S1, 05 But There is No Title (January 3, 2018)

SO, HELLO MY DUDES! I'm writing this now, so I don't forget to tell y'all: When Vok and his accent comes on, I know the cutting off parts of words aren't usually apart of an Australian accent-I just had him cut off words, 'cause I felt like it. (And maybe plot lines later.) Oh also: Three of the character's names are Easter Eggs! Find them and you get my ever lasting love and affection! I know, I'm cheap, but too bad. xP

Scars, burns, and gashes cover Paul’s face, like snow on winter ground. And he sweeps. Swish, swash, swish, swash. He sighs, that’s all he does anymore. Again, and again, as uncaring costumers dump trash and discarded food onto the restaurant’s floors. The eatery, Wiket’s, is located in the center of Qotor, consequently seeing a wide variety of alien species. But none are as exotic as the alien (NOT XENOMORPH! COUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGH) in the corner of the restaurant.

It has no eyes, it’s upper face being perfectly smooth, drawing down to a sequence of jagged points. But it has a large mouth, filled with around a hundred grotesque teeth, yellow and unlike anything human. The thing came every morning, often staying for a few hours, simply staring at the TV, or tapping its sharp fingers on the table. It was impossible to tell when and how it left, it just seemed as if one minute it was there. The next, it was gone.

“Anybody know how to jump a speeder? My wife’s havin’ a child, and my car broke down.” A scruffy-looking Hasat grumbles in dismay.

“I can help.” The being in the corner gargles through a succession of grunts and hiccups. Paul then realizes, he’d never heard it talk. The only thing he’d ever heard from that thing was the occasional bite it would take from the brisket it ordered every morning. It snakes a black, oily tongue out from those bile-covered teeth, causing the entire room to shutter.

The Hasat looks around to see if anyone else is willing to help. Hesitantly, he announces. “Alright then, she’s out back in the alley. She flies like a seagull, but drives like one, too.”

With a chime, the two exit the dinner, and Paul watches as they turn down the alley.

“Paul, get over here! I’ve asked you seven times to take the trash out!” Scaras, a scruffy, two-headed sertra growls at him. Paul’s boss is one of the last hundreds of his kind, and makes his opinion well-known that that idiots caused his species’ near-extinction.

“As you wish.” Paul retorts under his breath. The stench of rotting fish, spoiled meat, and fermented cheese is not sublime.

Hoisting the plastic bag up and over his shoulders, he sighs. The sigh is not out of fatigue, but rather out of scorn. Scorn for the job he works, scorn for those who made him work this job, and scorn for those who hold him back. Every minute, deep within the marrow of his bones, he feels this disdain. It’s been absorbed into his blood, soaking into his mind, his unconscious thoughts, until he can’t feel the difference. Until no one can.

With a gust of cold wind, Paul swings the oaken door open and drops the trash bag. The hasat’s skin color is an ugly, motionless grey as he lies on the ground. The eyeless monster has his back turned away from the door, never less, he ominously murmurs.

“See you’ve found my little ‘secret.’ I suppose you wouldn’t want that to happen to you.”

“N-no.” Paul stutters, quietly backing up.

“I see you there. If I were you, I’d stay where you are, we wouldn’t want no one to feed your family, now would we?”

“I don’t have any.” Paul answers, solemnly.

The thing turns around. “So sad, so sad. I see the desire in your heart. Maybe I’ll spare you, so you can live in misery.

“Who-What are you?

“What am I?” The beast paces. “I am a nightmare, to put it simply. I am a Herald, I am an ancient breed. Does that answer your question?”

Petrified by the subtle dash of anguish in the Herald’s tone, Paul can’t say anything. All he can do is stare.

“Well, if you don’t want to ask anymore questions, I’ll lay down my options: I can kill you, or I can silence you. Both of the processes are very similar, which do you prefer?”

“The latter.”

“As I suspected. Now, as I add a drop of my magic to your blood stream.” Its claws grow at a rapid rate, turning into a hand of a dragon. “You won’t be able to talk about this event, permanently.” And with that, he simply touches Paul’s upper arm, the spike casually breaking through the plate Paul always wears from his days in the military. It holds the “blade” in his skin for a split second, and as it retreats, the skin heals over, not a trace left.

“Wait,” Paul utters as Herold starts to wander off. “Your lips never moved.”

He doesn’t even turn around. “Hey, maybe yours won’t either.”

Then, he’s gone.

“That’s been five disappearances in the past month, Kal.” The blond-haired reporter informs after taking a sip of coffee in a chrome mug. As the TV chatters, Chant sighs.

“Why aren’t the police in charge of this?”

“Because,” Ross—A tall, muscular Quschi on Chant’s team-responds. “One of them was just under the Governor.”

Chant sighs again. Ever since the fateful day when Mark’s body was cut in two by some magic-brandishing mage, all she’d wanted to do is find him and kill him. Or at least bring him down with her. Even Vok, the wrinkled, old commando who ventured out of retirement when Mark died, sensed that Chant’s eyes were never on the battlefield.

