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Post by Dante on May 8, 2005 5:24:23 GMT -5
It was on Morris Peak that my old enemy the Swan was finally defeated. She should have known that I would be invincible there, so close to the source of all flames. I remember it as though it was yesterday; her body tumbling into the crater that the Worm left, screaming that she would have vengeance... Later on, I would regret not watching her fall all the way down and into the fire – but that is a different story. This story concerns the battle waged by myself and my friends against an evil so great that it threatened our entire world…
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The wastelands of the Internet. A desolate, empty place, dusted with tiny, sand-like pieces of data. Occasionally a bigger packet – a boulder, or a cliff perhaps – sticks up from the flat and arid plain, but there is no sign of life. The wastelands are those vast empty spaces of unregistered domains, where nothing has been built. Fragments of virus aspects can be seen crawling feebly along the ground sometimes, but otherwise, little stirs. Of course, there are sometimes exceptions – such as the two former members of 667 Dark Avenue who now trudged along wearily, beneath the baking electric sun.
PJ and Derik had been walking for hours, trying to reach the road, a tiny branch of the information highway. From there, they could follow the trail back to civilisation – if civilisation still existed – and work out what they were to do there. They didn’t know which way they were going, or where they were – but there’s information everywhere, and where there’s information, there’s a road. And where there’s a road, there’s a link-bus.
Conversation had been abandoned hours ago – they now had to focus all their little energy on walking, and besides, the events that had led them to where they were now were to painful to be re-lived. The trail of footsteps led back for terabytes, and the distance had taken its toll on the two wanderers.
Derik’s hair hung loose over his eyes, matted with dirt. One side of his glasses was cracked, and his once-grand global moderator robes, made of long, shiny green material with a silver eye emblazoned on the left breast, were in tatters. A sturdy belt which looked like it had once belonged to a far shabbier man was fastened around his waist, and from a clasp on that hung a long, thin scimitar, which was chipped in the middle. A blue towel, worn at the edges and sporting burn marks, was draped over his shoulder.
PJ looked the worse for wear, too. He was wearing a shredded black greatcoat over other dark attire, and a skull-and-crossbones glared out angrily from the middle of his shirt. A long rapier was strapped to his back by means of a length of rope, and his left arm, just below the wrist, had a metal band fastened around it, and where his hand should have been, an iron crossbow stuck out instead.
“I think I see something,” said Derik at last, squinting ahead in the bright glare.
“The highway!” exclaimed PJ. “I told you that this was the right direction!”
In the middle of the dust and dirt of the wastelands was the highway, a solid grey line striking straight ahead. It was only a single carriageway road – evidently this was not a frequently-visited area.
“I suppose now we wait for a link,” said PJ.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a timetable for the middle of nowhere, would you?” asked Derik, wiping his sweaty forehead with his loyal inanimate sidekick, Colin Towel.
“Funnily enough, I did have one just a few weeks ago,” said PJ, scratching his face with the pointed tip of a crossbow bolt. “But I threw it away just a few days before – before we got lost.”
Derik rolled up Colin and lay down at the side of the road, his head resting against his best non-human friend, and closed his eyes, attempting to sleep. After a moment’s thought, PJ followed suit, although with no towel he had to use the hard, dirty ground as a headrest.
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“Do you want a lift, then?”
A deep female voice, with a heavy accent, cut through the air like a chainsaw. Derik opened his eyes and saw a link-bus waiting at the side of the road. It was an old-fashioned model – electric-blue and square – but it was a bus. A thin woman wearing a wig of curly black hair, down to her waist, and dressed in a uniform the same shade as the link, stood above Derik, PJ and Colin, frowning down.
“Do you want to take the link or not?”
PJ stirred, and sat up.
“Yes, good lady!” he cried, melodramatically.
“Well, get on,” said the woman, climbing back into the link. Derik stood up and followed her.
“I’ll need your identification,” said the woman, once they were inside and she had sat in the driver’s seat.
“I’m Derik,” said Derik, showing his 667 Member Card. “And this is Colin.”
Derik showed the woman a scrap of paper with “Colin Towel” scribbled hastily upon it. PJ flashed his Member’s Card at the driver as well. Her eyebrows rose.
