... I have decided now is the time to unveil my pet project of this year.
Fear it. ^_^
You might say that today was like any other day really. People coming from end to end of the city, the world spun like a lazy top, and you knew the names of several that you met across this busy intersection. Well that all changed one day.
I was standing at the sidewalk, waiting for the light to turn when I saw her. Sure she wasn’t much to look at, something on the petite side with flaming red hair. Funny, you don’t see that shade of red on anyone else but poorly dyed Goths who usually splash it with deep black. Nu-huh, this girl was pure flaming red. I doubt there was a guy who noticed her.
Sea-green eyes seemed to offset her mane of red hair as she stood across the way, waiting for the light to turn. It did, and the crowds across Edmonton’s Downtown Main flooded across the way like an amphormos blob. Crowds of people, especially on a day like today were customary in the downtown area and they tended to move like some kind of mobile jelly, like the blood-cell cluster idea of Japanese Subways where you have to wrestle your way on and off the station.
I saw her as she moved forward. She wore a catholic school uniform and somehow it looked good on her. Pleated skirt, plain blue jumper and a jacket that read Edmonton Catholic High. Huh, wasn’t sure about that one. Maybe she’s a cosplayer or something cause I’m sure none of the schools have something with a badge styled out of Ken Akamatsu’s Mahou Sensei Negima series on the front. Maybe she really is a cosplayer or just some kind of weird girl.
She walked towards me. I walked towards her. And then we passed. But before she moved past, I could hear her voice on the wind. Strange, it didn’t even seem like her lips were moving.
“You could be the one,” she said in a low whisper that was a mix between a low soprano rasp and a hiss of wind through a curled tongue. “The first seal is open.”
“Dah what?” I wondered. Strange girl. She’s probably some kind of game freak, telling this to every hot Norway-born and Canadian-raised six foot something guy with long blonde hair and blue eyes.
Oh yeah, you’re probably wondering about that too. Well suffice to say it, I’m six foot five, one hundred and fifty pounds of lean muscleculture, an IQ around average and of course, I’m blonde. And blue eyed. Yes, I am Norway-born but at the very least, I don’t speak like some kind of doofus from say Sweden or Spain. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I have a friend literally named Antonio de la Vega and I am not kidding about this. He speaks like he’s constantly watching Ren and Stimpy and is channeling Ren Hoek through the speech passageways. It helps his reputation that he’s a ladies man despite this.
Oh, and my name? Sean Gagne. Remember this name boys and girls. It’s gonna be used a lot during this story time.
Anyway, the now somewhat creepy otaku fangirl sort of says that whole “The first seal or gate or whatever is open”. If this were a normal day, it would have been fine. Or maybe she was coming onto me in some kind of weird otaku fangirl way. Fangirls, yeesh. She heads off and I pause to puzzle a look her way. Of course this sets me right in the middle of the traffic and the light begins to change. Biting off a curse, I scamper across the way and then once safely out of the way of flashy chrome grills that would grind my bones into paste, I look across the road.
Weird. The girl’s not there. O-kay this is starting to be odd.
====
Aaaah, home sweet home. Far away from the crowds, the people and the creepy girls who look at you funny and say the First Seal Is Open. Yeah, fun. Peace, quiet and I can read my new manga. Ooh, Comic Party.
And then of course, the phone rings. Heaving a sigh, I grab it and then wrestle with the cordless for a while. Stupid thing never has good reception. “Yo, Sean speaking,” I say in my normal devil-may-care attitude.
“Duuuude, it’s Carter! Hey, James and I are down at the park. Wanna shoot some hoops?”
Okay, those are my two best friends in the entire world. James McConnell and Carter Windam. They’re a couple of nutjobs as it is, and me being my lame-ass self, had to actually befriend them. As kids. Really.
“Sure, lemme get my shorts and I’ll meet you there,” I said. Hanging up and grabbing my cell phone and lucky shorts, I head off towards the nearest park.
The park itself was a wooded and grassy area, one of the few left standing in Edmonton. Though the City Council is planning on turning it into a tourist trap. Damn yokels. In any case, I was there and it was sunny. The breeze was fun and I was quickly forgetting about the creepy girl at the crosswalk.
Turning the corner, a basketball bounces off my head. Recoiling from the shock, I stumble right into a heavy-set noogie. “Sean man! You skipped the club today,” said James as he ran his knuckles into my scalp.
