’s Trumpet, or Columbian Devil’s Breath. It’s a fascinating plant and if properly manipulated, has some practical uses other than simply killing one’s enemies. One is you can exercise a certain type of mind control over the target. After you were hit with the dart, we could have sent you swimming to Australia and you would have gladly hopped in the ocean and started on your merry way, never questioning the sanity of the act. Instead, we told you where your cell was and you started walking.

“Along the way, you spilled all of your secrets at our request. We pretty much had the crux of the matter figured out, but we didn’t know exactly what agency you worked for, where your bugs were dropped, etcetera. You’re now an open book to us. Everything you thought, did, or were ordered to do, we know about and you’re on tape saying it all. I can’t say any of it was earth-shattering, but at any rate you should know you have no more secrets from us,” explained Victor.

Dudley sat quietly. There wasn’t much to say. Victor picked up a remote control and turned on a TV on one of the side walls. Dudley saw himself in the video, talking freely. He didn’t remember any of it, but everything he said in the video was true.

“I’ll fast forward through this if you don’t mind. I just figured you might want proof,” said Victor.

“Please do,” said Dudley, his cheeks flushed.

The next video started. Dudley recognized the person in the video. It was Lieutenant John “Jack” Randall of Freedom Keeper Special Forces; the sole survivor of the helicopter crash. A medic assisted Randall as he walked between two shoulder-height bars.

“I though the only survivor was paralyzed,” interjected Dudley.

“He is. He’s wearing an exoskeleton which helps people walk with paralysis,” said Victor quickly, making it clear that wasn’t the point of starting the video. Dudley was relieved that although 21 of his coworkers died in the crash, the doctors seemed to be treating the one survivor very well.

“Like I said Benjamin, there were no big surprises in your revelations. Now let’s contrast that with what Lt. Randall had to say,” Victor said as the video continued rolling.

The video cut away from Randall’s rehab efforts to him sitting up in bed. Someone off camera interviewed him. It sounded like Eve Carson.

“Please state your name and rank,” said the woman.

“Lt. Jack Randall, Freedom Keeper Special Forces.”

“Tell me about your unit Lieutenant.”

“We are a covert special ops unit reporting straight to the President of the United States of America.”

“Is the American public aware of this unit?”

“No ma’am.”

“What was your mission here on this island?”

Randall explained all of the specs of the mission in detail. All eight potential targets: four places and four people. He didn’t stutter or hesitate once.

“Why were you sent to attack those targets?”

“This island is capable of doing harm to the United States with its technological and financial capabilities.”

“Who was your Alpha target?”

“Victor Freeman.”

“Does this have anything to do with Victor Freeman being a person-of-interest in an ongoing FBI case?”

“No ma’am. There is no ongoing FBI investigation. It was a mission to neutralize the island’s capabilities.”

Eve seemed to hesitate on the tape. Victor leaned forward like this was an Oscar-winning suspense movie he’d seen before and couldn’t wait to relive the ending. Eve continued the interview, obviously ad-libbing now that Randall had revealed an unexpected secret.

“There is no ongoing FBI investigation into the Sons of Liberty 2.0 naming Victor Freeman as a person of interest?”

“Only to the public. Privately the case is closed.”

“Why is it closed?”

“There is no such group as Sons of Liberty 2.0. The Freedom Keepers invented them.”

Eve was obviously as shocked as Dudley, but she knew this was an opening she had to jump through.

“Who conducted the Tea Party Anniversary Attacks if Sons of Liberty 2.0 doesn’t exist? Who bombed the CIA and the NSA buildings?”

“The Freedom Keepers conducted the attacks, ma’am, at the direction of the Director of National Intelligence and the President of the United States of America.”

Eve and a couple of other onlookers behind the cameras gasped. Dudley grabbed his seat handles like he was on a roller coaster. All the knowledge he thought he had was draining out of him and resetting him back to infancy, like an intellectual version of Benjamin Button.

“What?” Eve asked. It was an exclamation, not a question, but the Angel’s Trumpet worked on Randall just the same. He repeated what he said before.

“Why?”

“It was done to regain the balance of power. The public started valuing freedom over security. The attack was engineered to instill fear in the public again so they would stop pushing back against the government. It was also meant to discredit Victor Freeman and Next World because they were aiding and abetting the freedom movement.”

Victor stopped the tape, dropped the remote, and looked over to Dudley. Dudley was immediately traumatized, mouth agape, head and body shaking, staring distantly at the carpet trying to re-calibrate the last 20 years of his life. It had all been one big fucking lie. His career was a charade.

“I’m sorry you had to see that Benjamin,” said Victor, returning to his normal calm demeanor. Most people would have jumped on Dudley with an I-told-you-so barrage, but Victor knew he had already won. Like a parent who just told his child the truth about Santa Claus, Victor sat there for a moment.

After several minutes of silence, Dudley still didn’t speak. He sat there staring into space like an invalid. Victor must have figured the obligatory grace period of silence was over and started speaking.

“I must say, even I was stunned by that one. I’ve heard every conspiracy theory ever invented. It was my business. I believed some of them and disregarded others. Some were eventually proved and some eventually discredited, but this one lined up perfectly.

“A nobody entrepreneur forms a start-up company at just the right time in history, with just the right product mix. He’s not smarter than anyone else nor any richer; just incredibly lucky, incredibly intuitive or both. A passive disdain for the lack of privacy in America turns into action now as people see there is something they can do about it. The combination of privacy becoming accessible and constant bad behavior from people in power turns the tides on the watchers. The people don’t want to be watched anymore and they’re taking action. What’s worse? It’s not violent action, but passive resistance, so it can’t be met with violent counter measures. You can arrest and beat protestors in the street, but what can you do when they’re protesting from behind their computer screens; when you don’t know who they are?

“So instead of fighting the people, you fight the idea. You discredit the Founder of Next World by sending in a puppet CEO, getting the board to vote for an exclusive contract by waiving a pile of cash in their face, and forcing this young upstart out.

“Then, to put the icing on the cake, you stage an attack so people are scared shitless again, like they were in the good ole days after 9/11. And lo-and-behold, the anonymous ringleader of the attack just happened to be aided and abetted by guess who; the young upstart. You leak some information to his old mentor, which gets back to him, convincing even the young entrepreneur he is responsible. He buys an island and is out of your hair forever, afraid to return to his home country. Even that’s not good enough so you attack his new country. Am I missing anything?”

Dudley was silent during Victor’s recap. Maybe Randall was lying in the video. Maybe hallucinating from the drugs. But everything Dudley had said was true and everything else Randall said was true: the unit, the bugs, the mission specs, everything. It was futile to think this was all a lie.

“No, that about covers it,” said Dudley in a low voice.

“The first casualty of war is the truth,” said Victor.

“So, what now?” Dudley asked.

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