“667 Dark Avenue…” she murmured. “I didn’t think I’d be meeting anyone from there.”
Derik and PJ grimaced. Colin flapped sadly in the wind.
“I’ll also need you to declare any weapons you have with you,” the driver continued.
Derik gestured to his scimitar, and held up Colin. PJ drew his rapier for a second, then put it back, and held up his crossbow-arm.
“Right, let me check you,” the driver said. She picked up a long rod which looked like a glow-stick, and passed it in front of Derik and Colin.
“Clear,” she said, before moving onto PJ. The light from the rod began to flicker as it passed over him.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to declare all of your weapons, Mister Jucker,” the driver said.
Sighing, PJ opened his greatcoat and withdrew a number of knives, throwing stars, and a bladed boomerang from within, before tossing them onto the floor. He then unstrapped his boots and took out a few daggers and a pair of scissors, throwing them onto the pile of weapons on the floor as well.
“Will that do?” he asked, annoyed.
In answer, the driver held the weapon-detector in front of him. It continued to flicker.
“PJ, just give it up,” Derik sighed.
With a grimace, PJ reached a hand into his curly hair, and slowly withdrew a lightsaber spoon from within, which he tossed onto the floor. Snickering could be heard from further up the bus.
“Clear,” the driver declared. PJ gathered up his weapons and stowed them away, and Derik led the way up the centre aisle.
The link-bus was fairly empty, as one might expect in the wastelands. There were only three passengers aside from Derik and PJ – towards the front, a young teenage girl, sporting wildly spiked hair in fluorescent colours, looking bored at her surroundings; further back a creature wrapped entirely in a long cloak, with a hood covering its head, which the two friends suspected was a virus aspect; and a thin old man on the back seat with a wide grin on his face. Derik and PJ took a seat between the old man and the hooded creature, as the link started up and began to speed silently down the highway.
“What do we do when we reach civilisation?” PJ asked Derik.
“We start to search for information,” replied Derik. “If we can find their e-mail addresses, or anywhere else they live, then that would be great. But I don’t know where we can find all of that.”
“I do!” cried a voice from behind them. The old man leant over and stuck his head between the two friends, who recoiled slightly.
“What do you mean, old man?” asked PJ.
“I be meanin’” explained the old man, “that I knows of a place where you can find all the information you need. And, as it so happens, this very link stops at it.”
“Tell us more,” asked Derik, choosing to avoid being rude and not insult the old man by calling him such.
“Don’t interrupt, you rude young whippersnapper!” shouted the old man. “I may not have fancy tattered robes, or a crossbow instead of a hand, but my mind’s as sound as ever it was! Now, listen carefully. I’m janitor down at a place called the Web Archive. They store information about every site on the Internet there. You have to fill in a form to get access, though, and nobody likes filling in forms.”
“We’ll tolerate it,” said PJ. “We have to find our friends.”
“Oh?” asked the old man. “How come it’s you findin’ them, and not them findin’ you?”
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Post by Dante on May 8, 2005 5:24:41 GMT -5
Derik and PJ weren’t quite sure of the answer, but they were spared from replying when the driver called out, “Okay, everyone, there’s people in the road. We’re stopping for a moment.”
As the bus began to slow down, Derik and PJ moved closer to the front to get a better look. The old man followed them, the hooded creature turned its blank gaze upon them, and even the bored teenager looked vaguely interested.
“Uh-oh,” said the driver, suddenly. “We’re in for trouble.”
“How so?” asked Derik, as the bus stopped and five figures began to move towards it from the middle of the road.
“Those aren’t people a-waiting to take a link,” said the driver, “they’re really cool member bandits waiting to hijack a link.”
“Quiet now!” shouted a child-like voice from outside the bus, and Derik and PJ advanced to the windscreen to get a better look at the noobs.
They were very simply-dressed, wearing short brown trousers and blue-and-white striped shirts. Some of them sported eye-patches, or spotted bandanas, which were clearly pirate attire rather than bandit clothing. Still, noobs never had a reputation for being smart, and to them, one kind of robber was much the same as another.
“Put up your hands!” cried one of the n00bs, who was holding a loudspeaker made from a rolled-up newspaper. “All your valuables are belong to us!”
