Champions War : Dead End
 

Jude woke up expecting his head to be ringing or some other sign he was hung over, because that was the only explanation he could think of for winding up on the cold hard ground with no idea what the hell was going on, but found an odd sense of clarity as he took the surroundings in.

The environment was unfamiliar but only in tone. He had lived in the city his whole life and it was never this quiet, the only sound to be heard a lone truck in the distance. It was also never this bleak, but perhaps that was just the lack of, well, anything. All he could see to tell himself he wasn't alone was a guy sitting on a bus-stop bench, slumped over his newspaper.

"Hey, buddy, is something going on?" This sort of harmless small talk was a big no-no with normal citydwellers but the guy didn't budge, or even seem to notice Jude. Approaching the bus stop Jude didn't see the guy taking notice of anything, even the paper he clutched in his hand, with it's emblazoned headline that caught Jude's eye. It was one of those snappy bits that caught the eye's attention, a good triple digit font that commanded notice.

"The World Ends?" Jude's lips mumbled as he peered at the front page. "Mind if I borrow that?" As soon as the question escaped his lips, as if responding to some narratively exciting stimulus, the bench-sitter's hat flew off, revealing the grim visage of a face that wouldn't mind much anymore. It's jaw hung limply in the air, fighting against the tendons surrounding it to dislodge once-and-for-all from the scarred and poxed face. The entire body seemed to give up stature all at once, sending the body slumping face first into the ground, the newspaper tumbling away.

Jude backed away, mind trying to piece some history together to explain this. There had been those breaking news reports, but weren't they isolated? Anything you heard in the news was pointless these days wasn't it. Except when he'd heard from some friends, and then the power went shitty and he'd blacked out himself.

And when had he gotten the outfit he now wore? In the confusion he hadn't paid much attention to his attire but now he noticed that he was wearing some sort of...armor, or something. He sought out a mirror but could only find broken glass, which still revealed an odd ensemble, nothing like what he usually had stocked in his wardrobe. And he felt different too, like during his blackout he'd been cramming in years of bodybuilding.

The shadows on the wall drew his attention away from his new physique, shifting themselves into letters and sentences. Jude read them aloud when they stopped. "You were saved by us..?" He looked towards the sky but saw no letters capable of causing the shadows, merely the sad remains of skyscrapers and office building remnants (The news had mentioned possible missle attacks, but it couldn't have happened here, could it?). When he turned back the letters were gone, the shadows twisting themselves into new forms. "Go forth and defeat the enemy."

The message apparently relayed with sufficiency, the sentence faded, coalescing into a singular black hole. From the hole a shape stuck out, and Jude was rather suprised to discover that his hand had grasped the object before he was aware, pulling from the wall a long lance of sorts. The shadow faded, leaving Jude alone again. He felt comforted by the weight of the weapon, like he was with an old friend even though he never had actually seen a lance outside of a musuem exhibit.

"Enemy? Like what?" He didn't know what shadows were afraid of, but the sound of the truck in the distance began to worry him. Trucks might crunch the pavement, but they didn't slurp, or growl in what sounded like enjoyment.

Jude decided that whatever questions he might have could be answered away from the source of the noise. He set off into the dead city, hoping things would get better before worse.

Exen awoke with a start, quickly getting up and stretching his limbs quickly. He didn't quite know what had just happened, but he felt... disoriented, to say the least. The last he knew, he was in a college class. And now, he was in this place.

Taking his hands up to his head so he could rub his eyes, the young man found something was in the way that felt sort of like a helmet. In fact, he was wearing gloves, too. Maybe it was just his imagination, but it felt quite real.

Looking around a bit and trying to see his surroundings, Exen only noticed snow and ice. It seemed like it was everywhere, but it was obvious he was in a city considering he could make out the concrete, glass, and steel on and in the structures beneath the layers of ice and snow.

"What in the hell happened here?" he asked no one in particular, a steamy cloud puffing out with every word.

Despite the amount of snow and ice, the stuff wasn't that hard to walk through. It just felt like he was slogging through some ankle-deep water.

And then something hit him. With all of his surroundings frozen solid, shouldn't Exen himself have been cold? had he just gone numb already? Feeling very confused, the man walked over to one of the frozen buildings and looked into the ice like a mirror.

What Exen saw confused him very much. Someone standing covered head to toe in dark blue armor, decorated ornately with gold strips and forming several dragon-like patterns. He hadn't been imagining earlier when he felt that helmet on his head, and he hadn't been imagining when he saw the metallic gloves on his hands. He hadn't noticed before because it all felt so comfortable. It all seemed like something out of a book.

