Mercenary

[Shadow]

"Bastards. That's what they are. A rogue group of thrill seeking bastards. They use the law in a way that works for them, but when it doesn't suit them, they easily break it. Bastards. Most of them hardly have any history besides a violent one. No family, no childhood we know of. Nothing that would keep them at bay, noone we can threathen to kill if they don't listen. So you say to imprison them? Throw them in a rat infested dark pit of a jail and throw away the key. If only it would be so easy.

Bastards who don't give a dog's shit about their life, or atleast not in a way regular people do. They do what get's the job done, and have their own vision on how life should be. All they care about is staying alive and to get their job done. What? Kill them, you say? Get rid of them, a nice ambush in a valley, pierce their bodies with arrows, let none of them live. Hah! Why would we? They are good. To good. They get the job done. And at some times, especially in this filthy, by the Gods forsaken war, it's exactly what we need. We need bastards like them. But you are right. They believe we got their backs because they think exactly about what i've just told you.

They do what they are best at. So in return, we do what we are best at. We cover up, take away their identity and give them more power then they already have. We create something that we can take away, and get control over them. We let those bastards work for us, exactly how we want them to work for us. Combined with magic and our researchers, we make them like the filthy Dragon Lords that we're fighting against. Society will cast them out, spit on them, villagers will chase them with pitchforks and torches. And they will have nowhere to go, but to us. I see in your eyes you like this. Good. Because i've already set up the arrangements, and it's happening as we speak.

Long live the King, my friend. Long. Live. The King."

With a suction of sound suddenly rising back to my brains, I finally manage to wake up, only to find myself strapped in some prison. My eyes open, and my world is a blurry green, as if i'm looking through water. Ah, that explains. I'm actually IN water. It feels thicker then normal water, and it looks like i'm in a cilinder shaped glass container. I can vaguely see torches in the back of the room, but other then that I see dozens of vials and weird potions, and even more strange instruments i've never seen before. What the hell is going on?

The last thing I remember was hanging in a bar with my crew. Some call us bastards, others call us The Nice Guys. I actually like the second one better, somehow it has a more pleasant feeling to it. It's ofcourse also very funny when we're about to take out a target, and he or she looks up at us, asking who the hell we are. The reaction in their eyes before we kill them, when we tell them that we're The Nice Guys, is priceless. Ofcourse, SHE would always get grumpy, saying it's The Nice Guys and Girls, since we got a couple females in our team.

But by the Gods, Morrison, get you're damn scarred ass back to business. My brain is slow. I get easily distracted. That means we've must've been drugged. In our ale. Ofcourse. That damned swine Jarrel from the Inn! I thought the ale tasted more disgusting as usual! I wish I had my sword. It's a nice sword, and I would hate to have lost it. It's come in handy during the war against the Dragon Lords.

Ah yes, the war. It's coming back to me now. Our, as in mankind, had come to this planet as our old one was about to break down. Our Wizards managed to create a portal somewhere else, and we ended up here, with millions in the end. Took weeks. Then the portal was destroyed, meaning our home planet had been destroyed as well. So this planet was our home, only finding it to be inhabited by Dragons. We had Dragons on our planet, but no more then a few, who we tried to hunt down for pleasure, they were dumb shits anyway.

But these Dragons, by the Damned Gods, we're SMART. They could think, and told us nicely that they didn't want us here. Like hell we would back down. That's when the war started, and it never ended. We managed to settle and take over the continent, building our castles and villages, driving away the Dragons who gathered on another continent. I believe it's lasting for over two hundred years now, the war.

Ah yes, that reminds me again, I was born here. Orphan. Mom dropped me off somewhere. Never heard of again. Well, I turned out great, Maw. Strapped in some green watered glass container. Well I need to get the damn out of here.

There. With a huge pull I break free from one strap, and instinct makes me smash the glass. That surprises me, as it cracks right open and I flood right out, gasping for air. How did I breathe in there in the first place?

