[insert witty title here]

Left hook.
Right cross.
Straight jab.
Uppercut.

The staple blows were routine to him by now. He performed them almost as casually as taking a breath of air, each knuckle thudding into a black punching bag with precision. The punching bag had the evidence of him practicing his form over the years–it was torn and duct taped back together, various animal leathers stitched over the holes, and then with more duct tape taped over the holes in those.
It was always wise to go back to the basics, even after you became a master. All the advanced techniques used them as a starting point.

He clenched his hands together and swung with as much as he could, striking the bottom of both of his fists into the punching bag.
The chain snapped and the bag scattered across the floor, rolling away a short distance.

Well.
Looks like training would end early.
He heaved a disappointed sigh.

He reached over to the table next to him and plucked off the white towel he’d placed there before even starting to train, wrapping it around his pale shoulders and tucking it under his brown ponytail. He gave one final look at the collapsed punching bag, then hiked off over to a couch on the opposite side of the room. To his left was another table, a half-empty plastic bottle of soda occupying it–soon no longer claiming occupancy, however, as he snatched it up and started guzzling the remnants down.
His home wasn’t exactly a dojo or a gym, but it was comfortable. It was where he liked to be, when he wasn’t working. Training and exercise weren’t exactly things supposed to be comfortable, mind you, but it was a lot more comfortable than being in a cramped building with a lot of other shirtless sweaty guys grunting and groaning.
But here he was. Practicing his technique. Alone. In the confines of his home.
He pulled the now-empty bottle from his lips and heaved a sigh.

Honestly, he liked it that way. He didn’t much like interacting with people. Over the years, society had generally grown…selfish. There were still plenty of nice people out there and he was far more proud to be a human than, say, a cat; but as the years went by, he found it harder and harder to listen to people’s grievances and not see them as self-inflicted in some way or another.
He lifted up one arm to toss the bottle behind him, without even looking. It soared through the air and landed in the recycling bin on the other side. It was an impressive shot–too bad nobody was around to see it.

It was the same thing, every day. Wake up, work, come back, train, sleep. Never a varying moment. Never anything new. It was a grind, in the worst sense of the word.
He sighed and grabbed the remote off the table and flicked on the television.

The wheels on the train go ‘round and ‘round.
‘Round and ‘round.
‘Round and ‘round.
The wheels on the train go ‘round and ‘round.
All through the …

Rain, mud, and fog. That’s all there was, in this part of nowhere. A thick and blinding fog, giving nothing but a view of pure white through the entire scenery, atop the layers of muddy ground and underneath the torrents of hissing rain.
A moan pierced through the fog. Mournful and low, the cry was not born of some strangled anguish, but rather more reminiscent of a single woman who was quietly lamenting…whatever misfortune. Whatever begat this groan, the sound lasted a straight minute and then stopped.
Silence.
No other sound followed after, aside from the soft hiss of fog. There were no living creatures around, humanoid or otherwise, that could provide anything to break the silence. All that remained were the sounds of nature’s own forces: The clouds grinding against one another, linking hands to form an impenetrable wall of gaseous muck.
Another moan. That soft sound, just like last time, pierced through the thick fog. The sound was followed by more sounds, a reluctant squeal as long-aged gears and metals stretched and pulled. They started slow at first, always with breaks in between; over time, the breaks became shorter and the metals started working harder.
Chug. Chug. Chug. Chug. Chug.
The clouds split bit by bit, drawn back like a curtain as a train pulled out. A dark train, covered entirely in shadows and driving on air. The whistle blew, providing the same moan once again. The wheels continued to squeal in resistance, but the train continued moving forward across the muddy plains without any need for tracks or rails or anything of the sort.

The inside of the train was not at all like its shadowy exterior, with everything coated in a dull grey or white, and black leather across the seats. All of the cars were empty sans for one near the middle…and this one only had one passenger in it. A tall girl, a thin girl, a frail girl—easily setting in at almost six feet of height, with pure-white skin and black hair, and a youthful face, it was impossible to determine her age. She sat perfectly still, swaying only with the movements of the train and shifting whenever there was a bump, only the rise and fall of her breathing chest and the occasional blink identifying her as even conscious.
She sat on the leather with her hands folded together, her delicate fingers wrapped around each other. Her gaze was directed out the window, where it lingered and where it stayed—even though there was nothing to see outside and even though only the fog was her company, she kept her gaze out from the train and into the world that surrounded it.
The train whistled once more, punctuating the creak of metals with another moan.
She blinked once more.