That’s James McConnell. He’s about five foot nine with scraggly blonde hair, green eyes, a scruffy “I’m Just Here” beard, hemp backpack, hemp necklace and bracelet, and the most silly and utterly stupid looking faded green t-shirt with a Captain Planet logo on it. You know, from that old ecological cartoon. His face had glasses on it and his hair, what was there of it was tied back. No, he’s not blonde, just, well, he’s your generic hippie. People look at him, the backpack, the cargos, the boots and then at the overuse of ecological terminology to confuse people and immediately thing “Tree Hugger Wuss”. No one realizes that he is utterly BRILLIANT. James has the potential to become one of the worlds best ecologists, and possibly solve world hunger too. Carter jokes that the way to do that is to create Soylent Green which usually provokes a round of attacks.
Carter on the other hand is a techno-geek and loving every minute of it. Standing at five foot five, just an inch or two shorter than James, he has shocking lime-green hair that would look hideous on anyone with his complexion but he managed to pull it off. He has sea-green eyes as well and is dressed in a blue shirt, black pants with glasses with a long white lab overcoat that he picked up wearing since he started reading Love Hina, again another Ken Akamatsu Manga. Something about getting the cool of Seta rubbed off on him. He’s not a full out GEEK or NERD no less. That would just earn him a permanent residence within a locker and no one wants to fish him out via tunneling through the walls anyhow. Technology can be made to sit up and sing the 1812 Overture without having to deal with the stupid things such as the lack of a mouth when Carter is concerned. It’s debatable if he’ll save the world or blow it up in the process. Both are complete and utter NERDS in their fields of expertise. Me? I’m a doctor.
I know you’re thinking I’m probably the stereotypical jock, the one who introduces them into the lockers on occasion. Well, yes actually I do that. Better me than them cause I know their passwords to their lockers anyhow. The Football Team is nothing more than a group of over-hyped and stupid bullies. They don’t pick on me despite my whole Medical “Must Learn Everything Now” deals with anything of that remote location of study, but that’s cause I’m easily a foot taller than most people anyhow.
“Yeah, I wasn’t feeling too good today. Must been the mystery meat.” I answered James and Carter grinned that nasty “I know what’s in it” grin. “Don’t even START,” I grit out. It was a running gag that we didn’t want to know what was in the cafeteria food. Until after graduation. From University. Or more.
“I think it was your move on the game of pick up twenty-one,” said Carter as he tossed me the ball.
Grinning that feral smile I love so much, we jumped into play.
The day passed quickly with us working our way into the final four moves of a pick up three man game of twenty-one. As I lined up the shot for a second, I threw the ball in a lovely overhead toss. It went up and over and then with a loud ZORCH, fell to the ground.
Standing across the way, was quite literally, and I am not kidding you, a Hamster with a big Futuristic Laser Gun.
Seriously. This Hamster happened to be something of the five foot muscular variety. Numerous scars went over his body and he sort of sneered at us. “In the name of the Hamtonian Empire, I am placing you traitors under arrest.” And with that, he cocked the rifle menacingly.
I looked over at Carter and asked, “Did... you mutate something?”
“Not to my knowledge,” he replied.
“Hold up hamster thingy,” snapped James. “What are we traitors of?”
“I don’t have to answer that to a group of blarg-na-va-kas,” the hamster snarled and his weapon whined. “Now are you going to come peacefully rebels or do I have to shoot you dead?”
“Peaceful is a good thing,” I said, backing up as with James and Carter. “You know, that gun looks nice. What do you think, Carter? Standard disruptor beam?”
“I doubt it,” said Carter in an equally freaked out and conversational tone. “It would have vaporized the ball.” Our feet hit the edge of the concrete and we stopped as the Hamster thingy sort of got that murderous look. “I think the fuzzy evil armed thingy is angry.”
“No shit. This time, I pick where we eat. Cause this is too stupid to be real.”
“Now, come along peacefully or I will BLAUGH!”
The last BLAUGH statement came from that little girl I saw. Yeah, the red haired creepy girl. She had also hit the hamster thing hard enough to send him sailing into some kind of ripple in space where it zipped itself up with a sound of a cross between a pants zipper sealing and someone slurping Jell-o. But this time she was dressed in some kind of futuristic space outfit that well, it needs to be described.