This comment was judged to be too witty for a really cool member leader, and the four other bandits proceeded to beat the speaker across the head with short wooden clubs. He retreated to the back of the group, and a female really cool member one took up the paper.
“Give us your golds or you all die!” yelled the new leader, to murmurs of approval from her comrades.
“Alright, do as she says,” said the driver. “These noobs are vicious, and we don’t want to get into a battle with them.”
The occupants of the bus sighed and began to turn out their pockets, save for Derik and PJ.
“Are you all cowards?” the latter cried.
“But Mister Jucker,” the driver said, “we ain’t strong enough to take on five noobs.”
“We’ve been in many battles with noobs before,” said Derik, brandishing his scimitar, “and we know how to fight.”
“Charge!” cried PJ, as the driver shook her head, and he leapt out of the bus, rapier in hand. Derik followed behind.
Derik began the battle by immediately thrusting his blade into the chest of the really cool member leader, who, looking surprised, was instantly deleted. Another really cool member came up and tried to attack Derik with a club whilst he was distracted, but Colin leapt onto the really cool member’s face, and began to suffocate him. PJ, meanwhile, was slashing at the noobs on his left using the rapier in his right hand, and firing at the noobs on his right using the crossbow that was his left hand, in a fashion which he thought looked cool but actually looked rather stupid.
“I’ll help ye!” cried the old man. “Crazy old man attack!”
He leapt into the fray, and was immediately beaten to the floor by a really cool member, deleting him instantly.
“I won’t see harm done to my passengers like that!” gasped the driver, who pulled out a katana from nowhere, and joined the fight, slashing at the noobs. PJ had managed to dispatch one, and Colin had succeeded in suffocating another. Derik was engaged in a one-on-one duel with the former really cool member leader, but Colin snagged the really cool member around the leg and he fell to the floor, where Derik dispatched him. The driver beheaded the one remaining really cool member, and the danger passed.
“Seems you two are pretty good fighters after all,” said the driver, as the bodies of the noobs and the old man began to delete and dissolve into tiny data fragments.
“As I said,” PJ boasted, “we’re veterans.”
“So it seems,” the driver replied. “Well, with them noobs dispatched, we should have a quiet journey onwards.”
The three of them climbed back onto the bus, and Derik and PJ took their seats, the teenage girl gazing at them with a stunned expression on her face.
“How did two losers like you manage to defeat all them noobs?” gasped the girl.
PJ grinned and tried to make his hair look windswept. Derik ignored the girl.
“Right, I’m putting the link into top speed,” called the driver, “in just a few minutes, we should arrive at the Web Archive.”
The link started up again, and sped quickly down the highway and over the horizon.
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Meanwhile, far away in a crumbling castle deep within Generic Woods, two individuals sat in silence at a long table. One of them was an impossibly-well-built man, wearing dull, silvery armour edged with red, a red cape hanging from his back, his face covered by a helmet. Only a cross-shaped opening in the front of the helmet allowed him to see out and eat – but his face was veiled in shadow, and even through these gaps in his helmet, nothing could be seen of him save for two glowing red eyes. At the opposite end of the table sat a young girl, who was very pretty, and had glasses and curled brown hair. She was wearing the clothes of nobility, coloured a deep crimson, with an eye symbol emblazoned upon them – although the robes looked frayed and worn now. Their surroundings were unpleasant – the walls of the castle were painted a sickly pale yellow, vines grew everywhere, and the wooden table was covered in cracks. The meal, though, was fabulous, set out on golden dishes with shining silver cutlery, with intricately-designed goblets filled with wine. The dark knight set down his goblet, and spoke in a deep, calm, almost soothing voice to the girl at the opposite end of the table, who was steadfastly refusing to taste her food.
“Why don’t you eat something, my dear? You grow so thin.”
The girl did not react – she behaved as though she had not heard the knight.
“Are you not hungry?”
“Let me go,” said the girl, in a controlled voice.
“Let you go?” replied the dark knight, chuckling slightly. “You know I can’t do that.”
He clicked his fingers, and the food, dishes, goblets vanished. The dark knight got up from his seat and walked around the table.
“Now, why don’t you stop being so silly, and tell me what happened at 667 Dark Avenue.”