THOOM.
THOOM.
Crack.
Click.
Snap.

The white dummy at the end of the firing range was at a point beyond destroyed, only the iron skeleton holding it up still remained. All of the other foam that covered it was lying on the floor in tatters, shredded by powerful buckshot which cared little to its physical integrity.

THOOM.
THOOM.
Crack.
Click.
Snap.

A double-barreled shotgun had always been his weapon of choice, inefficiencies be damned. It was a powerful self-defense weapon with decent range and excellent power. It only had two shots–but in situations where you needed to defend yourself, and nothing more, two shots was all that was needed.
The motions were second nature to him by now. Pull the trigger halfway for a single shot, all the way for the second, crack the barrels open so the old clip and spent shells ejected out, and slide in a new clip with fresh shells and snap the barrels shut again.

THOOM.
THOOM.
Crack.
Click.
Snap.

He couldn’t say he approved of how the weapon development team went with a two-shell clip instead of a multi-shell magazine. Magazines held more ammo and were spring-loading, which allowed for a higher variety of shots.
However, to create a magazine for this gun meant it would have to be invented from the ground up, and then mass-produced for it and it alone. This gun used a special 15-gauge ammo, with each pellet the size of a 12-gauge round–creating a larger shell with more punch, at the expense of being able to work with only one gun specifically designed for it.

He lifted up the shotgun to rest on his shoulder. He had been shooting it all day, trying to collect his thoughts on it. From a firing range, to a CQB training environment, and now to a testing lab.
Clad in a simple black t-shirt with green camoflague jeans and brown boots, Devin wasn’t much of an interesting man to look at. Even the hardened features and scar across his eye lacked any real “oomph” one would expect from a warrior–with his bright green eyes, freckles, and parted-unkempt mess of bright red hair, he seemed more of a typical Hollywood nerd who would prefer a rousing video game than combat-tried soldier.

A couple scientists had noted the pause in firing, looking up from the computers that they had been typing data in. They had been recording Devin’s average speed of firing, accuracy in either hand, body posture in the different stages of firing, and even just how comfortable he looked.
“Yes?” One female scientist said, lifting up her glasses along the bridge of her nose.
Devin flexed his hands, wincing. “I need a short break. My hands are burning up from getting metal jolted into them constantly, and my ears are ringing even through the earplugs.” He shook his head to try and clear out the ringing.
The scientist frowned. “You still have 38 magazines to go through.”
“Clips.” He corrected her. “Magazines are spring-loaded. Clips have exposed rounds.”
She gave him a hard look. He quickly went back to the original subject, after clearing his throat. “If I keep going in this state, eventually the data will be wavering more and more as I get tired and sore. This is still a prototype, so we want optimal data, don’t we?”
She blinked and then turned over to her compatriots at the computers, all of them whispering among each other. Devin took this brief pause to pull out his earplugs, trailing them down to his waist and unplugging them from a small device. They were designed to muffle out specific ranges of decibels–the big bang of the shotgun didn’t make it through at all, but didn’t at all hinder the sound of a human voice. Useful for testing, but having stuff crammed in the ears was still uncomfortable.
The scientists finished their hushed discussion quickly and went back to their computers, typing furiously. The female did the same, not even looking over at Devin. “You have an hour to rest up. The R&D team needs input as quickly as possible, so that’s all we’ll be able to spare.”
Devin nodded gratefully, hefting up the shotgun to rest on a nearby table, flicking on the safety and then hiking out of the room.
One hour.
That would probably be enough time to inject himself with a sedative, nap for a bit, inject himself with stimulant upon waking up, exercise, get some food, and then check in on how the technicians were handling his medical equipment.
Hopefully nothing would go wrong during that time. It had been numerous months since his branch was last called into action.
Devin flopped down onto his bed. His room was plain–white walls, white ceiling, white floor, black bed with white sheets. Various decorative items, such as an antique bookcase and a couple mirrors, gave the room a more “home-y” feel but couldn’t do anything about the size…or the general lack of personality. This was a military base, not an apartment suite.
But in the end? It was still a place he could lay his head and feel comfortable.
That was really all that mattered, to him.

