Reluctant Heroes

[The GrandMage]

Claude DuFrange

Claude was no longer in his nice computer room. A few short seconds ago, he had been startled by his screen declaring the 'process' was begining and transportation of the 'selected' had begun. Before he could even touch his keyboard, the world changed. He stopped, looking around. Noticing the way the room was built, and the bland decoration that was just like the room he'd just been in.

"Oh, God damnit. I knew a paycheck without a name was too good to be true. This type of thing would happen. Son of a bitch! Okay, wait, I have a question: How can it be the good of the whole planet if it's not good for the couple of hundred of us here? I mean, obviously no one can try and speak for the entirety of the population, and to presume to do so would require the world's biggest ego or the world's smallest cerebral cortex. So, for this particular case, which bastard is it?"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Alex Smith/ Bloodwynd

I rolled into my personal hell, Amerilife Insurance Inc. at 8AM. By 8:05 i'm at my desk, the fourth cup of coffee working on my brain, & i', plugging away at the code of the program i'm working on.
"Alex, could you come to my office please." comes out my phone. Its my boss, the CEo's prick nephiew Stephen. He probably thought of another way to make my life a living hell. "Be there in a minute Stephen." I say back into the speaker.
I walk down the hall, knock once, & enter.
'Ahh, Alex, please sit down." Stephen says. He then gets up & perches on the corner of the desk, probably thinking this is a "power-position " or something.
"Alex, I called you in here to talk about you, not your work. For the last few months I know you have been dating Dianne in accounting. Well, what you don't know is for the last two, she's been seeing me too. " I must have shown how shocked I was, because he got a smug grin on his face & continued.
"Yes, we have been... dating for a bit now, or rather fucking. I'm suprised you let the kinky little bitch out of your hands, she's great in the sack, willing to do anything & take my dick up any hole..."
Thats the last thing I remember hearing. We had dated six months, & all she had let me do was kiss her. A red haze fell over me, & the next thing I remember is Stephen laying on the floor of his office, blood streaming from his nose & the compound fracture in his arm. I stood there dazed, then Security came in, & jumped me. I fought the gorilla's as best I could, but eventually I found myself in the back of a patrol car heading downtown, my hands cuffed behind me.

Then the world shifted, & i fell on my butt surrounded by people. What in the hell just happened to me. With some difficulty I stood up, & faced the viewscreen & listened to the woman speaking.

 

[Lacewing]

Smoke Alarm

Amanda had been one moment asleep on the couch book over her chest her walkman on constant repeat.

The next staring around a steril white room lisening to a pile of Shit.

"We're gonna die" she muttered and sighed finding the side wall to get away from the panicy and question demanding bunch babbling like the towers of Babalyon and put her nose back in her book figuring it was useless to ask questions at this point.

Damn and tomorrow was her birthday too.

"How come we were chosen?"
"What's going one?"
"My baby! What about my children!"

Questions were being rapid fired around the room till finally people began to fall more twords silence. The kind of stunned silence of cattle being herded twords the stockyards and death.

Amanda couldn't help but feel a touch like a judas goat when she pushed back her headphones and shouted "So when the gassing start?"

 

[BadForm]

Asha Tambika

She answered the questions called out as quickly as she could, all the time, aware of the devastation on the screens behind her.

"How come we were chosen?"

Not that anyone would believe it, but the question was fair. "Worldgov analyzed the genetic code of the world population to discover those of us with the right basal code to have a chance of withstanding the radiation treatment which will be necessary to transform us from normal people into more powerful humans, superior humans if you will, able hopefully to find and eliminate the people behind the catastrophe."

"What's going one?"

And even less would believe this one. "As near as we can tell, someone or something is trying to bring about the apocalypse. Worldgov has been receiving a daily sequence of numbers, one number pair a day, over the last several weeks. We have tried to track down the sequence to understand it and eventually discovered one sequence which does match. The chapter and verse references of the bible, specifically the Revelation of St. John, or the apocalypse as some of you know it. It may sound a little far fetched, but I ask you to look at the screens behind me."

They did, their eyes drawn to the terror and destruction. It wasn't a sight you could easily look away from.