“And why should I do that?” the girl asked. “The moment I tell you what you want to know, you’ll delete me – turn me into a virus aspect.”
“It’s not so bad,” replied the dark knight. “And the nothingness that you’ll know then is far better, I’ll wager, than the slow, painful death from starvation that you’re putting yourself through. Now, tell me what happened. Their tactics. Their weapons. Their numbers.”
“Never,” replied the girl.
The dark knight sighed, deeply, and turned around. There was only one door into this room, and the dark knight now walked towards it, drawing a key from somewhere.
“A pity,” he said, opening the door, “I shall return tomorrow morning, and see if you feel more talkative then.”
“My friends will find me here,” said the girl, determinedly.
“Your friends?” chuckled the dark knight. “How do you even know that they’re still alive?”
The girl didn’t, and she slumped back in her seat, the terrible memories from 667 Dark Avenue flooding back into her mind…
“Goodnight, Antenora,” said the dark knight, stepping through the door and locking it, leaving the girl alone with her memories.
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Antenora
Detriment Deleter
Fiendish Philologist
Put down that harpoon gun, in the name of these wonderful birds!
Posts: 15,891
Likes: 113
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Post by Antenora on May 8, 2005 5:35:11 GMT -5
I really love how you've envisioned the internet as a landscape, with data drifting around.
This is really cool. PJ's crossbow-hand is neat.
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Post by PJ on May 8, 2005 5:42:09 GMT -5
OH. MY. GOD. THIS STORY IS TEH SEDX! Dante, this work, in my opinion, surpasses your other stuff. I LOVE THIS! It's funny, cool, imaginativ AND descriptive. I simply love it. My favorite bit was the lightsaber spoon, the old man attack, Colin attacking and suffocating the really cool member and me trying to look cool. No, there was more than that. Too much to list. Simply put: This story is teh ultimate sedx.
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Post by odh on May 8, 2005 5:46:49 GMT -5
Dorian Stringfellow (Stop the T.L.A.s!) says: OMFGDIVIDEDISBRILLIANCE!
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M.
Catastrophic Captain
Posts: 60
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Post by M. on May 8, 2005 7:34:52 GMT -5
One word :
Brilliant.
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Divided
May 8, 2005 10:14:20 GMT -5
Post by Amber on May 8, 2005 10:14:20 GMT -5
I love it.
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Divided
May 8, 2005 10:57:05 GMT -5
Post by Celinra on May 8, 2005 10:57:05 GMT -5
Ooh, this is really good so far. I especially liked the inclusion of PJ's lightsabre spoon.
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Divided
May 8, 2005 11:29:22 GMT -5
Post by Dante on May 8, 2005 11:29:22 GMT -5
The link bus sped away, leaving Derik and PJ alone, gazing up at the Web Archive, a beacon of civilisation in the vast moors which stretched between the wastelands and the cities. It was built entirely out of gold, and was shaped like a huge dome, reflecting the electric sun out in all directions. It was a truly magnificent place, and the doors were wide open.
Walking past the huge columns that stood before the doors, and entering into the entrance hall of the Archive, Derik and PJ saw that the building was bustling with life, people hurrying around and about, up and down stairs clutching handfuls of paper. There was a reception desk on the left, where a woman was beckoning the two of them.
“Good morning,” she said in a bright, breezy voice, “and how may I help you?”
“We’re looking for the file on 667 Dark Avenue,” said Derik, taking charge. “We need it quite urgently.”
Across the hall, a young girl wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a pair of sunglasses far larger than was necessary turned to look at the pair, and if she had not been wearing sunglasses, then the people around would have seen her eyes widen in astonishment.
“6-6-7 Dark Avenue…” muttered the receptionist, opening a browser window in mid-air and scanning the contents. “No, I’m afraid that we have no file here on any ‘667 Dark Avenue.’”
Derik and PJ exchanged worried glances.
“Have you checked the entire archive?” asked PJ.
“Yes, of course, I…” the woman faltered. “Unless…”
She tapped a few icons in the window, and after scanning the new page for a second, turned back to Derik and PJ.
“Yes, certainly. It’s in the ‘Deleted Sites’ section.”
“Okay, thanks,” said Derik, “how do we get there?”
The woman looked puzzled. “Go to the Deleted section?” she asked. “Oh no, you can’t go down there. It’s restricted.”