Devin closed his eyes, and sleep quickly met him.
He didn’t even need the sedative after all. That would save a couple minutes.

DEVIN CONWELL:
Weapon Theme: Sci-fi Military
Movement Speed: **
Jumping Height: *
Health: *** (125)
Max. Health: ** (200)

The Kaiser Future Enterprises, Inc. (K.F.E.) is a multi-national military-industrial conglomerate that specializes in advanced weapons development, computer system technologies, and biomedical sciences. Civilian and military complexes across the world have licensed their services, and K.F.E. is constantly upgrading old and new products in order to find more ways to make them even more efficient.

Devin Conwell is a soldier in the A.N.T.D., a private military security firm subsidiary of K.F.E. While little more than a combat medic, Devin is still heavily trained in CQA, weapons handling, and frontline battlefield trauma care.
He himself is a shy young man, timid in groups and preferring to simply duck his head down and follow orders. He would like nothing more than a bright future, but he knows just wishing for one won’t make it happen. Not the strongest soldier, nor a genius tactician, or the greatest marksman, but when things go wrong and the A.N.T.D. is called on for missions…Devin hauls out to the utmost of his ability.

WEAPON 1: Carbine/Pistol Hybrid
Name: Silence Type “Razorback”
Role: Long-range single-target attacks
Power: **
Rate of Fire: *
Accuracy: ***
Primary Fire: Fires off a sniper shot
Alternate Fire: Reloads

“In combat, distance is often one of the safest covers you’ll ever find. The farther away you are from your enemies, the smaller you are, the harder you are to see, and thus the harder you are to hit. Unfortunately, this tends to work both ways–and so you need a gun that can still work at such a distance, without getting in the way of your arsenal once that distance is closed.
K.F.E., Inc. has heard that need, and so has developed the Silence Type ‘Razorback’ Light Carbine Handheld Rifle.

The carbine rifle was a gun that changed the face of warfare across the globe, a short rifle that could fire just as accurately, at the expense of a little velocity. Over time, however, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and even submachine guns brought better tools to the table with more advanced technology and simply better equipment.
K.F.E., Inc. has not forgotten about the utility of the old gun, however, and has revamped it with modern-day ingenuity as per the typical K.F.E. style. Marksmen will not be disappointed, as the Razorback is now a perfect long-range gun that offers the power and range of a carbine all in a little package…only a little bigger than a pistol! Once your distance is closed, nothing will keep you from holstering this bad boy and moving onto a more appropriate weapon, and once the distance is opened again–just whip it out, no setting up needed!

No longer does every combat team need a designated sniper. No more will a squad be stranded because their range specialist is having trouble finding appropriate terrain. Now anyone can take care of that pesky camper harrassing your crew!”

WEAPON 2: Double-Barrel Shotgun
Name: RF-10 “Doubletimer”
Role: Medium-range single-target power blasting
Power: ***
Rate of Fire: **
Accuracy: *
Primary Fire: Fires one barrel at a time
Alternate Fire: Fires both barrels at once

“The double-barreled shotgun (also known as the ‘coachgun’, ‘two-pipe’, or ‘hunter rifle’) was a great civilian weapon for sport but never saw much application for military use. Its low ammo count, combined with major difficulty in reloading, made it more of a hindrance than a utility of war. Beasts and skeet don’t shoot back, after all.
The Return-Fire line of double-barreled shotguns are excellent civilian weapons, and have revolutionized the face of sport shooting and game hunting alike–in fact, have been banned from several tournaments due to their ease of use being considered ‘cheating’. Their absorbency of recoil, amazing accuracy, and surprising light weight have enthralled sports shooters all around, where debates about their effectiveness surge across the internet daily.

