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 Posted: Sat May 11, 2013 12:01 am
Yet another week yet another day, yet another week of time that seemed to flow steadily forwards while everyone else repeatedly worked themselves backwards. Perhaps Madison would have enjoyed a much longer, more fulfilling life in the tiny backwards island if it weren't for a text, rather suddenly. Text from Caelius 10am. Room 201B. Prepare for evaluation.
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Posted: Sat May 11, 2013 8:18 am
She hadn't exactly been expecting the news to come via text - though, when she thought about it, what else was there? A note shoved under her door? A phone call? She sure as ******** knew she wouldn't be getting a parade. Regardless, she knew what evaluation had to be. She prepared quickly, only taking a few moments to fidget in front of the mirror, her hands shaking a bit as she made sure she looked more confident than she felt. Madison really had no idea what to expect. Robert had dressed up as Santa. Jordan had gone through what sounded like a very personal version of hell. There was absolutely no way to predict where her promotion mission would fall. Or if she would pass. She had to pass. In defiance of all previously known Deus Ex laws of time and physics, she managed to make it to the appointed room five minutes early.
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Posted: Sat May 11, 2013 11:51 pm
The door remained absolutely closed. Even if Madison was five minutes early, it looked like she would have to bite the bullet herself.
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Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 9:25 am
Madison knocked on the door, then tried the knob. "Hello? Madison McKenzie, reporting as requested?"
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Posted: Mon May 13, 2013 12:11 am
The door easily opened on its own.
It looked like the aftermath of chaos inside.
The usual neat mahogany desk was flipped on one side, bent sideways. Papers were strewn all directions, several of them fluttering close to a half-closed, shattered window. Parts of the room itself were singed black, while other parts had deep, sharp gouges. A cell phone lay on the ground, still flashing.
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Posted: Tue May 14, 2013 8:49 pm
Oh. Great. Madison sighed, then stepped inside warily, looking around to see if anyone was in there before checking the room. Someone had really done a number on this, but at least no blood was immediately obvious... still, though. It was unpleasantly similar to the scene in the Council rooms. She bent down to examine the cell phone, picking it up with her scarf to avoid damaging any potential fingerprints.
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Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 1:41 am
As Madison passed through the room, she could feel some things crunch, perhaps fragments of whatever had been destroyed, perhaps pieces of glass. The cellphone seemed almost ominous at this point, and flashed sporadically as she picked it up. It read a single message.
August 13, 2004.
-
"Hey!"
There was no warning, all senses simply shifted. One second Madison had been standing in the desecrated office, the second she was entirely somewhere else. It was damp, it was warm, it was humid. Thick foliage shifted around her, enough to make everything dark, almost obscured by shadows.
"Hey!" A hand was placed on her shoulder, an entirely unfamiliar Death Hunter staring at Madison. "You okay? We still got a way to go before home base. They might come back any second, we gotta book it." The other looked extremely roughed up, perhaps the result of being off base, wherever this was. Deep gashes ran down one side, and she was notably missing several fingers. In front of her were several other Hunters, looking several degrees of nervous and slightly upset at the holdup.
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Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 7:30 pm
2004? Who the ******** kept text messages from 2004- "Hey!"Humidity and warmth slammed down on her like a wave, and she stumbled back, swearing under her breath; adrenaline shot through her, and Kouki hissed in alarm. What the <********> just happened? A portal in the floor, or something? She couldn't tell where she was, except that there were plants - holy ********, were there ever plants. She nearly punched the person who touched her; she whirled, heart thudding in her chest. It was a Hunter, but not someone she recognized - not impossible, but faintly improbable. "Am I okay? s**t, are you okay?! The portal has to be around here somewhere-" She fumbled for her runic bandages.
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Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 11:25 pm
Instead of being appreciative, she gave Madison a sort of look. "That's not funny, I was trying to help. Seriously now. No need to be sarcastic or anything." Shaking her head, she turned around, signalling to the others ahead. They moved quickly, too fast for Madison to actually catch her breath or ask anything else.
The weather was humid enough to make a rather lasting impact, and the foliage seemed to be made entirely out of sharp razors, attempting to cut at skin and clothing, anything that it came in contact with. She would also find out rather quickly that other than her coat, she hadn't actually come equipped with anything.
