And Tomorrow the Rain will be Green [CLOSED]

[Lucas D. Hargrave]

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[atrb=background,http://oi41.tinypic.com/5xoe2u.jpg] Sometime in the future, but not too far… Lucas ran. Sweat poured off him in rivulets, soaking through the back and front of his tattered shirt and streaming off the front of his brow. He had long ago ditched his hat: it had been the victim of a bad case alien head acid and had just managed to save its owner from a bad case of dead. In its stead he wore what was essentially a piece of tarp ripped off of an unused swimming pool. Not the most stylish of ensembles but he acknowledged the need to keep his skin away from the corrosive contact of flesh eating spit. Shawl or not, it would hopefully do its job if he were surprised once more by a spray of acid. In the meantime, bereft of any other particular plans that didn’t involve a suicide run at what had become the town’s literally explosive borders, he continued playing his dangerous game of cat and mouse with the new locals. Less than a day ago this town had been perfectly normal human-run trading posts – now though it was a death trap. Something had landed in the centre of the town and constantly spat out seeds of extraterrestrial origin that, upon landing, birthed formidable alien warriors. That they looked like giant green alien babies with a bad case of redeye was entirely beside the point. They were formidable, dangerous and could vaporize a city block with a single self-destructive explosion. And saying that there were hundreds of the bastards was only a slight exaggeration. As he ran, something giggled behind him. Lucas didn’t bother zeroing in on its voice as his feet continued chewing through the sidewalks of what was once a medium-sized city – everyone still alive could move at speeds which made sound a confusing medium from which make judgments on positions. Fortunately the ki of the murderous alien plantlife shone brightly enough that he didn’t need sight or hearing anyway. The green monstrosities didn’t know that though – they seemed incapable of detecting anything other than by sight and sound. Perhaps why that was why they tried ambushing him from below. Something burst through concrete, long spindly appendages and bright red eyes glowing gleefully as it stretched an arm towards his person. Lucas barely missed a beat as he slammed a foot into its disproportionately huge head and used it as a launchpad, zooming down the street in a blur of flapping black clothes. Since he couldn’t control his trajectory when he was already in the air he had an entire three seconds to notice that he was heading into a very densely populated nest of ki signatures. Not for the first time he considered how terrible a plan his current method of survival was. ------------------------- Sometime in the past, that might even resemble the present… It was night when Lucas made it to New Haven. A medium-sized city that had cobbled itself out of the jagged and rusty edges of humanity it bespoke of hasty, reckless construction. Buildings did not so much stand as sag under their own weight; half the roofs were perforated by holes of neglect; the few windows there were were boarded or broken and there was almost no lighting. That last one was common enough though: human settlements tended to try and attract the least attention possible; aliens were notoriously unpredictable and occasionally razed entire towns for obscure reasons of their own. Anonymity, it was thought, was the best policy in such a case. Honouring that ethic, no one here asked questions and if you happened to drag in a few hundred thousand zeni worth of stolen alien technology or half a dozen decapitated heads in a rucksack. The leaders of the city only expected the courtesy of those doing less palatable business to be discreet about their less moral activities and that everyone else be smart and polite and mind their own goddamn beeswax. Slaving was the only activity that was considered forbidden by law for reasons Lucas had never been particularly interested in. He had never seen the profit in that venture himself: negotiating with South City was a permanently risky affair and where the other side had the power to set prices and also, upon a whim, kill the other side for no better reason than irritation. Walking through the shadows he made his way past the various establishments of ill repute, ears picking out jeers and whispers in equal measure; nose taking in the smell of day-old beer and rancid sweat and just as quickly ignored in favour of the more important scent of old blood. Someone had either died messily not so long ago. His eyes zeroed in and picked out a noticeable bloodstain on what would have been the wooden porch of a place whose wooden sign proclaimed its title as the Pr___ing C__. What it had originally been named was anybody’s guess. Lucas moved on. Old blood was irrelevant. What he was looking for today was merely shelter. If he remembered it right (and he always remembered it right) there was a secure enough wayfarer station not too far away. Picking up the pace he made it to the next intersection: it was impossible to ever leave either the stench or the noise but it was possible to get a comfortable distance away and the station was one of the best options that existed out here. Of course, when he got there, he discovered the station to have collapsed in on itself. Wood and brick lay in a jagged heap, spilling out across the street in reckless, barely attended to swathes.

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OOC: Erm. For some reason my plottage introduction posts always tend to run a little long. This one is a particularly bad offender because I don't actually need that beginning part but I was hoping it would set the mood a bit for the attack that will happen later. >_>