With this in mind, K.F.E., Inc. is pleased to reinvent the perfected for a whole new application, and present the first double-barreled shotgun designed specifically for military use–the Return-Fire 10th Iteration break-action ‘Doubletimer’ 15-gauge SxS double-barreled shotgun.
The Doubletimer has the same light weight and ergonomic design that would be expected from a Return-Fire model, with an even easier reload system. With both of the shells put in a clip, and magnets attracted specifically to the clip activating once the barrel is open, reloading only takes half a second at maximum, after which the barrel automatically snaps shut and you’re ready for action again. The barrel size has also been increased dynamically–’15-gauge’ is usually a poor amount of pellets for a buckshot round, but the size of the pellets are as large as 12-gauge, for a bigger bang and a devastating 30-hit punch!

(Please note that at this time, due to the modified barrel size, the Doubletimer is incompatable with anything other than K.F.E. 15-gauge Timer rounds. The Doubletimer is not compatable with typical breaching rounds, Dragon’s Breath, flechette shells, or slugs of any kind. We understand the main promise of a shotgun is its ease of use with different types of ammo, but request that our customers be patient while we weigh the Doubletimer’s market)”

WEAPON 3: Machete/Grenades
Name: Bladeworks, Inc. “Pathway”
Role: Multi-range crowd-control
Power: ***
Rate of Fire: *
Accuracy: **
Primary Fire: Swings the machete
Alternate Fire: Throws a frag grenade

“Long ago, when Bladeworks, Inc. merged with K.F.E., Inc. as a subsidiary, we believed that their specialty in knives, swords, and axes could have good use for combat applications instead of just theaters and museums across the world. After the stunning success of the ‘Keisei’ katana, now the preferred weapon of Japanese police groups, we commissioned a blade made specifically for combat application across harsh terrain–a monster that could cleave through ice, molten rock, dense jungles, and still be sturdy enough to mince up bodies like Thanksgiving turkey.
After strenuous years of research and development, Bladeworks is now finally ready to showcase the results, and we believe you will not be the least bit disappointed. Paths to areas unexplored are now open, as you can make your own roads with Bladeworks’ ‘Pathway’ machete!

Bladeworks’ skill with swords of all kinds have shown through, as the Pathway is a brilliant piece of ingenuity. Forgoing machines, every Pathway machete is made by hand using ancient and timeless katana-forging techniques, meticulously folding layers upon layers of tempered carbon steel, each as razor sharp as the last to provide hundreds of cutting points all focused in a tiny edge. The blade is broad and single-edged, with a vicious curve to help with slashing while still retaining a point for stabbing. The unique augmented-steel-tungsten construction keeps it durable no matter what environment the user treks through, and the pure-steel edge is guaranteed to stay sharp no matter how much abuse is given to it.
The machete is also separated into two halves, and each layer of the half has a small gap in between, so that the layer of the others can neatly slide in–providing an extendable blade (up to 18 inches of pure cleaving power!) that can slide nicely into a 9-inch knife when put away or when a smaller edge is preferred. Together, the entire ensemble is about 10 pounds–fairly weighty for a sword, but that only adds to the sheer hacking power.

Between portability, power, and durability, Bladeworks’ latest work is a sheer miracle of blade construction. Move over, medieval enthusiasts, and make way–here comes the latest and greatest in technology, and a powerful contender for the ultimate sword OF ALL TIME!”

WEAPON 4: Submachine Gun
Name: HeSk FNF “Incursion”
Role: Fast-firing but weak crowd-control
Power: *
Rate of Fire: ***
Accuracy: **
Primary Fire: Quick but inaccurate rapid-fire shots
Alternate Fire: Reloads

“The assault rifle is the big bad boy of military weapons now, accurate and fast while still packing a tremendous punch. But the most faithful sidearm, the sub-machine, should never be neglected! Every primary arm is only as good as the sidearm, once it runs out of ammo or needs to reload in the middle of combat.