First of all, it was low cut, as with all anime series with women in hot skin-tight outfits. Silver metallic ribbons wound around her naughty bits as she wore a skirt with that, as well as leggings that extended into boots. Her hands were covered in HUGE gloves that made it look like they were bigger than her hands should be. Armor covered the ribbons and down her back and whoa, is that a metallic wedgie she’s sporting? Oh, and she’s a flat-chested little girl. So much for the typical male dream.
Walking up to us, she stowed and I kid you not, a metallic glowing baseball bat that was labeled “Peacekeeper Version 4.0” away. I dunno what scares me more, that she wields a Cloud Strife-sized baseball bat like that around, the fact that it’s a version 4.0 or she stuffed it somewhere into her panties. “We must hurry,” she intoned in that now sexy rasp of hers. “The rest of the empire will return with greater force.”
“Hold up there missy,” protested James and the girl gave him a look that made him shudder. Or freeze Nitrogen. “Never mind.”
“Come.” With that, she walked away and a door made out of light appeared. “You want to live or not?”
“Rule number one,” Carter intoned. “When someone says anything across ‘come with me if you want to live’, follow the person.”
“Right. Here goes for a fun trip. Looks like today’s a good day for adventure.” I said cheerfully as we followed the weird girl into what we supposed was her ship.
My name is Sean Gagne. I’m age twenty three and with my two best friends. And we’re about to go into ultraspace. Of course, it has to be ultraspace, cause hyperspace is overused. Strapped into seats that look like egotistic torture devices, we felt the pull that felt like dropping from space at mach three gajillion.
My name is Sean Gagne. And we’re about to be pulled into the wildest adventure of our lives.
I wish I had gum.
=====
Eternal Lands : The War Of Nebula 4021
Written by Shaun Garin
(c) Shaun Garin 2005
=====
Chapter 1 : The Academy
=====
Okay, when you think of big space-going adventures you usually think of guys with big laser weapons and swords and what not roaming into the attacking forces and winning through sheer adversity and guts. Not happening this time.
You see, our pilot one Lightstar Minaa Something or other that I cannot pronounce Hikaru was something of a recruiter of sorts for people who were inappropriately pegged as criminals. Her star system is known as the Nebula, a group of systems that were under the jurisdiction of two governing forces, the Foxtrails and the Penguinites. Seriously, I am NOT shitting you this.
The aggressors, the Hamtonians are a war-like race, despite their initial cute and fuzzy appearance. Tired of being kicked around for being a substandard race by most galactic empires, they struck out, using massively powerful technology to conquer planets. They swept through five systems of the Nebula before the governing body deemed them as a threat. Although I think that since their resort planet of Foxtrot IV was captured, they can’t get the nookie they want from the hottie fox-women.
So yeah, Lightstar or Hikaru as we’re going to refer to her since it gives her FITS when we call her by the only human name she has, is actually a Foxian. That means she has a tail, two to be precise and non-human ears, as they’re sort of cute pointed and floppy ears. Standard furry girl and it explains why she has such big gloves. Yeah, she’s got paws and they’re HUGE but delicate. The You-Don’t-See-My-Extremities device she used to pass on the message was something of an experimental thing anyhow. It could have made her look like a fuggin zombie for all she knew.
When the world seemed to stop turning inside out and we pried ourselves out of the chairs, James gasped and swore and shouted, “What the HELL was that all about?!”
I’ll let you listen to our conversation in real time.
=====
“That thing that was after us, what was it?” asked Carter curiously as he folded his arms. “It couldn’t have been human anyhow, not with the whole hamster thing going on.”
“That thing,” said Hikaru, pulling off a flight helmet she had neglected to give us to stave off the effects of the ultraspace jump, “was a Hamtonian Soldier, probably from his description and scarring, General Patrick O’Nibbler.”
“Patrick... O’Nibbler?” said James slowly.
“Yes,” said Hikaru. “He is from the Hamtonian Empire, probably one of the people who want to capture and then mould unsuspecting hu-wan people into mindless killing machines.”
“Oh wonderful,” grumbled Sean. “We’re looking at the end of the world from the barrels of killer Hamsters.”
“You hu-wans are very strange,” said Hikaru as she swept past us and undid her skirt. James drooled and then was smacked in the face by two furry tails. “Pink skin, fleshy digits, no tails, how on Blagthar do you keep your balance?”