"Today we received the number pair 8:7. This is a reference from the opening of the seventh seal and reads as follows:

'8:7 The first sounded, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. One third of the earth was burnt up, and one third of the trees were burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.'

"As you can see... this is a good description of what they are attempting at the moment. Anyone of the Christians among you can guess at what will be coming in the following days if we fail to stop whoever or whatever is doing this."

"My baby! What about my children!"

She sighed. It was unlikely, but maybe the appeal to their own desires to protect their own family and kin would be the one factor which could make them understand the necessity of complying with the call to action.

"Look at the screens! If we fail THIS is what awaits everyone. Mindless destruction and devastation. This is only the start of what is planned we believe. Your children, your families, depend on all of us!"

 

[airborne92]

Gunther Munz

I was walking with my team through the forest when everything went black. The next thing I know I am surrounded by a couple of hundred people screaming about what just happened. I just stand there listening to what the woman has to say. It won't do me any good to panic, that would only make the situation worse.

I flip the safety on my MP-5 to safe as I listen to what is expected of us. We are going to be human guinea pigs, and we aren't even being asked to volunteer. I never liked being forced to do anything, but this was one case where I could understand it. That didn't mean I had to like it though.

 

[BadForm]

Asha Tambika

Dollar spoke suddenly, interrupting the question and answer session. "I am sorry, but the time has come to perform the transformation."

For a second, a flash of recognition crossed the faces of a couple of Americans and businessmen in the audience. The only name that came to mind was far too unlikely to be possible though. Bill Gates? Although, if that was the case, it was an indicator of the level of influence and money the Worldgov must have behind them.

"Wait, they're not ready..."

Asha tried to object, her tone indicating it was more a case of her not being ready than them not. It was too late. Suddenly the room was filled with some kind of radiation, an energy which lanced through the bodies of those gathered, tearing DNA, shredding tissue. Asha's scream merged with those of everyone present. Even those who had been trained to withstand torture had never felt something like this before. Her eyes wide, her mind barely aware, she still made out the shapes of those nearest. Some exploded, some dissolved, some burst into flames. It was horrendous, and if it wasn't for every muscle in her body tensing beyond her control as her body changed, she knew she would have vomited. Then, as suddenly as it started, the radiation stopped.

Asha lay collapsed on the ground, gagging and fighting for air. She glanced at her hands, noting they simply looked a little more powerful. She had been more fortunate than many there, or so she thought. It seemed she had not changed much. Then she stood up, and nearly fell as she tangled the eight arms she now had, trying to support herself. She glanced around in terror, wondering just what had happened to everyone else.

 

[nightray]

Ray terns in to Shadow

I watch her as she tries to rationales what they did this. I look up my eyes widening slightly at the voice of the richest man in the world saying it was time. Before I can say any thing the room fills with the radion. It hits me hard knocking me back it feels like a freight train hit me as I fall to my knees the pain burning every nerve in my body my eyes shut tight as tears begin to fall. If my throat hadn’t closed on me I would be screaming my throat raw form the intense nerve shattering pain. I fall to my side blackness rolling over me dragging me down I seem to flout in a void of nothing when something moves out of the shadows a large black cat steps out it’s eyes glowing bright green. I scream as it leaps at me I feel my self changing as the cat disappears with in me.

My eye’s open slowly every thing seems clearer sharper I feel my ears move as I peck up the sound of a near by hart beat, I take in a deep breath threw my nose I can smell sweet and fear hanging thickly in the air. I jump up to my feet my movements some how more fluid and effortless. I look down at my hands my eyes going wide with surprise at the black fur that littlie covers my hands. I flex them slightly and I see claws come out of there sheathes on the tips of my fingers.

I say “what have they down to me” I gasp as my voice has even changed more it sounds more like a soft purr.

I bring my hands up to my face feeling that I have a short feline like snot where my mouth and face should be. I run my hands back over my head my hear is longer more silky. I feel my ears there pointed with little tufts of fur on them.

I look at the girl saying “what have” I brake off as I see her my jaw dropping at the sight I look around at the people that served and at the remains of thaws who didn’t. I feel my bile begin to rise but I swallow hard barley keeping it down.