“Restricted? Why?” demanded PJ.
“If a site has been deleted, then it’s probably best not to look into it,” explained the receptionist. “Too many bad memories… That’s the theory, anyway. As it happens, I think that there are perfectly good reasons why you might want to look up a file on a deleted site, but I can’t go against official policy.”
“Is there a problem here?” asked a male voice, and a man appeared. He was middle-aged, handsome, and smiling pleasantly.
“These two young men would like to look up a file on a deleted site,” said the receptionist.
“Oh my, no can do,” explained the man. “We can’t let you down there.”
“Down where?” asked PJ.
“The basement,” the receptionist answered, pointing to a metal door with a large lock that was set into a wall.
“I don’t think they need to know that,” said the man, lowering his voice. “Remember what I’ve told you before, Myranda.”
“Sorry, Officer Alan,” said the woman, looking at the floor.
“Now, I suggest that you two boys hurry off somewhere else,” said Officer Alan. “And get yourself some new clothes; you look like you’ve been in a war.”
And with that, Officer Alan departed. Myranda, however, continued to look at the floor. Derik and PJ began to feel a little guilty that they had indirectly earned her a reprimand from the Officer.
“We’re sorry that we got you in trouble,” said Derik, “but we really need to see that file.”
“It’s not your fault,” sighed Myranda. “It’s that dreadful Alan. He’s been bullying the staff here ever since he arrived. He’s the one who said that files on deleted sites shouldn’t be open to the public.”
“Is there any way we can get our hands on that file?” asked PJ. The strangely-dressed girl across the hall was listening intently now.
Myranda paused for a minute, looking as though in two minds – but then she relaxed.
“Alright,” she said. “I’ll let you in. I was thinking about quitting, anyway. We need a distraction, though, to keep Alan busy.”
Derik and PJ thought for a moment, but then Colin twitched at Derik’s shoulder. He knew what to do…
A few minutes later, Alan came striding across the hall, bearing a cup of coffee in his hand. Derik, PJ, and Myranda were hovering a few metres away, watching him closely.
“Does your towel know what he’s doing?” asked Myranda.
“He knows everything,” said Derik, admiringly.
As Alan crossed the hall, humming a tune, then Colin, who had been lying on the floor, caught him around the leg and brought him crashing to the ground.
“Oh noes!” cried Alan. “My coffee! It’s staining my shirt and scalding me!”
The people who filled the entrance hall all ran to Alan to see if they could help, or just to point and laugh. Whilst nobody was looking, Myranda pressed a key into PJ and Derik’s hands.
“All the staff here have keys to the basement, in case something needs filing down there,” she said. “Now go! I’ll keep Alan in his place.”
And she hurried off to the centre of the hall, crying in a voice of convincing concern, “Officer, Officer! Are you all right?”
PJ and Derik did not hesitate to seize this opportunity, hurrying to the door and unlocking it. As they prepared to descend, Derik felt something tugging at his shoelace. It was Colin, who had slithered across the floor to reach them. Derik slung Colin across his shoulder and then made his way down a flight of spiral stairs with PJ. A few seconds later, the girl with the oversized hat and sunglasses followed suit, pulling the door closed behind them.
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The basement was a dark and dingy place, and row after row of iron shelves stood down there, loaded with files wrapped in brown folders. Derik and PJ made their way to the far end of the basement, looking for the shelves assigned to numbers. The strangely-dressed girl followed some distance away, hiding behind the shelves.
“Here…” said PJ, reaching a shelf labelled “6.”
“Right, you start looking at the bottom shelf,” said Derik, running his eyes along the files on the top shelf. The girl watched from a distance.
“Got it!” cried PJ, his voice echoing around the basement. In his hands he held a thin file labelled “667 DARK AVENUE.”
Opening it, Derik read, “‘667 Dark Avenue is a popular forum for discussion of Lemony’ etc. etc… ‘Popular members include’ etc…”
“Skip to the back,” urged PJ.
Flicking to the back page and looking to the bottom, Derik read, “‘667 Dark Avenue remained prosperous and happy until recently, when a schism between two factions resulted in’ – and then it cuts off…”
“What?” exclaimed PJ, looking at the page.