While we at K.F.E., Inc. take absolute pride in our firearms, we know that sometimes you need to toss it away for whatever reason and absolutely need to get something else that’s reliable. And so, for that, we introduce one of our best side-arms for civilian or military use–the new addition to the Helter Skelter ‘Fire N’ Forget’ line, ‘Incursion’. Two 25-round magazines combine for 50 shots total, and allow people to keep firing for lengthy amounts of time, and reloading is quick and easy. Its small size keeps it from encumbering people, while its power is comparable to actual assault rifles.
With a select-fire mode, firm stock and a weighted barrel to reduce recoil, and a foldable handle and stock for ease of concealment and carrying, the Incursion is an excellent choice for any soldier seeking a sidearm to compliment his main gun.

Don’t get caught empty-handed! Get a reliable back-up today!”

We can’t tell how far it is in the future.

The horrors from beyond the stars were invoked, somehow. Nobody can remember when. All everyone knows is that sometime in the past, they touched foot down on Earth–if a “foot” is the proper thing to call whatever appendage laid down on our soil. What should not be, and yet somehow still WAS, was now among us. To call us mere flies in its presence would be a misnomer, as even flies can be irritants–we would not even get the pleasure of being “irritating” to such a…THING.
Humanity was doomed.

No words could truly encompass what they did to the galaxy, much less to Earth. Sure, one could certainly describe. One could talk about how there are only three planets left, and how one of them is splintered into eight pieces. One could talk about how the sun is now barely flickering, only a slight puff of breath needed to douse it out. One could talk about how the radical changes in environment erupted every building in an explosion, oceans rising from their cages and clawing at the mainlands, volcanos disintegrating all that surrounded it and thousands of miles beyond.
But all of it would be mere superficialities. To try and describe the devastation would be futile–no words in any language could capture the emotional and physical trauma left on the survivors. The survivors who were simply a fraction of the human race as a whole, were now the only existing remnants of humanity.

The world now is…uninviting, to say the least.
Residue lay across every plain, as we constantly purge whatever areas surround us with whatever nuclear warheads we have remaining in our environment. The ground is nothing more than dirt and mud, tinged red with all of the blood that has been spilled over the ages. Every shadow hides spawns of cosmic horrors and their blasphemous anatomies, born from gibbering orifices and eldritch dreams.
And us humans? We’ve done all that we can do. We’ve learned to artificially create food through dug-up technology, and have rebuilt cathedrals and jails from stone and metal–but living in desolation hasn’t changed our love of life at all.
The land is poisoned and dying. Our home is destroyed.
But we’re still alive.
So we will live as we always have.

Enter the Ubi Sunt.
We are the Knights.
The time of our existence in this…wasteland have forced us to adapt our warfare. The only creatures we face now are these monstrosities, and so we’ve created specialized weapons to take them down. Our tactics are honed for bringing death to the deathless. We do not expect to take back this planet, but we will, at the very least, take back the right to live for those under our protection.
In every battle, hundreds of us die. But we take every corpse of ours and fight back tenfold. We use our corpses as weapons–in death and in life, we will purge the Earth.

New Caerleon is a tiny village in southern Ohio, just set off Old Logan Road. Right in between both Lancaster and Horns Mill, New Caerleon would act as possibly the only interesting sight in between the two destinations. New Caerleon is simple, as befitting its size, and mostly self-contained. Everybody knows each others’ names. Everybody’s neighbors with each other. If you live in the community, everyone considers you a friend.

In 1803, in the admission of Ohio to the Union as the 17th state, New Caerleon was one of the first American cities founded in it. The remains of a long-forgotten Fort Ancient village provided a solid foundation for settlers to build up from, and they quickly went to work making a tightly-knit community. A single monument was built right in the center of the city, celebrating the many heroes that had given their lives for this town, and that the blood would not have flowed in vain. The “Hero Monument” was carved as a man in armor, raising his sword high in one hand and clutching a gun in another–signifying both the evolution of war, and how a warrior is ready for combat all the time.
Little has changed as the centuries went by.
The town is still small, and the monument is still up, though developing technology has upgraded the town from huts to houses to apartments. People have moved in, established a trade, established jobs, and life goes on.

