Valhalla:After the End (11/22/14 Rewriting and Rebooting)

[machinekng]

I apoligize for missing my deadline, but family business came up, and I wasn't able to use my computer this weekend. Therefore, I'll have a chapter up tonight, but I don't plan to make up Friday's post. The chapter schedule will simply be shifted a day.

[machinekng]

Chapter 5- The Other Side

Spoiler Alert!

A bird, one quite like a pigeon in character, but wearing black feathers and a thin, long beak, perched upon the gate. It watched the people pass below it, ignorant of its observation. They headed back and forth, to and from the palace. Sometimes, a person would drop bread crumbs, either on purpose or accidently. Either way, it was a free snack. The bird waited. And waited. No food, and the stream of people lessened as the sun rose higher and higher.

Stupid people.

No easy meal here. The bird rose into the air, flapping its wings and soaring off over the avenue, darting through alleyways and over thoroughfares. It stopped briefly onto a market stall, its avian eyes scanning the square, looking for scraps. It spotted another stall, full of fresh bread, ripe fruit, and succulent vegtables. Yet when the bird swooped down, the merchant shooed it away, nearly hitting it with a broom.

Stupid people.

The bird cursed the merchant with a piercing squawk and took off once again. The wind carried the bird eastward. It dived and maneuvered through the air as to avoid the pillars of smoke, belched by the factories below.

It soon passed the factories, across a river, and was now flying over the other side of town. The bird set down on top of a roof. Not one in good condition, the wood was damp and beginning to rot, but it would support the bird for now. The bird’s eyes scanned the ground once more. More prospects than before, a nearby sewer drain looked and smelled like it could have something good in it, and there was a pile of trash to sort through, but here there was competition, and not all of it was merely avian. The bird flapped its wings and gave off a few squawks, scaring away a few other, smaller members of its kind. The other competitors would be more of a problem. Something big was riffling through the trash pile. The bird walked over, sniffing the air. Not a person, it seems. Not a hound, not anything it could remember.

Could he scare it away? Probably.

The bird repeated his presentation towards the shape moving in the trash pile.

No response.

The bird came closer, once again repeating the series of screams and flaps.

The pile stopped moving.

Crap…

The bird barely dodged the claw that shot from the pile. The bird, having fled immediately, had flown on for a while before it had a chance to double back. What was this new smell, this new thing? The bird landed on the same roof. What was it? Come to think of it, it kind of looked like a person. Two arms and legs. But no, it had no face like a person, and no clothes like a person. It had eyes though, large ones, and come to think of it, they were pointed right at…

Crap…

The bird darted away once more, not waiting for the predator to continue its pursuit. It filed away the smell in its brain as “to be avoided.”

It was still hungry.

Stupid people.
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The Marro felt sad as the bird flew away. It would have helped feed the growing hive. The sensation was odd, the sadness. With the old hive, well, everything was the hive, everything for it. There were no feelings. Now…

It was different. Things had changed. He did not understand why. All he knew was that the hivelords, the masters of the hive, were angry at each other. Then they fought, and then he was chased away, away and away. And now, he was here. He had met others of his kind, others who had been driven away. They congregated here, this side of town. They didn’t like Marro in the other side. He had heard of one of his kind being killed while looking for food. They never went there anymore.

The Marro turned towards the house where the bird had once perched. His, their home. He turned back to the pile he had been shifting through and grabbed what he had found. It was mostly rotting, but the hive could process it, he thought. He took it inside. There were no decorations on the walls, just more Marro leaning against them, wrapped in whatever rags they could find. They turned to him in silence, then to a patch on the ground. He went to it, bundling what he had found in his arms, and brushed away the dirt, revealing a rotten wooden trapdoor. He pulled it out of the ground, revealing a hole, and then descended it. The hole opened into a chamber, large enough for twenty Marro to stand in. None were present, however. The Marro descended the wall, digging into the moist dirt with his claws. He walked to the middle of the chamber.

The hive. Oh yes, the hive.

It lay there, so vulnerable, so unrprotected. It was just a bulb in the ground.

The Marro brushed it, and the bulb opened slightly. The Marro heard a voice enter his mind.

“Daddy?” its call brushed the Marro’s mind.

“Yes, it’s alright,” the Marro replied, caressing the bulb. He began to give off what a romantic would call a coo, although it sounded only remotely like it.

“I’m hungry, daddy.” The hive said with a sad voice.

The old hives didn’t act like this. They spoke of domination and conquest, giving orders instead of cries. It was strange. Perhaps the hives acted like this to the hivelords? Perhaps. It would explain much.

“I have some food, but not much. The others will bring you more.”