I stand up, stretching my sore and muscled body. Then I notice my damned arm. It's dark green with red, and thickly muscled. It has spikes on the top of it. Instead of hands I got a claw. I check my other arm, it's fine. Normal human. My tail sweeps back and forth, as i'm cold, and naked in this by the Gods forsaken dungeon. I look around and see my crew in similair glass containers, floating around in the thick green water.

Wait a second.

A tail? I got a by the gods damned tail?

((medieval stage. Rest hopefully will speak for itself! Only my first post is in the I-perspective, changing to 'normal' writing after this.))

[Doc]

MUSIC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8cNHnLXeA

A soft hum droned gently within the recesses of his mind, fluctuating and accenting in volume as his brow twitched. He was adrift in a sea of darkness with no bearings, simply drifting through the vast limbo of infinity, dead to the world. The darkness would twist every now and then, growing pixelated with varying shades of grey while accompanied by what sounded like a scratched horn, its melody one that made a man cringe and his ears shriek. He could swear he heard distorted laughter, followed by a distinct noise that could only be described as nothingness. Was he dead? Was he alive?

He was... nowhere.

And he was... everywhere.


MUSIC: "Echo's Theme" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyO6_zhjFws

The lids of his dark eyes lifted slowly, his blurry gaze adjusting itself to the dim lighting of the room. They were narrow and black, the area surrounding them almost looking bruised in color if one could make out his eye line. But at the moment they were cast beneath a veil of shadow provided by the upper part of the visor that now adorned his brow, connected to the rest of his head via a cold steel helm that had been locked into place.

But not by his doing.

Ironic. He had always covered himself from head to toe before being taken to wherever he was now, usually in light weighing and dark colored leather and cloth to allow flexibility and concealment. About his helm, even, he had wrapped a long black cloth as only to reveal his intimidating gaze to others. And now, against his will, he was concealed once again. His entire body was clad in steel, the colors ranging from black, to grey, to orange. The sight of him was foreign and cold, a metal man with no inch of flesh visible.

Echo moved slowly in his suspension capsule. Strange, despite his apparel he could move with more ease than he had in simple cloth. He pressed a steel clad hand up against the barrier keeping him within the pod, running his cold fingers down along the glass before tightening his hand into a fist and slamming it through.

Shards scattered every which way as whatever liquid he had been adrift in flooded from the container. With a metallic sound he touched down upon the bottom of the capsule, the sound of his impact hollow as it echoed through the chamber. Cautiously he stepped forth into the dark cell, surprised that his feet suddenly made no sound.

Though they were not visible through the narrow slit that his helm allowed him for vision, his eyes shifted to Morrison. He spoke no words, as he never had been much of a talker, while remaining in place.



Echo

[Zyta]

Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9reoUinXgA

What the fuck! I’m innocent! There I sat in the tavern of my usual nightly corner looking over my plunder. I had nothing to do with them and their loud, obnoxious bantering. When one after another they fell to the hard wood floor, I knew that it was time to get out of there, but seeing my escape had to be the one who put the poison in their drink. I never made it out the door; my legs gave out from under me, the pain mounting as slowly my consciousness drifted into nothingness…

Then I awoke, hours later, in the pit of some dungeon strapped to a table as faceless men covered wholly in light spoke to me, asking me many things. I knew nothing, I repeated over and over. I was tortured for… hours? days? They asked me all sorts about the others that fell in the tavern, why I was making my escape; I’ll admit, I was delirious, most of my answers were nothing more than senseless noises like the gargling of water. I remember fainting again in the middle of the torture, my answers were not, it seems, welcomed by the host of doctors, for lack of knowing who they truly were.