As the centuries went by, artifacts started turning up by the dozens. Native American descendants interested in preserving their history had been digging (with local permission) for the Fort Ancient remnants–when they found Viking and African artifacts as well, interest in the town shot up exponantially.
The Hero Monument was expanded, an entire museum built around it to celebrate the history of warriors across the globe and their achievements–the town named it the Eisenhower Museum, after the five-star general himself. It became the main tourist trap of anybody travelling the long distances across Ohio, as the tales of heroes long past and the cultures surrounding them were romantic tales of adventure and glory. What child, or teenager, or young adult could resist such epics?
In the mid-60s and 70s, however, patriotism hit a new low with the Vietnam War. Protests against the war and against war in general raged across the entire United States. The Eisenhower Museum got a large backlash due to its glorification of war when the current movement was of peace.
Tourists to the town reached an all-time low, where they have remained ever since.

The Eisenhower Museum still stands today, as does the Hero Monument.
Upkeep is maintained, however, entirely by volunteers and history majors. With very few tourists going out of their way to head into the town, profits have reached into the negatives for such a grand museum.
In the late 70s, the sci-fi boom borne from outer space films rose another attempt to create a tourist trap–thus the Roswell Observatory was built, a museum of alien encounters and unsolved extraterrestrial phenominae. A cynical cash-in at best, it both lacked the soul of the Eisenhower Museum and the historical facts; alien encounters are a fuzzy science at best, and thus many of the customers were either people looking for more evidence to further their conspiracy theories or men who had explanations for everything and refused to believe in alien life. The controversy, however, generated enough income to keep New Caerleon afloat as a village. As with all fads, though, the sci-fi craze died out and New Caerleon was once again reduced to nothing more than just a tiny group of houses between Lancaster and Horns Mill, Ohio.

For a new face to peek into New Caerleon now is a celebration–in a place where everyone knows who you are, friends are great but more friends are greater. The village’s financial woes are swept under the rug with a constant smile and an invitation to stay a while. Life is simple, but happy, and this is just the way they want it.
The economic recession has hit the place even harder, but New Caerleon hopes to persevere. Unity and the power it provides has lead even the most stalwart heroes through dangerous wars, and every mighty soldier is backed up by an entire platoon.

Only problem is, a week every twenty years does a mysterious and bloody fog settle on the village. And now is that time again…

YEAR: 1376
AREA: Viterbo, Italy

Thunder and lightning cracked through the sky, rain slinging down in thick blankets of water onto the matted and muddy grass. The mud formed flowing streams around the grass, coursing around and through fallen corpses impaled with various weapons and in various states of armor. Screams of men in agony, men in triumph, steel being shattered, and wood splintering.
Only in a war, could such atmosphere be called ‘acceptable’. And a war this was—the War of the Eight Saints, the war between Pope Gregory XI and the city-state of Florence.
“Raise your swords high, warriors! Behold the heavens and the Earth before us, and remember what we are fighting for!”
One voice was lost among the cacophony of roars and shouts, but this voice had no less passion than the other screams. A knight clad in white and gold armor, dented in places and stained red in others, swung his shield out with all the power his arm could muster, impacting full-force onto another knight’s breastplate and crushing his ribs—with very audible effect not only from the bones, but also the armor and the resulting wail of agony.
“Lord Viorel!” He heard another voice call out, but he didn’t dare to let his eyes off of the battle. Numerous knights and peasants armed with various degrees of weaponry all surrounded him, and none of them wished friendliness. Since the battle started, he didn’t know where his allies were, where they had gone, or if they even still lived.
But such was the nature of war. Once you entered battle, what happened next was only death.
“Lord Viorel!” The voice called out again, more urgent in tone. Viorel knew he had to pay attention to it, but tearing his gaze away from the would mean blood spilt from him. He lifted up his shield to block a dagger, returning a thrust with his sword to fell the aggressor. An axe landed across his backside, smashing into the armor. He stumbled, but leapt back up with an armored kick to another knight, rushing ahead with his shield to bash away everyone in front of him.
“What is it?!” He called out, gritting his teeth against every impact of flesh and metal against his shield. The waves of enemies were endless, and he was but one man. But such was the nature of war.
“Lord Viorel! Where are you?!” The voice called out again. He didn’t even know whether it was an ally or an enemy—the origin was lost amongst the hordes of the faceless evil. They were all humans, each with faces, but to him they were nothing more than blood to be shed with his sword and shield. Viorel stopped in his rush to swing around in a wide cleave with his blade, blood spraying upwards in a morbid fountain as his metal severed straight through flesh and organs. His spin was promptly stopped by seven attacks seemingly out of nowhere, thrusting with spear, dagger, and sword out of the melee and into the joints of his armor. Pain seared through his body as his own blood spurted out both into the armor and out of the joints, mingling with so many others’.
“LORD VIOREL! WHERE ARE YOU?!” The voice called again. He had no answer to give, though, as he knew no more than just violence. He knew the general area, that this was Viterbo. He knew that the enemies were trying to oppress the citizens. He knew that he could not lose. And he knew that he was alone among many others. But beyond that? All he knew is that he needed to fight. And that he needed to keep on.
He roared with pure fury, louder than any other scream on the battlefield, lunging ahead and caring not whether blades were ripped out or shoved in deeper. He shoved his blade straight in between the visor of a knight, shoving it deep and using his force to push it out through the other side of his helmet.
“LORD VIOREL! ABOVE! LOOK ABOVE!” The voice called out once more.
Above? Why above? There were no evils above. He swung his shield to reduce another peasant’s skull to jelly. There was only here.
“VIOREL! ABOVE!”
Viorel looked above.