I look back at the girl and saying “What have you down to use girl.”

 

[tomasu]

you guys are doing a really good job, i usually don't like reading storys I'm not in, but this is an exception

 

[airborne92]

Gunther becomes Demon

'It is time' I hear a man say.

Without any other warning I suddenly feel as if I'm on fire. I let out a scream that goes from sounding human to something that can only be described as unholy. My vision begins to fade, and everything becomes black.

I wake after a few seconds, I am lying on the floor. I start to get up and notice my skin is red and that my fingernails are now black and 3" long.

'What has happened to me' I think to myself as I stand up. I look around and those few of us to survive are not the same, we have all changed somehow. I know that I feel different, whether that is good or bad only time will tell.

"It would have been nice if you had assked for volunteers first you know" I yell out in a very angry voice that is not mine.

 

[BadForm]

Asha Tambika/Wayfarer

Asha stood on trembling legs, feeling her body pulse with power she had never known before, and guilt she wished she had not known now. In truth, it was the only way that Worldgov could have even attempted to oppose the apocalypse, but the fact that she had been a party to it, and the sight of the charred and mangled husks around the room, made her want to die with them.

"It would be nice if you had asked for volunteers first you know!"

She looked down to the speaker, her face screwing up in the rage of grief. "I wish we'd had that chance! You see how many died? We need field agents to stop this madness! What were were supposed to do? Ask people if they would volunteer for a suicide mission?"

Aware she was screaming at him, she stopped and apologised. "I-I'm sorry.... I wish there was some other way."

 

[Lacewing]

The pain hit, her walkman melting under the radiation and when she opened her eyes it was with the feeling as if she was.. hot... Something burned right under her skin and she suddenly cried in pain feeling like her skin was going to peel away and flake off her body.

"WHAT DID THEY DO?" she would have screamed.

If she had vioce. Insted she though she screamed. Like the sound of a furnace she remembered hearing once. Touches of flames burned away her clothing and her hair felt like it flamed as well.

Then she layed still. So still it was like one of the dead, one of the ones that didnt make it though her skin seemed to glow faintly like insted of blood;
Fire coursed through her viens.

 

[Dark Warrior]

Bruce/Weaver

Bruce just stood in mute disbelief as everyone talked around him. Bruce, macho man, beer drinker, footy hooligan, went white, and just about passed out.
And then, when the radiation hit, he did pass out.

* * *

Slowly Bruce came to his senses; but found that his senses were very different.
"Holy shit!" he yelled out as he tried to stand from his prone position, finding the movement extremely hard in his strange new surroundings. He looked down at himself, at the floor, where everyone else was. They all looked like intricate webs, but somehow, his mind still made him think of a person, a floor, a wall, himself...
"What the fuck has happened to me!" he yelled as he reached out, desperately grabbing at the webs below him. His eyes... or whatever they were called now... opened wide as the webs gave way beneath him, just a moment before he flew backwards, landing now on his back a few metres away.
Something, a voice in his head, was telling him that he needed to slow down, to be more patient...
He turned and looked at the floor again, before his hand slowly reached down and took just one thread of the web, pulling it slowly upwards.
"Oh my god..." he breathed, as he pictured the floor slowly stretching, a tiny section of it "sticking" to his hand as he pulled upwards.

 

[LadyBlueMoon]

Erica / Mirage

Cold. She was so very cold. The blackness began to give way. She opened her eyes, blinded by light, such brightness. She closed her eyes again, trying to recall the recent events.

She had been getting dressed, then, without explanation, she was elsewhere. A room, antiseptic, full of people. A woman, (african? she couldn't remember) attempting to explain. "Apocalypse?" And the man who interrupted her. Erica struggle to remember, still safe in the blackness of her mind. She recognized him, she was sure. And then, without warning, the light, the pain.
Again she attempted to open her eyes. Slowly, one piece at a time, she took inventory of her own body. Nothing appeared different. Or did it? Was it a trick of the light, or did she suddenly notice a change, momentary, but definite.
Erica raised her head, looked around the room. She wished she hadn't, she was unprepared for what she saw. Others, but so few, were also arising. But what manner of creatures were they? Some were huge, some misshapen.
"Goddess," she whspered, "What is happening?"