Apollo found himself in a room, hanging from the walls by chains cuffed to his wrists. A pool of his own liquid was seeping into the cell’s brick blocks as more blood and sweat and tears made like rivers down the sides of his body and dripped from the tips of his toes. He found this his upper body, after forcibly rotating his head to look down, was bare; his skin was peeled back in some areas revealing the tender muscle and bone of the ribcage. Where the skin was not peeled back, it was rubbed raw, painfully purple and red, beads of blood formed along the surface of the rubbed raw skin and dripped down one after another. Apollo’s legs were drenched in what he assumed was water at first, but then realized that it was a mixed of blood and water; due to the liquid in his pants, Apollo’s legs were stiff with cold. He could not feel his feet, but he could see them as clear as day dangling just inches off of the ground.

Apollo looked around the cell, noticing as he did that there were others, similar beings like him. They, too, were tortured and transfigured; one bearing a tail, another encased in metal, but both of them stirring where Apollo couldn’t.

[Shadow]

While concidering if his tail was a nuisance or perhaps a nice welcome, he was distracted by the smashing of another glass container. Morrison straightend his back and looked at Echo, one of his crew. "Bout time you got yer metal ass outta there." he said, but grinned, raising his thumb to Echo, who ofcourse did not reply, but just looked around. Morrison did the same and saw a large wooden door, with a normal lock on it. Besides the tables with the strange instruments on it, he saw weird bubbling vials of red and blue liquid, still on a small fire.

Then he looked back to his rather large green scaled arm (it was scaled, he noticed) and opened and closed his hand (his claws) a couple times. His darkbrown eyes darted from the heavy wooden table with the instruments on there, to his new large arm, and back again. "YAH!" He shouted and after raising his heavy arm high up in the air, he smashed it down with all the strenght he had. His body jerked along with the massive strenght, as he had smashed right through the table, and ended up on the concrete floor, smashing a hole in there. He removed his scaled arm from the rubble and blinked. "I'll be damned." He simply said.

"Echo. Try and get the others out, will ya?" he said, walking to the door, and peeked through the barred small hole that was in there. He saw nothing but a long, dark hallway. Then he turned around and almost lost his balance as his rather long tail sweeped with the turning motion. "By the Gods damned tail in this damned cold enviroment!" He groaned, realizing he wasn't wearing any clothes, as he looked into a dirty mirror that was in front of him. He eyed himself.

A not old, not young man, pretty scarred in his face and especially his body, short black hair and a massive jawline. His shoulders were almost twice as wide as Echo's, especially with the larger scaled green arm now. Narrowing his eyes, he inspected himself, seeing nothing more had changed. Yet. Only his arm and a new tail. "Coulda've been worse." he muttered to himself, and got some rags to tie around his waist. It would have to do for now.

Then his eyes fell on the chained man hanging against the wall, looking more dead then alive. "You look more dead then alive, buddy." he chuckled and came closer, and with a swift strong motion, he simply tore off the chains with his new found claws. He catched the stranger and sat him down gently.

Morrison definitely did not like this one bit. They could escape this easily from this freak labatory, and no guards whatsoever, noone that was checking up on them? What day was it? How many days had even passed? So many questions.

"And i'mma makin' damn sure i'm gettin' my answer soon." he groaned to himself, going to help Echo with the rest of his crew.

[Paladin_girl]

It's good to be honest. Better still to be honest folk but the problem is, we can never be like that. We're the blades that get dirty... and tainted... and wronged. If you don't care about us... don't touch us. Did I say that? Did I say that really? I must be crazier than I imagined. There's no such thing as a perfectly honest person. But there's such thing as the perfect liar – I can assure you of that.

Not that it bothers me.

So why am I here again? Oh... that's right... the tankard... m-my head... did I fall over that badly ? I should stop soon... that I should...

Not that it bothers me... right?

The sudden waking cry... it echoes through my mind like an eternity of thunder and rain, showering heavily upon my forehead... forcing me awake again and again and again. Something struck me hard... so constantly that I forgot about the pain – and imagined the lights over me.

What the crap WAS in that drink? Tastes awful...