Fog was gathering around them all, lightning gathering in the sky.
His heart sank.
He had heard rumors about this fog. And if so…none of them would survive.

The curtain raises.

“Oh, Mary-Anne!”
“Oh, L’rlauarr!”

On the left was a humanoid being, though to call it humanoid would be a blasphemy of the human form–tentacles and stretched limbs adorned his entire apparel, marking him one of the hellspawned unspeakables known as The Deep Ones. His form was thankfully hidden underneath a dapper gentleman Victorian suit and top hat lowered upon his misshapen head, with thousands of beady eyes peering underneath the brim. He was lowered down upon one knee as he flung his hand out to a beautiful lady in a prim white suit and soft features complimented with curly blonde hair, sending white flower petals scattering upon the air to her. The lady gasped as several touched her and lifted up her hands to timidly clutch at her heart.
“Can we not break the shackles of this oppressive life and the needless torments that shackle us down? Our hearts are the fragments of the keys, if only we united we could break the locks and soar into the heavens with our wings!” L’rlauarr groaned in a voice both gutteral and grating to the ear, every syllable strained by an alien tongue forcing itself to contort to the human language. His eyes glittered at her, the numerous possibilities of futures etched into his soft smile, each curve of his tentacles a photograph of the years they could spend together.
“L’rlauarr, if only life was so easy…” Mary-Anne choked on every single word, turning away from him and looking up at the sky, extending her hand to grasp at the air. “You and I share a troubled history, and only a tumultuous future awaits us if we dare to unite in such forbidden matrimony!”
L’rlauarr stood up and slithered ever-so-closer to her to leaving trails upon trails of slime across the stage, holding his multi-jointed spiked arms out to her. “Mary-Anne, must your negative adjectives weigh down the nouns of your message? We share a history indeed, and yes, a future awaits us if only we unite! Troubled, tumultuous, and forbidden are harsh words unbefitting your beauty and the happily-ever-after that you so deserve!”
Mary-Anne choked once more and flung herself into L’rlauarr’s arms, wrapping them tight around his waist, who responded in kind by interlocking his own as well as his tentacles around her back.
L’rlauarr continued, “Don’t you see how easily you sling yourself into the comforting grasp of your beloved? Don’t you feel your heart pulling you to your destiny with the only man who can love you in the way you love him?”
“L’rlauarr, can you truly be the water to my blossoming flower? I’m wilting from my heart’s starvation, the harsh sun’s beating rays pounding down leave me to rot!”
“I will be your water and so much more, Mary-Anne. I will fulfill you like nothing else ever has…and together, we will build a bright and shining future cemented with every brick hand-crafted by our hearts.”
The two come together in a kiss, which brings up a lot of questions best left unanswered.