 

[Lacewing]

Smoke Screen

The groans and cries of those around her brought Amanda back to herself. She wasn't the only one hurting, and oddly that made her sit up and pretend she wasn't hurting at all. That once she convinced herself that the burning benieth her flesh was normal, then it was. She opened her eyes slowly seeing everything around her and blinking at the people. Everyone, everyting changed. Many people were dead. So very few were even alive or awake. Just crying in pain, loss, hurt...

She inched herself away from the corpse next to her and found her book, she tried opening the pages, to find some calmness in the uncalm world and they burned between her fingers. Smoke rose from the pages and she realized.

THat she did it. She could feel it burn like an extention of herself, but she couldn't controle it only drop the book and watch the flames lean twords her like a cold little man trying to warm himself by a fire.

"Oh god" she would have said but insted it felt like she was a bellow blowing over a furnace.

OK looked like speach was going to be a new experience. She avioded the poeple staing as close to the wall as she could since every thing she touched was set afire.

The stentch was going to be nasty in a moment in such a closed enviroment if someone didn't get them out of here.

 

[airborne92]

Demon

As I rise to my full height I realize I am much taller than I was before. I almost feel cold standing here. I know that the temperature must be around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, so why should I feel cool. The few survivors are slowly getting to their feet as I look around. All have changed, some more than others.

"So what do you expect from us" I say to the people watching us.

 

[The GrandMage]

Claude no more.

The realization of the numbers hit him like a brick in the face. That was the project he'd been working on! The bastard were using a realization they got from his work to kill him! Those God damned motherfuckers! As he listened to the religious mumbo-jumbo, another thought hit him. "Wait, what if the something that started this is God?"

His question was lost as Bill Gates told them it was starting. That motherfucker! How could he! Okay, so Claude didn't like the Windows operating system and had programmed his own, but that wasn't any reason to kill him!

When the radiation broke in, he took in the deaths of other around him in fear before glancing to himself. Like all the others, his clothes were destroyed by the radiation. No non-living material would survival. He doubted any living ones either. The next thing he noticed was his body. He felt it, even as he saw it. His flesh turning black, changing even as it went deeper, pain shooting through him. Once the radiation was over, where he had been standing, there was only a large cancerous blob.

--------------------------------

His eyes opened, seeing nothing. He was wrapped in what he could only describe as a feeling of home. Wrapped in a cocoon of welcoming, but which still told him to leave. His arms slid through the odd feeling, and he pulled his body out into the air, his lungs taking a deep breath of air as he realized something was wrong.

He was thin!

---------------------------------

The cancerous sac ripped open as what had been Claude pulled himself through. His eyes immediatly turned bloodshot, bringing a sharp contrast to the empty black orbs they had been before he entered the awful world of health. As he looked, he found himself drawn to the dead, charred bodies, misshappen mounds of bloodied gore, ashes,....death amazed him. He stood up, stretching as his gaze shifted around to those left alive.

He looked down at his own hands. And like one felt any other thing about themselves, he knew what he had become. He felt a control within himself, and knew that his power was not something he used, but rather, something he released from himself, only able to choose the degree in which it happen. He could feel it, running through his veins. As if he had lived with it his whole life, he knew what he had been given.

He looked up. He was no longer Claude, the fat, lazy computer nerd he had been. He was a walking biohazard, disease embodied in a human form, even if it was kind of pale. He felt strong, young, powerful. He felt like he had often dreamed of being. He remembered his handle, what other hackers knew him as. A great spreader of viri. Plague. That was what he was now.

"Plague," he said simply, yet the full meaning of it touched every part of his being. It was a threat, a warning, a new life. A life,...of death.

 

[BadForm]

Dollar

The voice came over into the room, but not the face. Dollar, their leader. As he spoke, some became more sure it was Gates, others completely sure it didn't sound at all like him.

"We have limited information on whoever or whatever is causing the apocalyptic events that have begun. All we do know is that the number sequence we have been receiving has been coming from a remote location in Antarctica. Our satellites show very little there except a cave complex in some of the hills. All we can presume is that they have some kind of subterranean base.