Shibrasie rolled over, finding that she had stopped halfway due to chains around her wrists, ankles and neck. Around her body was a tightly-wrapped cloth, as if she were a badly-done present. Through blurred vision, she saw red lines and marks around them, as if someone had attempted to cleanly slice through her skin with a fine knife. As the focus in her eyes regained fully, she noticed that they made bizarre shapes and circles, twisting into each other like snakes. It stained liquid, cloth and skin badly.

Whatever those marks were, they were... everywhere. And it made the girl writhe angrily into motion, trying to sit up, realising that she had been floating, seeing the liquid being a sickly green and carmine red, merging together like an insane experiment before her eyes. She gagged, trying to pull herself up again, her head emerging from the liquid to gasp in the putrid air of this strange chamber, tugging at the chains.

While doing so, her eyes swept over the area, seeing her companions in similar predicaments, staring at Morrison, Apollo and Echo with wide eyes. She attempted to try and pull herself up again.

[Nevermore]

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqod6U6GgXw)

From the far back came a high pitched whistling noise, like that of a boiling tea kettle as steam started to shoot from the top of one of the numerous capsules. The water inside was a raging, boiling mass and whatever was inside was completely hidden from view inside the raging water until the capsule suddenly exploded in a giant cloud of steam and water. The entire lab was filled with heat as the boiling water rained down at a harmless temperature by the time it hit the floor and Morrison, and steam filled the air. From the ruined capsule came the slapping footsteps of wet feet and broad figure slowly came into view out of the fading steam. At first glance the man was normal, a typical fighter, broadly built, strong, muscled body riddled with scars, but as his face and shoulders came more into view the change was apparent. Tresser's handsome face, with its finely trimmed short beard and mustache was still mostly normal, save for the slight slant his eyes bore and the slits that occupied his pupils. Scales faded in and out around his eyes, cheeks and nose, adding a slightly scaled look to his face without them actually covering his face completely. He had a rough, yet exotic look to his face that made him appear fierce yet calm, the sort of calm a wild animal has when it knows that its enemy has no chance of hurting it.

The even more surprising change was in his broad shoulders and back. Dark red and black scales ran up the length of his broad, muscled back and flared out at his shoulders, building them up and outward like the flared shoulder plates of a fancy suit of armor. His back had remained relatively the same size as before the change, but his shoulder were now much larger than they had been before. The scales rose a good two inches off his shoulders on the top, and a good half a foot on either side, several inches wide like wicked fins or solid wings. He brought his arms up and shook his hands through his hair quickly, knocking what little water remained from his shoulder-length, wavy black hair. He looked up at Morrison with a somewhat bored expression, "This doesn't look like the wooden planks of the pub floor I should've woken up on," Tresser spoke in a cool voice that ended with a slight hiss as a forked tongue snaked out of his mouth and back in an instant. Despite his exit and obvious changes, it seemed that Tresser himself was still unaware of his transformation.

[Doc]

Echo stood before the far right wall, silently gazing upwards at another man suspended by chains attached to his wrists. He was caked in blood and his flesh was charred irrevocably, his head twisted about at an absurd angle and his jaw opened wide. Echo recognized him as one of Morrison's gang, a scout if he recalled correctly.

The metal clad ninja was beginning to regret accepting Morrison's offer to accompany his team for the mission. But the money was good, and how was he supposed to know that what should have been a once and done deal would turn into... this...

The sound of rattling chains suddenly obtained his attention. He glanced back over his shoulder at a woman strapped to a table, wrapped in cloth and scarred along her body. Moving to the side of the table he examined the chains for a moment before stepping back and turning his head elsewhere, his dark eyes scanning the chamber. Sure enough, he was able to spot a sharp blade pushed up against an adjacent wall, apparently kicked aside unknowingly. Picking it up, he came back to the woman's side and looked to the chains, poising the weapon over each for a moment before cutting through with great force and precision. When done, spun the blade once and placed in on his belt. Who knew what would come in handy in this hell hole?

He waited to see if the woman could manage standing on her own.