Backing away slowly, Exen found himself on his back not long after. Getting up with surprising speed, he looked at what he had tripped over. What the young man saw did not please him.

A face, frozen like everything else, looked at the sky like it was choking on something. It looked like the person had suffered a huge amount of pain before finally succumbing to death. And Exen could tell all this by just looking at the face.

Deciding that he should get moving to get rid of the shock of seeing himself in armor, not being frozen stiff, and just now uncovering a dead body, Exen decided to walk toward what seemed like some sort of bigger structure.

After about a minute of going through the snow and trying his best to avoid anything that seemed to stick out of the road, the armored man made his way to what he had seen. When he got there, he kind of inhaled a little. What he was looking at could NOT have been real.

"We saved you from the deaths millions faced. Now go, fight the enemy," was what the message said. A message that was made up of large blocks of ice shaped into letters.

"There's no way this isn't a dream..." Exen muttered, unable to move while looking at the message that he felt was for him.

Before he could do anything else, the blocks crumbled and fell apart rather easily, even though they looked quite sturdy. In the middle of the rubble pile was something metallic. Going up to it, Exen realized it was a huge axe that reminded Exen of the armor he was wearing, one of the two blades embedded in the pile of ice. The haft looked like a dragon's tail, with thepart between the blades looking like the dragon's body, the top end of the haft looking like the dragon's head, and the blades looking like spread wings. It was a beatiful thing to look at.

Awestruck, Exen stood still looking at the amazing work of craftsmanship in front of him. At least, he thought he was doing that. Really, he had already reached out and grabbed the axe, picking it up with ease and moving it around with one hand over to his back, where he let go as the axe seemed to fall into place in a carrier on his back.

Very confused, Exen blinked for about a minute before he realized he had just moved that thing around with one hand like it was nothing. He was apparently stronger than he'd been before. In fact, the weight on his back felt like the backpack he'd carried around between classes. It was so... light.

"Let's see, I'm not frozen stiff in some sort of cold wasteland of a city, complete with dead bodies, in armor, carrying a giant axe, and standing on top of the remains of a giant message written for me in ice..." Exen mumbled, checking off the things he'd seen in about fifteen minutes. Then there was a lound rumbling somewhere in the distance. For some reason, it almost seemed like it was coming from something that wasn't exactly friendly. "...and now I'm hearing things."

Walking on a bit more, the "frozen city" turned out to just be the part of the street he'd woken up on. He probably hadn't noticed it being normal anywhere else because he was so disoriented when he woke up. Turning around to look back at the frozen street, he felt like he was in some sort of Twilight Zone because it seemed to be gone.

"What the HELL is going ON here?!" Exen yelled at the rather desolate city.


OOC: Uh, sorry about the really long post. Guess I got carried away.

Shannan woke up uncomfortably. He would tell that what he was lying on was not his comfortable bed, but instead a hard floor. Surprised, Shannan sat up quickly so he could look around. He was in a destroyed bathroom, with a giant hole behind the stalls, so the area was flooded.

Soon after realizing where he was, Shannan noticed something else. He wasn't very high up while sitting, and there was black hair in his eyes. Which was odd, since Shannan was a rather large man with short blond hair. Shannan stood up and headed towards the sinks. The mirror had cracks in it and fragments of the wall, but was still usable.

"What the hell?" Shannan asked out loud. Instead of seeing his reflection, there was a short, pale, black haired girl in the mirror. To make sure the mirror wasn't playing tricks on him, Shannan brought up his hands to confirm that they were his. However, he saw that his hands were small, pale, and he had unfamiliar wristbands. Looking down even more, Shannan found that he had the body of a prepubescent girl in strange clothing. For a final confirmation, Shannan grabbed his new belt. He paused for a moment, because he was afraid of what he would fine. Then he took a deep breath, and pulled his pants forward. He starred at his crotch for a while, because he was shocked. There were some rather important body parts missing.

"I'm a little girl..." Shannan said as she slid down onto the floor. She was devastated, confused, and scared. She was there for a while, leaning against some broken sinks in a flooded, destroyed bathroom, thinking. Shannan kept trying to figure out what was going on. What had happened? Where was she? Why was he now a girl?

Eventually Shannan realized that sitting in toilet water confused wasn't going to solve anything. So she got up and walked over the rubble near the stalls, and steped out of the hole. She had now only noticed the destroyed city with bodies lying around. However, after waking up in a destroyed bathroom as a girl, it would take more then that to surprise Shannan again.