“’Ell, ‘et’s see ‘em.” Vok orders Ross. Even though Vok had replaced Ross as commander of the team, Ross still respected the old man’s orders. Vok was old, ancient even, but over time ever single bone and organ had been replaced and swapped out for machinery—except his brain and skin. Consequently, he’s twice as old as Chant yet could jump higher, and sprint faster. Besides the notable scars from surgery, Vok’s other distinguishable feature was his orange, sun-scorched skin. Or at least everyone thought the sun was the reason…

Turning on the holoprojector, then shutting off the TV, Ross steps back as a shirtless man appears, with enough muscles for him to have at least a ten-pack!

“The first disappearance is Camp Stud, as he called himself. He was a professional weightlifter, and vanished December 5th, Near Quadnoq Street.”

“’Minds me of ‘hen I ‘irst started trainin’ for da military—He was like ‘ll da rest, ‘ad too much bulk ‘ith too little brains.” Vok snickers, as always mispronouncing or skipping letters.

“Next!” Chant shouts a bit too loud.

Ross is about to scold her not to yell, but he remembers he’s not the boss anymore. “On December 17th, George Lennon—a local musician for some Pop Funk band—went missing near the Dormart on Orange Avenue, which is two blocks from Quadnoq street, might I add.”

Vok announces in his Australian accent—that contains broken syllables, even though he has an Australian accent... “Oh, I ‘ink I ‘ent to on’ of his concerts a couple ‘ears back.”

Ross bites his lip, then continues, turning the slide. “Here is known-criminal Mason Charles who was picked off the face of the earth December 18th. We lost him all the way across the city, near the Capital.”

“Maybe overdose?” Chant chimes in.

“Maybe,” Ross gives an ignorant look—or at least that’s how Chant received it—announcing the next victim. “Finally we have—”

“The head of some bureaucratic house no one cares about.” Vok cuts in, causing Ross to murmur some incoherent phrase under his breath.

“We have Obmar Sirron, the main guy we’re after. He went missing the 26th and General wants him back, STAT. He went missing outside bar on Cheeo Street.”

“And the last one is all over the news, so can we get started?” Vok says at the speed of light.

“Why are you asking?” Chant inquires.

“Oh right,” He chuckles. “Well, I guess we start with the latest case, working backwards. Chant, when you get time, work on a map of the disappearances. So, who wants go to the Family Establishment, Wiket’s?”

“Look, did you see some eyeless freak or not?” Wendell growls boiling with frustration at his silent witness.

Coughs and gargles, again.

“Why won’t you answer me? I even offered you a reward!”

Same non-reply.

“Sorry I have to do this,” Wendell sighs. He hates doing this, mostly because it makes him feel guilty and too strong. “Asiik Yynt!”

Probing into Paul’s mind, digging through his recent memories like a librarian rummaging through the oaken shelves for the right book. Sweeping, watching the game, watching Wolf News, eating, serving food, coming in through the side door-then nothing. Purely and utterly nothing.

“What happened to you?” Wendell asks, genuinely concerned.

“Hands up, Collective scum!” A voice barks, which is spoken through some microphone, making it impossible to tell whether the voice is feminine or masculine.

Three fully-armored Imperium Commandos point glimmering black blasters at Wendell, contrasting to their chrome white armor.

“Look, I’m on your side. I’m investigating—”

“Save it for the court.” Another voice spits, boiling with rage. He then looks through the glassy black visor, seeing two recognizable hazel-black eyes.

“You. I know you. You’re one of those commandos who attacked the bugs a couple of weeks ago. I assume the rest of you are too?”

“QUIET!”

“I’m dreadfully sorry for what happened but you had attacked—”

She fires a bolt of plasma, hitting Wendell in the shoulder.

A commando next to her is about to say something, but she growls.

“You killed an Imperium Commando. Surrender or else—”

“You shot first.”

The commando responds with volley of plasma, resulting in Wendell darting behind the dumpster.

“FOR THE IMPURUIM!” The commando bellows.

“And for injustice.”

Wendell leaps upon the dumpster, murmuring, “Anke’so.”

Fiery lightning crackles from Wendell’s fingertips, met by waves of plasma from the three commandos. Jumping to the dirt of the alleyway, a cry can be heart from the mage. “Eris’e Sujee!”

Wind and debris gust from all around, twisting and turning to create some twister of rock. The soldier’s weapons fly into the mix as the wind whips Wendell’s cape. And with that, the trash, dirt, and anything that was once scattered across the alley, scatters with an explosion of raw force .

(Synonym for bonus.) Pics: (Sorry, I were to be infringing R.K.'s copyright if I said "Bonus." xP

Wiket's

A FREAKIN' TORNADO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The original main image.

WHOOOOO!!!!! WE IS DA DONE!!!! \*Rips off shirt.\*

Have a GREAT day, and God Jesus WHo Saves, bless you a thousand times over!