It seemed like a little past eternity before they made their stop. A clearing, actual light, too bright at first, pouring down. The clearing was laid meticulously down with Runic daggers to secure the area-
- And within were a series of cages. They were all empty. Two of the Hunters went to grab the empty cages, moving them, while the scarred Death Hunter came back. "Well, should we go check on the traps?" She came off as pretty hostile now.
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Posted: Thu May 16, 2013 9:20 am
Utterly bewildered, Madison followed them, shoving through the underbrush as best she could, though the leaves seemed utterly inimical. Soon, a tracery of shallow cuts covered her forearms. She gritted her teeth and kept moving. By the time they reached their destination, sweat was stinging in the cuts - as if the foliage wasn't enough, the air itself was so humid that it felt like it took physical effort to move through it. Still, Madison relaxed a bit at the familiar sight of a dagger perimeter. She took that brief pause to go for the bandages again, only to find that pocket empty. s**t. Had they fallen out somewhere in the overgrowth? If so, she was never getting them back. And then the Hunter returned, with attitude - but, well. Missions and all that. "Absolutely," she said, trying to look less frazzled and confused than she felt. "Sorry about earlier - just trying to get my bearings. I'm okay now. Where are the traps?"
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Posted: Thu May 16, 2013 11:38 pm
Regardless of Madison's attempts to appease the increasingly lukewarm Hunters, they seemed to have a mind of their own as to their impressions of her. It was odd, if one really thought about it, after all, they had not even done introductions. In fact, how had she even arriv-
- For a second, everything was interrupted by white noise, a brilliant shrill white that blotted everyone else out. Just white, a sharp ringing, and then-
- "What is this?" The other Hunter was talking again, this time addressing several people standing in front of the cages. Cages that were now full of creatures, wispy and shadowy at best, those of Halloween. One Hunter was notably down, hurt and clawed up badly, clutching his side, while two others were with said Death Hunter, talking to a congregation of people. Just people, normal humans wearing slightly more conservative wear, blocking the Hunters from the cages in a rather bodily fashion.
"They don't mean you any harm!" One of the civilians still firmly stood against the Hunters. "Please! We're just trying to live peacefully together, just leave our village be!"
The Death Hunter was giving them a rather pained look. "Don't make this hard on us, we don't have a choice. These, they're not human. They may think or act human but in the end you literally cannot exist together. This will be for the best."
"I know what you do." The outspoken leader of the group, a middle-aged man with greying hair and a worn out sports cap, shook his head. "DETH warmed me about you Hunters. You'll ruin the balance we've created. I'm not leaving these cages until you let them go. We'll starve ourselves."
The Death Hunter finally slowly turned to Madison, giving her a sort of half-desperate half-exasperated look. She sighed. "It's your call."
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Posted: Fri May 17, 2013 10:41 pm
What was even happening? It was like they weren't even listening to her, like they were responding to things she wasn't even saying or doing, specifically- Everything whited out in a sudden flare; Madison reflexively raised one arm over her eyes as Kouki hissed in her minds. When the spots left her vision, everything had changed. People had moved around; someone was hurt, and the cages were packed full. Madison's eyes narrowed. Had she fainted or something? She didn't feel ill at all, and yet it was as if... as if time itself had skipped forward. And now she was being asked to make a decision with no information, no variables. It went against everything she was - as a Death Hunter, information was currency and lifeblood. "What kind of balance can you possibly achieve by killing yourselves?" she asked the apparent leader, folding her arms in front of her. Then she turned to the other Death Hunter. "I need more information to make this call, damnit. Where's your data?"
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Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 8:51 pm
The Huntress who did not seem to like Madison much, despite the consistent respect of her authority, just stared ar Madison in silence. "Can we have a world- in private?" Said Hunter turned to the two not injured. "Negotiate. At least get as much out of them as usable, if we can't take the specimens we at least need some information as collateral."