“Thank you.”

The Marro let the bundled debris slide from his clutch into the bulb. A tongue came up, greedily lapping up its meal.

The hive closed up again, and returned to silence, although the Marro thought he could still feel a coo.

The Marro leaned against the chamber walls. He would soon need to retrieve another meal, this one for himself and the others. It would be a long time before the hive could provide for them.

This was a hard life, living at the edges. What was the point? The point of struggling for one’s very existence, of not having a moment of pleasure? Why did he not just roll over and die?

He looked again to the hive. He was sure it was cooing now, and the sound, although it was only in his mind, gave him hope.

No one had spoken to him like that, before the new hive hatched.

Was this why the Marro swarmed, their hiving spreading across the land? Was this why the hives poured out hordes, hordes which died to defend them?

For love?

The Marro put his head down. He didn’t know. All he knew was that it was his duty to protect this lovely, innocent thing.

It would be enough.
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Back in the other side of town, another alien walked about. This one was of a more mundane kind, a man of Japanese descent. He wore a clean business suit, atypical in the eyes of the passersby. However, he fulfilled most of the other stereotypes associated with the race and class, and was thus left alone, ignored by the pedestrians.

Good.

Very good.

The man walked against foot traffic, sliding through the crowd. He wasn’t going in the same direction as the others.

He had special business in town.

He headed east. Walking past the industrial district and into the slums. There was hardly anyone here, as opposed to the market district.

Very good.

He did see someone though. Just a ruffian. No one of importance. The ruffian was approaching however, his eyes filled with a predatory malice. He seemed to be pulling something out of his belt. A gun?

Well, that would have to be dealt with.

Within a second, the ruffian was dead. The man returned his knife and the cloth he had used to wipe it back to their hiding places. No need to cause an alarm.

The man resume walking, this time at a slightly faster paced. He pulled a key out his pocket, his eyes scanning about for the corresponding address.

There, an old warehouse. An ideal place for the meeting. The man opened the door, quietly slipping into the darkness.

“Isamu.” A voice came out from the darkness. Isamu didn’t care to look for it. It would be rude.

“Yes, present. I assumed you requested this meeting as to hire me? You are wasting your time otherwise.”

“Of course,” the voice replied.

“The job?”

“Simple enough. Take the contents of the package ten steps ahead of you to the location described in the enclosed instructions, and prepare as nessecary.”

“Payment?”

“Also enclosed.”

“Very professional.”

“Thank you, we like to do our best.”

“May I ask why you have hired me specifically?”

“We simply want to dissociate ourselves from the action. You know how to do these things without being seen.”

“Of couse.”

Very professional.

[Einar Gen.]

Probably your best written chapter yet, IMO.

[machinekng]

Originally Posted by Einar Gen.

Probably your best written chapter yet, IMO.

Really?

I actually don't feel so well about it myself. The last section was hacked out so I could meet my deadline, and I intend to go over it and give it a good rewrite. I do like the first bit though.

Thanks you.

[Einar Gen.]

Actually, out of this chapter, I think I liked the whole Isamu part best, lol.

[William099]

Is this fanfiction going to continue? I was really getting into it.

[Elven Lord]

Nice work. As it happens I'm also writing a fan fiction about the aftermath of the war, using the children of some of my old characters.

[machinekng]

Okay. I've decided to return to the Heroscapers community, and I guess here would be as good as place as any to announce it.

I'm curious if anyone is interested in seeing me continue this story. I haven't been writing much recently, but I've always felt that this was some of my best work, and I wouldn't mind continuing it if there's interested readers. I'd probably start by doing edits of the published chapters, as I'd need to reconstruct my story outline.

Anyways, it feels good to be back.

[TGRF]

Welcome back! Personally, I can't remember too much of this fan fiction, so a reboot of the first chapters would probably be a good idea. You might consider sending a message out to your readers to let them know you're starting back up. Or just @mention them, as that works too now.
~TGRF.

[TheAverageFan]

Sure, we always need moar fanfics here on the site. Y not.

~TAF, texttalkingly.

[machinekng]

Originally Posted by The Grim Reaper's Friend

Welcome back! Personally, I can't remember too much of this fan fiction, so a reboot of the first chapters would probably be a good idea. You might consider sending a message out to your readers to let them know you're starting back up. Or just @mention them, as that works too now.
~TGRF.

Originally Posted by TheAverageFan

Sure, we always need moar fanfics here on the site. Y not.

~TAF, texttalkingly.

Thanks. Now that I'm looking back on what I wrote, I can definitely tell that it needs some rewrites. Still, I'm excited to dust this off and continue it.