“It just ends here, at the very bottom,” Derik explained. “It looks like it’s meant to run onto another page, but there aren’t any more.”
“What about a list of members?” asked PJ. “Names, e-mails?”
“Nothing,” Derik replied. “There’s only a few pages on its purpose and history. The history ends a few days ago, and there’s no list of members at all.”
“What could have happened to the rest of the file?” asked PJ, looking defeated.
“I destroyed it,” a powerful voice said, and PJ and Derik looked up the aisle to see Alan striding towards them.
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Divided
May 8, 2005 11:29:57 GMT -5
Post by Dante on May 8, 2005 11:29:57 GMT -5
“I destroyed it,” Alan continued, “so that my enemies could never get their hands on it.”
“What enemies?” asked PJ. “Who are you?”
“I serve the Queen of Chaos,” answered Alan, “and it’s in her interests that nobody ever finds out what happened to 667 Dark Avenue – and more importantly, it’s also my job to kill any former members who come here, in case our foes capture them and get the information from them.”
“What information?” asked Derik.
“Our tactics,” said Alan. “Our methods, and details of our forces. Our true power needs to remain unknown, if we are to keep the upper hand and conquer the Internet.”
The truth dawned on Derik and PJ. “You’re a really cool member?!”
“Yes,” said Alan. His handsome face was twisting into a childish sneer now. “And you’re a liability.”
He produced, as if from nowhere, a five-bladed axe.
“Say goodbye!” Alan laughed, before collapsing on the floor with a knife in his back. The strangely-dressed girl stood behind the corpse, holding three other knives in her left hand, which she returned to holsters in her belt.
“Five blades?” she said. “That’s just impractical. I mean, think about it.”
“Who are you?” asked PJ. “And why did you kill Alan?”
“Because he was going to kill you,” the girl said. “Is that file really missing the end?”
Derik held out the last page. The girl looked at it, and sighed.
“I came here hoping to find my friends, too,” she explained. “Although I was way more subtle than you.”
“Who are you again?” asked PJ.
In answer, the girl took off her hat and sunglasses, revealing her identity.
“Char!” PJ cried.
Derik rushed forward, and put his scimitar to Char’s neck. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just kill you now,” he hissed.
“I just saved your life?” she whimpered.
“What is going on here?” a voice demanded. PJ, Derik and Char looked up the aisle to see Myranda standing there.
“That’s three people who’ve snuck up on us unawares,” said PJ. “We really must be more observant.”
“What are you doing?” demanded Myranda again. “Why are you threatening that poor girl? And – is that Alan? Have you killed him?”
“Alan was a really cool member,” explained Derik. “And we’re threatening Char because she’s the reason we had to come here in the first place.”
“I lost friends too, Derik,” moaned Char. “I didn’t want it to end like this.”
“You’re going to have to explain to me precisely what’s happened to you three,” Myranda said. “Clearly, I’m missing some vital information here.”
PJ and Derik looked at each other, before sighing heavily. PJ spoke up.
“There was a war at 667 Dark Avenue,” he explained, “Char and her Randoms were on one side, and Dante and the Intellecteers on the other. Char wanted to throw the Intellecteers out of 667, but we fought against her. However, this battle severely weakened 667, leaving it wide open to a really cool member attack.”
“We don’t know where any of our friends are, or even if they’re alive,” continued Derik. “PJ lost his hand in a battle against noobs and Randoms. He’s lucky to have survived.”
“I didn’t start the fighting,” said Char. “I just said that you should all leave. Then you attacked us.”
“What else did you expect us to do?” roared PJ. “Just get up and leave?”
Myranda tried to interrupt, but Char began to cry at that point.
“You always bullied me!” she whined. “You hated me, and you’d have thrown me out if you had the chance! I lost friends in the war too! I don’t know where anyone is, I don’t know what to do…”
As he watched Char sob into her hands, PJ felt a strange feeling inside his chest, and he realised that it was pity. He felt sorry for the pathetic thing that Char had become.
“Leave her, Derik,” he sighed, and Derik looked up at him, quizzically. “We all went through the same thing in the war. It’s time to move on.”
“You aren’t usually so philosophical and complex,” said Derik, taking his scimitar away from Char’s neck. “Did you steal that from a TV show?”