As the other two seemed to know what they were doing, well as much as one could when dealing with an extremely unusual human-Halloween pacifist loving situation, the scarred Death Hunter pulled Madison aside. "With all respect, sir, these are human civilians, albeit radical ones. I understand they jeopardize the whole mission but what is it about these current candidates that are so important? We could have gathered weapons candidates anywhere else, so unless you tell me exactly what's going on here, we can't function as a team. I've tried to be nice about things but," She pinched the bridge of her nose, "God help me, Ben owes me big time for this. All right, as division assistant, you need to help us out here. Normal people don't just follow things blindly."
Her eyes gazed sternly at Madison, as if she was listening to Madison talking her lips occasionally pressed together at various intervals. "That's not an answ-"
-A loud explosion shook the canopy, a blast of warmth stopping all other conversation. "Jesus Christ!" The other Huntress took off running towards the camp site.
One of the humans was still alive - most of her. As Madison and the scarred Death Hunter ran to ground zero, the flames still dancing around the campsite, the cages, the survivor gave Madison a long smile. Considering that they were missing the entire lower half of their body, they they died rather easily, still smiling.
As for the other Hunters, the charred remains were the only signal of their presence. The flames had taken everything else, though unable to spread due to simply the humidity and moisture of the tropical climate.
Before either of the two could utter another word, something, several somethings, shadowed creatures, giant felines perhaps or sleeker lizards with sharp claws descended upon them. Distantly, Madison could hear someone shouting at her to move, but by then their wide open jaws seemed too close.
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Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 10:24 pm
As the Huntress spoke, her speech pattern became strange- when Madison was still gathering her words, the other Hunter went on as if responding to something that had been said. Except Madison hadn't said anything at all... It's like... like a play. Or a movie. Except I don't have a script-
Wait.
Ben? Ben is dead...Before she could even mentally object to the division assistant thing, the explosion swept by them both, like a sudden jump the way the white-otu earlier had been: one moment there was calmish if hurried conversation, the next heat and stench and falling debris were everywhere. And then Madison was running too, swearing under her breath. What the <********> was happening? If this was a movie, she should really be walking away from the explosion without looking back, but... The sight of the carnage made her instantly queasy, and she swallowed hard and mouthed the words of the only prayer she knew at the sight of the dying human. At least the 'survivor' was well beyond the point of needing mercy. The monsters loomed, and Madison reflexively reached for Kouki-
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Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 9:27 pm
- "Hello Madison."
Everything else was frozen, as if nothing but a simple montage displayed for all to see - the scarred Hunter's look of shock as she moved to fend off two beast-like creatures with her weapons, the dying flames almost picturesque behind her-
- And then there was her. She was entirely out of place, a figure superimposed onto everything else. The woman, neither Hunter nor quite that of Halloween, walked a little closer, her long dress and longer black hair, braided, flowing delicately behind her, drifting into the mist of the backdrop. She turned to examine the scene. "Are you enjoying them? Memories are quite important, even the same event becomes a different memory person to person." Why was she bringing up this right now-
- The figure waved her hand and the entire scene scattered. Everything made a little more sense now. She seated herself quietly on a marble pedastal, gesturing for Madison to sit next to her. "This is my favourite part. It's quite important."
And once again, before Madison could ask why-
-"Conversion." A Life Hunter finished, shrugging. "Weapon conversions only have three distinct variables: susceptibility, measured by physical and mental weakness, determination, and of course the greatest variable, luck. The idea of of there being species specific thresholds is absurd, if that were the case, we could potentially make horsemen weapons, but since noone has actually gotten a successful voluteer, the arguement is moot." They tapped their computer thoughtfully, distracted. "A horsemen weapon, I wonder...."
They paused, as if listening to Madison. And then slowly, their face paled, as their finger overshot the keyboard.
"That- that's- you can't do that. That's pretty much cannibalism, it's totally counterproductive to the-"
They suddenly went flying, as if Madison had perfected the art of invisible punches thrown with the power of mere thought alone. The table was flipped over in disarray, papers flying everywhere.
"-N-no! Of course not! That was- I mean, I didn't mean to assume-"
A pause.
-"Yes sir. Th- thank you."
The scene faded out like an old film reaching the end, everything flickering to white, and then the figure again, sitting in her usual place. She smiled, holding out a tanned hand. "Come young hero, you have come this far. Why not tell me a traveller's tale and in return I'll tell you a secret."
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