The curtain falls, and the audience applauses.

YEAR: 1054
AREA: Mount Tokachi, Hokkaido, Japan

There had been bloody activity at the mountain lately.
The time was one of conflict and war, with the Chrysanthemum Throne being constantly fought over to determine who would be the emperor of Japan. The Imperial Family struggled against other clans, several of which contained great power. Samurai and soldiers alike clashed daily, with corpses littering every battlefield. This level of violence was on the level of massacre, and it had been going on for almost three hundred years…with no end in sight.
And yet, something about this mountain was even more violent. Battles had been started here, but all of them ended the exact same way: Upon nightfall, every single soldier collapsed dead, with only the ones that had retreated from the battle site living to tell the tale. They reported unearthly screams, entire streams of blood gushing like fountains, and bodies dissected to mere skeletons within seconds. No less than ten attempts at war had been waged there and no less than ten thousand soldiers had been needlessly wasted before both sides had an unofficial “truce” to never set foot even remotely near the mountain. Something clearly didn’t want them to fight, there.
But Hinosuke’s lord wasn’t happy with simply knowing “You can’t do this”. He wanted to know the why.
And when a lord wants something, the samurai WILL provide.

Sunlight glinted off the red armor that protected his form as he steadily made his way forth. There were no birds chirping, no animals rustling leaves, no insects making noises—only the rattle of his armor, bow, arrows, and daisho gave any announcement of life in the environment. His head tilted as he stared up at the behemoth of a mountain that lay before him. His destination, and the only reason he was out here in the first place.
Mount Tokachi. Mount Tokachi! The essence of Kagutsuchi!
A smile came to his face as his steps quickened. Kagutsuchi was the god of fire in their worship ceremonies—his birth had caused the death of the mother Izanami, burning her to ash from the head to feet. His father Izanagi was overcome by her wails and screams, and upon her death, he…snapped. He took his katana and beheaded Kagutsuchi, then cut his body into eight pieces and scattered them all across the earth to form different mountains. From year to year Kagutsuchi awoke to scream in agony at his death, spewing fiery tears all across the lands from his wounds.
Thankfully, no towns were nearby to bear the brunt of his pain. The only creatures that suffered at Kagutsuchi’s flailing were the trees and animals. And, right now, him.
But he had a purpose for being there. And he, Hinosuke Kimura, would not fear any god. If Kagutsuchi would pick now to cry, then Hinosuke would cut through his very flames!

Night had fallen, and Hinosuke sat at his little camp on the mountainside. He stared at his katana as he draw a rock gently across the edge, sharpening the blade. He’d restring his bow, feathered his arrows, and sharpened his wakizashi, now he was on his katana. His thoughts were focused on none of these, though.
He had made decent trek today, starting early in the morning and hauling up a few miles alongside the mountain before nightfall. Shot a deer, made a fire, had some dinner, etc, etc. It would probably take a week or so to trek entirely up the mountain, and he would have to consider the myriad of threats the entire way. The sun was blaring hot, and he was in heavy armor. The creatures around here were fierce. There were often bandits traveling trails. Kagutsuchi could take offense to his presence. The mountain itself wasn’t quite stable, he could slip and fall. And plus, there was the…whatever it was…that came around nightfall. How would he know when and where it would start? How would he know if he came too close to it? What if it was a living being?
He bit down on a deer calf as he closed his eyes.
Swallow. “Kuso baka yarou”, he snarled to himself. What was he doing, getting scared? He was a samurai! A soldier of his lord! There was no greater honor than to protect the civilians under his rule, and to protect the leader himself! He was a guardian—a guardian! Whatever the dangers were, he would overcome them, no matter what!
He grunted as he tossed away the bone.
CLANG.
Hinosuke blinked. Clang? What was the sound of something hard…hitting…metal?
Hinosuke lunged up from his sitting position, grabbing his bow/arrows with one hand and his wakizashi/katana with the other.
Something was out there.