"Obviously, we sent normal troops to investigate first. They were never heard from after landing. These troops were equipped with the best technology Worldgov has been able to create for a mobile unit - far superior to that available to any governmental agency.

"What we need from you, what we hope you will be able to achieve, is to investigate this area, find out what is happening and stop it. If any of you have read the bible, which it seems certain these beings are using as a reference point for their terror tactics, you will be aware of the horrendous possibilities for the further predictions of the Revelations."

 

[The GrandMage]

Plague

He looked up. Gates? No. If it had been, it wasn't now. But Plague doubted that he'd try it on himself with such a death rate. He laughed, laughed at the voice. His life was death now. So, death had come to the world, why was that his problem? He was a plague, now, arisen to smite the world. He had just aided that which he fought, not stopped it.

Unless,...Plague stopped, looking down at himself. Why not enjoy the pleasures of life? Besides, if it was the divine end, he could not stop it. So, he would go along with it. His memory flashed back to his childhood as his hair whipped about the air behind and above him, like another entity.

"And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;

And a third part of the creatures which were in the sear, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

And the name of the star is Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter."

He stopped, looking around at them all before turning to the screen. "But sir, how shall mere men preforrm the tasks of the forth angel, and smite a third part of the sun, the moon, and the stars?"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Alex Smith/ Bloodwynd

I remember the handcuffs biting into my arms & thinking that this really hurt, but when the light came on I then knew what pain was! It felt like my flesh was being scoured from my bones with salt & sulpher. The pain went on and on, then mercifully it stopped.
I stood up & surveyed my surroundings. People & what wasused to be people were standing up now. I turned as I noticed movement beside me, and beheld the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. The first thing I noticed about her was her long hair, which was the color of burnished copper. Then I noticed her bronze skin, perfect body, & the white feathered wings on her back. her eyes were a golden bronze color, & when they looked at me she smiled.
" So, I guess things have changed here huh?" she said in a voice that almost sang. Then that perfect voice screamed in pain, her wings flapping spasmically, as her flesh sank in and wrinkled, & smoke poured from her eyes & mouth. Then she fell to the ground, her lifeless body smoking on the floor like so many of the others around me.
Standing behind her was what I think was a woman, but not now. Her entire body was covered in small black scales, and I could barely tell she had sexual organs. Her eyes were glowing red, her teeth pointed in a small snoutlike mouth, and a forked tongue tasted the air.
" I ssstilllll hungerrrr. Yessssss, you will do." she says, and then she leaps at me. It is then that I notice the lamprey-like mouths on the palms of her hands.

Without thinking I leap back, flexing my arns and breaking the cuff's chain like it was a string. The creature hisses at me, and leaps after me, deadly hands outstretched to reach me. I act instinctivly, and a red blade of energy is in my hands. I strike once, then again, and her headless and handless body falls to the floor, sluggish black blood pooling out of her body.
I look around me ,the blade humming in my hands. What the hell just happened to me?

 

[LadyBlueMoon]

A challenge

Erica looked up at the ceiling, at the source of the voice.
Cooly, without trace of emotion, she spoke, "Listen, whoever you are, can't you see what has happened here? Why tell us what your soldiers are doing? You owe us some answers!"
Looking about, she sees a girl who, incredibly, was reading a book. Reading! Amidst all this carnage. Without thinking, Erica ("Mirage" a small voice in her head corrected) focused on the girl, emitting a sense of calm, self-confidence. "Do not be afraid, Amanda. You are strong. Stand with me. Challenge him."

 

[Lacewing]

AManda looked up from the burning rubble of her book at the vioce, finding the sorce ::I fear nothing:: she found herself thinking and her hands forming the words her mouth could not. Maybe signlangrage wasn't such a dumb idea to take in that class of hers.

She dropped the ashes of her book and stood bits of ash floating to the ground around her as she walked over her dark eyes burning behind lensed glasses that miracualisly made it through the radiation.