“Well if I can remove my pants I’ll show you,” said Carter with a wiggle to his eyebrows. James hit him in the shoulder.
“No thanks,” said Hikaru dryly. “I’ve seen your stir sticks before. I suppose that’s what acts as your guiding systems?”
James’ cheeks puffed out as he coughed and choked on air. Sean collapsed into the nearest chair laughing and Carter looked embarrassed enough to sink into the floor. Hikaru looked puzzled as she consulted her anatomy map. “It says here that hu-wan emotions and guidance is adjusted by the increased flow of mana to the stir stick. Isn’t that right?”
“Wow,” said Sean after he finished laughing. “Someone’s got bad anatomy lessons going on.”
“But then what is it used for?” pressed Hikaru and all three young men looked embarrassed. “Oh never mind.”
“Um, question. Where’s the bathroom?” asked James curiously.
“Down the hall, to the left.”
“Right.” Said James as he located the door and then made a face. “What the hell? What’s with this?”
Hikaru marched over and looked at the washroom. “I do not see a problem.”
“A problem? There’s definitely a problem here! Where’s the toilet?”
“Oh you mean your hu-wan extraction facilities. No, you simply attach the hose here to your bowels and then...”
James looked ill. “I think I’m going to go to the washroom when we reach normal space, thank you. I’d rather not have my bladder pumped by a hose and what appears to be a fifteen armed squid.” The squid waved at him and James shuddered.
“Suit yourself, but the Maka-wakka-luu is standard issue across the galaxy. Honestly how do you hu-wans get along with primitive facilities?”
Checking the digital output that looked like squiggles done by a child, Hikaru shrugged. “You have seventy unicrons and fourty eight wakaas to rest up. That’s about five and a half hours of your hu-wan time. There’s the recreational cabin up to the left and then a small mess hall to the right. Quarters will be shifted in for you momentarily.”
“Um, right. Well, thank you,” said Sean and Hikaru did a funny little bow and a skip of her legs before she headed off into the cockpit.
“Okay guys, we’re in this together,” said Carter. “No ifs and or buts. I’m not having one of my best friends going Dark Side on us if we can help it.”
“Chill, Carter,” said James. “With the exception of the funky toilet which I am NOT going to use under ANY circumstances, we’re not going to turn tail and run into the hands of those killer Hamsters.”
“Right,” said Sean. “We’re going to run like good little hu-wans and get the heck out of Dodge.”
“But seriously though,” said Carter. “Why try to arrest us? We haven’t even been off planet for petes sake!”
“That I’m not sure,” said Sean, folding his arms. “It’s too weird. Too convenient. I smell libel.”
“But yeah. Hmm, she said there’s a mess hall right? Maybe it has a history section,” said James.
“Sounds like a plan. Lets go. I wanna see what passes off for cuisine here.”
=====
Carter poked his food and it wobbled back. “I HOPE this is Lime Jell-o. What the hell is this stuff anyhow?”
“It’s good at least,” said James, taking a bite of it. “And it’s not Soylent Green from what I’ve seen.”
“Eeew.” said Carter.
The door hissed open and through it walked Hikaru who went over to the Thing-That-Dispenses-Food and ordered a plate of green and yellow Jell-o like material. Sitting down next to the three men she raised an eyebrow. “You hu-wans eat this stuff?”
“We don’t know what this stuff IS!” exclaimed Carter, stabbing the food. It wobbled dangerously.
“Well the first is processed UltraFuu, made from the ground Fuubeans of Thermin III. Completely nutritious and many people eat it as a staple in their meals. The yellow stuff I have is Soylent Wash which is not made out of you hu-wans but rather it is a fizzy carbonated drink made from distilling the Soylent Plant’s sap and then mixing it with Nargleberry Spit which is also a juice of berries. During spaceflight, food doesn’t keep at all so it’s all made into a gelatin.”
“Right... so we’re not eating processed people. That’s good to know.”
“Only if you’re a native of Foxia which is where we’re going,” said Hikaru and the guys choked on their food. “Kidding! Kidding! Cannibalism is strictly taboo anyhow.”
In the uncomfortable silence, Sean stabbed a red Jell-o like block that was made out of Wuugi Leaves and Cacaoblanit Shells, ate it and said in the most non-sequiter manner possible, “Hmm.... did you know that Foxia women go into heat every fourty eight hours?”
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