“A book, actually,” PJ confessed. “But it’s how I feel now.”
Derik nodded, deciding to trust PJ’s judgement, and kneeled down to look into Char’s face. “Char, do you want to come with us? We can find our friends together. Some of them are bound to have stuck with each other – they’re can’t all be scattered alone, or in pairs.”
Char nodded, wiping the tears away from her face. No Intellecteer had ever been so generous to her before.
“Well, that’s all well and good,” Myranda said. “But what do you intend to do now?”
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Derik, PJ and Char stood outside the doors to the Web Archive. The officials had congratulated them for exposing a really cool member traitor, but had recommended that they leave for a while, or Colin would be prosecuted for causing a public nuisance. Myranda had been promoted to the rank of Officer, but in the absence of anyone else to fulfil the receptionist job, was doing exactly the same task as she had before – albeit with higher wages and more holidays.
“So where do we go next?” asked Derik.
“I know somewhere,” said Char, who was dressed in her school uniform, with knives fastened to her belt.
“Tell us more, Char,” said PJ.
“Not long before you arrived,” Char explained, “I saw Snicket hanging around. He hadn’t been at 667 in the war, and when I explained what had happened, he was horrified. He said he knew somewhere that people might go, and he set off into that boring forest over there.”
Char pointed at a distant forest, made up of tall, identical trees.
“That’s Generic Woods,” said Derik. “I’ve heard tell of the place.”
“Me too,” said PJ. “Apparently, it’s full of loads of clone websites, each exactly the same as the next. Exactly the same.”
The three of them shuddered.
“Still, that’s where we should head next,” said Derik. “We have to follow the trail.”
“Are you sure?” said Char, looking distastefully towards the distant trees.
“Hey, this is Colin’s plan,” said Derik, holding out the towel, “and I trust him more than anyone else here.”
PJ looked hurt, but Derik ignored him.
“To the icky forest, then,” Char sighed, setting off across the fields in that direction. PJ and Derik followed.
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Not far behind the trio, lurking behind one of the columns at the gate of the Web Archive, stood two mysterious figures, watching with a keen interest. They were dressed identically in every way, from their cloaks, armour, and face-concealing masks – but one of the two was taller, and his clothes were all coloured blue, while the shorter figure was dressed all in grey. Rapiers hung at their belts.
“It’s them!” cried the grey swordsman, and almost dashed out from his hiding-place – but the blue swordsman stopped him.
“That’s not our way. You know that.”
The grey swordsman stopped, realising his error, and retreated behind the column once more.
“We must follow them, carefully, and at a distance,” said the blue swordsman, “and they must not know that we are doing so. If they get into danger we will, of course, defend them, but otherwise we shouldn’t show ourselves, and certainly not show our faces.”
The grey swordsman nodded – and then they were gone, the blue and grey swordsmen, taking cover in the long grass and following slowly along the path that Derik, PJ and Char had taken.
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Divided
May 8, 2005 12:12:48 GMT -5
Post by odh on May 8, 2005 12:12:48 GMT -5
Love this. Really do. And incognito!Char rawks!
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Divided
May 8, 2005 12:21:51 GMT -5
Post by Dante on May 8, 2005 12:21:51 GMT -5
And incognito!Char rawks! If I ever re-draft this, then I'll make her really clumsy, and have her walk into things and talk with an obviously false accent - adding irony to her line "I was way more subtle than you."
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Divided
May 8, 2005 13:41:47 GMT -5
Post by Amber on May 8, 2005 13:41:47 GMT -5
*quotes self* Colin is really cute. Or I think so anyway.
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Divided
May 8, 2005 14:46:33 GMT -5
Post by Charles Vane on May 8, 2005 14:46:33 GMT -5
Char being the bad/stupid guy is tired but other than I like the story.
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Antenora
Detriment Deleter
Fiendish Philologist
Put down that harpoon gun, in the name of these wonderful birds!
Posts: 15,891
Likes: 113
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Divided
May 8, 2005 15:33:17 GMT -5
Post by Antenora on May 8, 2005 15:33:17 GMT -5
Brilliant. I like the concept of a forest full of clone websites. And I love how you're working it in with recent 667 events(the Charlotte arguments).
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