Her hands danced nearly gracefully ::They use us, like cattle we are nothing to them and they feel they owe us nothing. They won't answer any questions. Like the biblical horsemen they will send us out as their own holicaust and hope we end this 'problem' for them.:: she stated, having assessded the sitchuation and putting her own sarcastic view on the entire thing.

 

[BadForm]

Dollar

"You ask for answers, but we have few to give. To those of you thinking this is the divinely predicted apocalypse, I assure you that this is unlikely. For one thing, if the apocalypse was accurately written, then this is not what it predicts. All the grasses of the world have NOT been burnt up for one thing, and nor will they be from seven volcanoes, even erupting with the force they are. This is more likely someone or something using the bible as a reference point for whatever their own purposes are.

"To answer the obvious question: we have no idea if this is someone or something. No human entity we are aware of has the power to cause this level of calamity. This leaves us to consider other options. Aliens. Something unknown. A human entity even we have not encountered before. And that is why we needed to create a team of agents capable of interacting in ways no human agent can, and not relying on the technology which failed to save those we sent before. Yes, it has been unfair to you personally to force this on you. If I had the genetic code, however, I would have stood there with you. Asha Tambika, our Wayfarer, was one of ours we had to risk because she did have the right genes."

With a sigh, he continued. "We cannot force you to help. Although we certainly have the technology to hypnotise every one of you, to do so would limit your own capabilities. The fate of the world rests on your shoulders... but if you wish to reject that, then we will return you to your own homes and try to find some other way of dealing with this. That, however, seems unlikely in the next few days."

 

[Dark Warrior]

Bruce/Weaver

People were talking, he knew. The sounds were different... different than they used to be... oh, they were horrible now... but somehow, from that cacophony of noises (Which, strangely, reminded him of insects) he could make sensical sentences.
This is your new world, Weaver.
It was the voice in his head again...
You... I... what... what do you mean?
I said, this - all this around you - it is your new world. I believe the nearest thing to it in your language is - Reality.
This? This is... arrggh!
It hurts at the moment, I know. But you - we - are needed. We are no longer Bruce. We are the Weaver.
You... are you saying you are me?
Yes and no. I am.... a part of you.
A part of me? What... what is going on?
Listen.
Bruce's conversation with the inside of his head gave way to the sounds on the outside, as the voice had suggested. He absorbed what was going on around him, the voices, even a quick fight between two of the people around him. He watched as the bloody mess of the loser fell to the floor, before his eyes switched to the winner.
"This can't be real... this can't be REAL!" Bruce suddenly screamed out, falling to his knees, his hands clutching his head. "What the fuck has happened to me?!?!?!?!? Help... ME!!!!"

 

[The GrandMage]

Plague

He glanced around the room, still taking in the sights of death and mutation. Somehow, this was easier to look at then it would have been before. Perhaps it was because he lived for death now. He was slowly taking into account his own body, it was new. He was thin, he was strong, he had power. The power to kill. It flowed through his veins like blood, it seeped through every pore of his being.

He stretched, giving a yawn. "Okay, I've had enough of this. I accept the fate which you have forced upon me. I find the change favorable, in a way. But, I am naked, I'm hungry, and I wish to test that which I have been given. So what say you turn back on the Star Trek beam, and show me where I can take care of the needs that stress my new body? Perhaps show me to a room? Then you can tell me what you want of me. Right now, I find the details of this change a petty matter. It has happened, and by a quick judge of the death rate, chances are no one of us would live through any way to return to normal. Onwards, I say. So how about it, oh pheonix of my rebirth? Shall I get my needs attended to, or must I sacrifice myself as your slave?"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Alex Smith/ Bloodwynd

"Yea," I pipe up. "If your sending us to friggin antartica, I would rather not get frostbite in my dangling parts."
I looked at the humming blade in my hand & relaxed something within my mind, & the blade dissapeared. Well, thats good.
I then noticed the broken cuffs on my wrist. What the hell? I must have broken the chain. I then felt something else within me stirring, & the cuffs slowly opened & fell off.Hmmmm.
Looking around I noticed the body of the creature ( I still couldn't call it a woman) I had killed. I reached out tward it & concentrated, & it moved. Well, it seems I had telekenetic abilities also. I wonder what else I can do?