Then more happened. On a side of a ruined building, blood was flowing on the wall. The surprising part of that was that the blood was flowing up the wall. It swirled around and formed into words, which Shannan felt compelled to read.

WE SAVED YOU. NOW GO AND DEFEAT YOUR ENEMIES

Shannan was confused what that meant, but before she could think about it, the blood words started flowing down the wall. Unsure of what to do, Shannan ran towards that ruin building to find the blood. It was her only clue as to what was going on. When she cleared the rubble, there was no blood on the wall or at the base of the building. Instead, there was an odd sword with a glowing crystal above the hilt leaning against the wall, with two handguns beneath it.

Unsure of what to do, Shannan decided to take the weapons. Whoever destroyed the city may still be around, so she could at least defend herself with the weapons. First she went for the handguns. Shannan wasn't sure where to keep them, but her hands naturally went for the back of the belt. She just discovered that there were holsters on the back of her belt, which was convenient. The sword was as long as Shannan was, and there was no sheath on her, so it would he harder to carry around. So she slung the blunt part over her shoulder and held it with one hand.

After getting her weapons, Shannan finally noticed the strange noise. Deciding that the noise would lead her to answers, Shannan headed towards it. For safety reasons, Shannan held a pistol with her free hand, the right one, incase she had to shoot something.

Somewhere on the sidewalk in the desolate city, Eliana rested. With a throbbing headache she pulled her palm over her face while her other hand explored the ground beneath her. Cold and hard, concrete no doubt.

She rubbed her face for a moment, eyes still closed , and tried to lift herself up. Light and easy, with one arm she easily lifted herself, a feeling of weightlessness under her hand. Her hand ran from her forehead to her hair, gliding through the silver locks. She tilted her head back and opened her eyes.

She was not met with the view of a cold, dead city, but of a burning light that she couldn’t see through, but couldn’t stare away from. Strong and powerful, the light would have driven any others eyes away, but she felt compelled to gaze into the shine.

A voice came, a surrounding voice that echoed through her mind, but one that also gave solace and a deep warmth.

We saved you. Now go fight for us…

She was confused, far more so than she was from just waking up on a street.

There is no way some light just talked to me…

Then the sound of three things dropping around, simultaneously clanking on the ground. She pulled her eyes away from the sky to find three different swords, lain across her sides and one in front.

Her hand reached out for the one to the left, but before she grabbed it a shock set in her mind. Her hand was purely snow white. She ran her other hand up her arm and it too held the alabaster quality. And her clothes were different, yet right somehow. A long, flowing, white dress that fell right below her knees.

After getting over her new apparel and skin she went back to examining the three blades. The one that sat on her left was a long sword. She wrapped her hand around that handle and slowly removed it from its sheathe. The blade glistened as the light reflected off of its silver luster. She quickly pushed it back in and set it down beside her.

She looked to her left and found a smaller blade, a katana. When pulled, it held the same silver shine, but the color itself was lighter and slightly easier on the eyes. She set it down before finally reaching the final sword.

It rested at her feet, laying horizontal to her. She motioned over to her knee and lifted the heavy blade, or what should have been heavy. By no means was it light as a feather, but holding it seemed right and easier than it should have been. She pushed herself up to her feet by way of the sword and heaved a strong sigh.

And with her sigh also came a noise off in the distance. A noise that alerted her to her immediate surroundings. There wasn’t any motion. The entire block she found herself on seemed dead, like an ancient ruin eroded by time and war.

She reached over and strapped the sword on their respective sides. The long sword held on her left, katana on her right and the claymore strapped on her back.

Without any more hesitation, she strutted off to the source of the noise, eyes still tracing the barren city before her.

Thomas awoke, but he did not open his eyes. Sometimes, a person could just sense that something was wrong before they even looked. He began to mumble to himself before his eyelids opened.

"There is nothing wrong. My body does not feel heavy for some strange reason. My hair isn't being pulled at a length it has no business being at. I'll open my eyes...and everything will be as it should."

He took a deep breathe, and opened his eyes.

".....fuck you, reality."

He wasn't home. He wasn't in his bed. He wasn't in his normal body. And this sure as hell wasn't a spot he'd stop to take a nap in. He got up slowly. Normally his older injuries made getting up in the morning a bit of a pain, but this body was nice and limber. Plus so powerful. THIS was a fighter's body.

When he actually stopped to look around, he noticed something strange. He was in a shit hole. The place was a wasteland. It looked like part of the city, but more like a city you'd see in a picture of an apocolyptic sci-fi story. The buildings were rundown and crumbling, the streets broken.