[Paladin_girl]

Shibrasie or 'Rasie' scrambled up immediately after being cut free, sitting up and flinching from the wounds a moment before placing her hands over her head, muttering a quiet, 'fuggin' 'ngover...' before glancing up, nodding her thanks to Echo with an awkward smirk.

“Fancy that. You found a toy. I owe ya.” she chuckled wearily. She clambered from the table, briefly using it as a support, standing up straight gingerly. She looked down at herself, her black eyes widening at the pallor of her skin. Water rolled from her cheek to fall at her chin, falling to the stony, cold floor with a 'tap!'. She shuddered slightly as she watched it fall, but something at her legs glistened - did she just see... scales? She shook her head slightly.

No. She was simply pale from shock. That was all. She stretched her arms out, feeling each crease and scratch on her lithe body, only to feel something at her back. She blinked – and stretched again. Something was moving painfully there... it felt uncomfortable and broken, bent and out of place.

There were many ways to describe broken wings – but Rasie did not seem to realise this just yet, flicking her charcoal-coloured fringe from her eyes, her hair flowing and curving around down at her waist.

She rubbed her forehead, muttering, “Christ, this is some hangover...”

[Shadow]

"Well ain't we a fine bunch of damned freaks!" Morrison said and laughed loudly, his booming laughter echoing through the room. He tried putting his hands at his sides, but it was quite difficult with his freak arm to let it rest on his waist, so after some silly futile attempts, he let it slide and let the heavy arm rest along his side. Narrowing his eyes, Morrison inspected his crew members. Three of them seemed alive, and one unknown tortured guy. Or didn't he see him last night (or whenever the night at the Inn was) in a corner somewhere...? All of them seemed to have some transformation, except he couldn't see it with Echo. But he knew Echo was one of the smart ones and would have figured this out himself by now. It had simply no use mauling it over, Morrison wasn't that type of guy. It saddened him that over half of his crew wasn't here, and he was curious to where they were.

Well, no use thinking about it now. They would have to interogate the unknown guy later for more information. Right now, they had to find out what the damned hell was going on. "Alright, Rasie, can you stand? Good. It seems we're quite in the damned predicament here. I think it's about time we're going to complain at the damned boss of this damned Inn about our damned accomodations!" and just as he finished, he pulled back his large arm and thrusted it forward into the wooden door, smashing it completely.

Wood and rubble was seen blasting into the hallway as Morrison stepped through it and looked left to right. It was dark. And chilly. He turned around and looked back to them. "It's dark. And chilly. Let's fabricate some clothes and grab those torches from the wall. Try and find something you can use as a weapon, boys 'n girls. We might need it."

He put his left hand at his waist again, tilting his head his head a little and had a inspecting, confronting look on his face while he looked at the guy he had helped down earlier. Then he eyed Tresser. "Tresser. Get him up and see if the cripple can walk. If not, carry him. We'll need to interogate him later." And with that, he took a torch from the wall and stood, wearing only rags around his waist, his scarred large chest flickering because of the flames' light. He felt warm enough oddly, and his arm would suffice as weapon. And perhaps his tail.

If only he could stop sweeping it back and forth like a excited kitty. He frowned at the thought of being compared to a kitty.

[Nevermore]

"Freaks?" Tresser said with a slight glance around, appearing bored and not understanding. Then he looked down at his dragon-like shoulders and the scales on his back. With a slight hmm he turned back to Morrison and eyed the new arm and tail. He looked from Morrison to Shibrasie and made another hmm low in his throat, not noticing the smoke trailing from his slightly parted lips. "Oh," was all he said, and with a slight shrug went over to retrieve the man laying on the ground near the chains that had once held him. After several seconds of trying to figure out how to carry the man, he ended up cradling him in his strong arms like a baby. Because of his scaled shoulders, he couldn't carry the man with one arm around his neck without risking hurting the man further. As he moved towards the door he looked at Echo, "Could be worse, I don't remember any torture, can't say the same for him," he gave the man he held a slight nudge to indicate the target of his words, "Nice suit."