He wandered around a bit, and walked up to a broken show window. There was enough reflective glass left for him to look at what he had become. His entire body was garbed in a heavy dark green armor that simply screamed intimidation. His hair, normally shorter and blonde, was now much longer and white. His eyes had a slight glowing to it.On his hips were two empty sheaths, and his back had a spare strap. They weren't in use yet, but he figured he'd see what they were intended for later on.

It was then he noticed a crackling sound, and a strange light from behind him. When he turned, he saw a collection of broken wires strewn about. Running out from the open wires were streams of electricity. The sparks formed words in the air.

WE SAVED YOU.

Thomas raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I bet you did. Pardon me while I go find the white rabbit. I've got a hole to fall through."

Thomas turned and intended to head down the side of the road, when the message appeared again in electricity before him.

WE SAVED YOU.

Thomas rubbed his temples, which wasn't the smartest thing to do with gauntlets.

"Look, this is just a dream. A very vivid dream. In a few hours I'll wake up, and write this down somewhere as part of a cool story plot at some point."

He turned around, and was about to head down the opposite direction when the message appeared AGAIN.

WE SAVED YOUR ASS!

Thomas was about fed up with this crap.

"Look! I'm in no mood to hande the bullshit of my inner child, or whatever the hell you're a representation of in my psyche! I've got shit to do, so leave me alo-*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT*!"

It was at that point of the conversation that, in anger, Thomas had poked at the message in an attempt to show authority. Instead, it sent a powerful zap of electricity flowing through him. His body spazmed for a few moments, then relaxed as the charge stopped. He looked up and saw a new message.

YOU BELIEVE US NOW, FUCKER?!

Thomas waved them back.

"Yeah, I believe you, I believe you."

When he looked back at the message, it had changed again.

GO, AND DEFEAT THE ENEMY.

"Really? Look at me. I've got nothing to do that with. Could you hook me up with a gun, or something?"

From high above in the sky, three bolts of lightning struck down at the ground beside him. He jumped back in surprise.

"Son of a bitch! A little more warning next...."

The electric words were gone. All that was left were three blades of different sizes. The first was a short sword. It fit in the lowest sheathe on his hip. The next was a longsword, which matched perfectly with the highest sheath on his heip. The third was a bastard sword, which could be easily strapped to his back. Each weapon, though of a foreign make to him, rested easily in his hands. While not light, they were far from heavy.

He looked about as he heard another sound. It was like the starting of a truck. He was going to head in that direction...until he saw a girl. She seemed to glow a bit, and had three swords as well.

"Mysterious noise....or hot chick with swords........."

His choice was obvious, folks. He headed in a sprint toward the girl.

The tapping of the man running towards her drew her attention. In a place so gloomy as this city, he stood out heavily. The emerald armor was the first thing to catch the eye, but more out of place was his white hair and the glimmer coming from his eyes.

She stopped to let him catch up, maybe he had some idea of what was going on. Once he reached her, she locked onto his spark filled eyes with a shimmering pair of her own.

"Who're you and do you have ANY idea what's going on?"

When asked the question, he stopped to think. He was going to scratch at his head...but realized at the last minute the sharp things on his gauntlets and decided against it.

"I have no damn clue. I just know I woke up a bit ago, some electric thing with an attitude says I have to go defeat some enemy..."

His eyes couldn't help but to look her up and down. In a place so dark and filled with shadow, her entire being seemed white. Plus...she had the three swords thing going. Which was always a plus.

"As for who I am...I don't think that matters anymore."

Peter noticed that he was not in his house. He stood up and gazed around. There was no way this was possible. I can't work this out... The boy stood, stood a man. Peter looked at his hand, and there was a glove on it... a wierd glove.

His costume was all different. One minute, he was wearing baggy pants and a T-shirt, the next, he is wearing something you only find in a fantasy book.

"What on earth? This... what..."

The place was strange too. It was a video arcade, but eerily silent. There was no-one else in the room. Peter stepped on something strange... it was a corpse. He jumped up in surprise and landed on a machine. Not only that, he landed on the start button. Suddenly, words appeared on the screen.

We saved you from death...

Now go defeat the enemy!

Peter was very confused. He knew not what it meant, or why he had survived, but he knew...

"I hate my life."

"Ditto. Anyways, I heard something off that way," her finger shot out and pointed towards the area that the noise came from.

"Come with if you want. I could use the company."

With her final word spoken, she regained her trot towards the sound.

He jogged after the woman, easily keeping pace with her. This new body seemed made to move quickly, even with this three weapons and the heavy armor on. As they jogged, Thomas talked.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say some strange message gave you those weapons?"