Life Is War [Working Title]

That title is very experimental. I just came up with it now randomly to have at least something, but I'm not too satisfied with it and it'll most likely change many times more.

Ok so this is my story in the works at the moment. I'd say it'll be at the higher end of length for a short story, but still within generally accepted bounds.

This is the heavily censored version, with even the lesser foul words censored out with '*'s. When the age-restricted section is in working order, the uncensored version will go there.

Oh and a note on something rather odd that I do in drafts. Anything in '<' and '>' is a note for me that is usually acts as a stub to indicate a name or event that I haven't decided upon yet. There's only one in this draft so far, and that's because I've yet to decide upon a fitting scene for that part and so couldn't finish the sentence without such a stub.

Anyway, here it goes:

PART ONE - THE ENCOUNTER

"GRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!"


Imagine that, the noise of orcish death metal being the last thing you hear. Some say you can tell a lot about a people by the kind of music they listen to, and I suppose it's true. Death metal was the most popular music amongst orcs - and just like their music, they're loud, violent, and intense. Just as the ordered, synthesized techno or intricate classical compositions of the elves shared its traits with them. But deeper meanings and tolerance for diversity aside, I've always hated orcish death metal - and I'd hate even more to leave this world with it sounding my last breath. Part of life is learning from your mistakes, so every time I've been at Death's door I've tried to think back to where I went wrong. Maybe for a final moment of enlightenment before dying, or maybe just because I'm pissed off at losing a fight. Whatever.

As for how I ended up <@ cause of imminent death>, it started as most things do - on an otherwise normal day. At least I won't have any trouble remembering, it was only yesterday that I got myself into all this...

I was traveling to a town in a valley quite far away. With barely enough money to live off, I'd had to walk the entire journey so far and was continuing to do so. It was on a main road through a run-down city that I met the guy who'd screw up what was left of my life.

Although it was broad daylight, I walked slowly and kept an eye out for trouble. The only way to survive in a shithole like that was to break laws. When it was a choice between waiting for someone to die to eat their carcass or stealing food from a passing traveler, all the laws in the world were nothing.

It was a pretty average city - department stores, apartments, private businesses, and all the other amenities of a modern city. But just like many places ravaged by the last war, the place was littered with debris and decomposing corpses, and everything was deserted to the naked eye. Buildings had massive sections cleaved out of them by explosions, the streets were full of potholes and huge craters, and there was rubbish floating around on the breeze overt scraps of metallic materials that almost paved the grounds. Smashed and stripped-down cars lined the streets still, but with no petrol around for miles they weren't useful for anything more than spare parts.

Anyway, it wasn't long before I noticed I was being followed,not a hard task in an empty street I know, but there were plenty of places to hide and stalk someone. But this guy on my tail was strolling along like I was, in the open and completely obvious to me. It occurred that he was a particularly crafty criminal to attempt such a weird stalking method, but as I caught a glimpse of a reflection of him in a car window I realised he was too young to possibly be a threat to me. What's more was that he didn't look like shit at all, so he clearly didn't live in this city.

"Alright, what the hell do you want?" I finally spat out, spinning around to face the guy with my hand at the ready on the hilt of my longsword on my hip.

He was in his early twenties, with brown, mid-length shaggy hair, and the kind of face you just wanna punch - clean shaven, well-structured, well-tanned, bright and happy. A real pretty-boy. He was a scrawny kid though; his white t-shirt and green cargo pants were noticeably loose-fitting on him. The only reason I even bothered hold my hilt was that he had a gun holster on his own hip with a weapon sitting in it.

He looked at me blankly for a moment, and then grinned. "Nothing."

I gave him my hardest, coldest death-stare, and he just blinked back at me. "I'll make this simple: stop following or else."

"Hey I wasn't following you, we just happened to be walking in the same direction. But if you're tryin to be some hardcore loner, then fine - you go your way and I'll go elsewhere."

My grip on my sword hilt tightened and I was just about to rush the guy and teach him not to insult a stranger who for all he knew was a psychotic murderer, but a shout interrupted us. Both of us spun around and faced towards the intersection up ahead where the incomprehensible shout came from.

There was a store on the corner, looked like a fruit and veggie stall set up in the ruins of a supermarket or something. A middle-aged man, woman, and a young boy were being herded away from it onto the street by a group of four thugs. The makeup of the group gave away their purpose to me right away - there were two orcs, an elf, and a human. Such a group would be killing each other right now unless they were who I knew they were - Union Collectors.

The Union was a criminal organisation that is renowned for putting profits and power above racial differences, and they're the only known organisation where so many members of different races and species work together without malice. Combining the talents of varying races gave them huge success, and collecting 'protection' money was one of their key operations. Real ironic that the lawless can make peace with each other while the lawful can't seem to stop warring with each other.

So me and the young guy were standing there watching the store owner literally on his knees begging, while the woman tried to shield what was obviously their boy from one of the orcs shouting at him to stop crying. Then suddenly the guy with me draws his gun and starts walking towards them. I grabbed his arm, "Just what the hell do you think you're gonna do with...that?" I couldn't help raising an eyebrow at his rusty old six-shooter.

"But we can't just let them get away with that!" he said with something more than an annoyance in his voice.

"Maybe you can't, but I sure can."

"Hah. A minute ago you were threatening me for just going the same way as you! so what was that some lame act?"

I sighed and rubbed my forehead, "You don't get it. Those guys are from the Union. If I go wipe the floor with 'em all, their bosses will be pissed and send a Vengeance Squad after me. Even you must know of the Union Vengeance Squad's famous boast of never having let a single person live after insulting them - and I can say for sure that it ain't an exaggeration either."
One of the orcs was keeping the store owner and his family outside while the others were making a hell of a racket inside. "They'll trash his place and be on their way, he'll repair and rebuild, and life will go on. It's the way the world works, and I'm not about to interfere and get myself into a heap of shit just for that dickhead's fruit." I finished by turning my back and continuing walking the way I had been before confronting the guy. I meant it when I said I didn't want a fight, I kill them and then I'll be dragged right back into the constant fighting I was trying so hard to escape from.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the guy scowl and head over to stop the thugs anyway. It's not everyday you see a moron get taught a lesson, so I decided to stick around and watch him get his ass handed to him. I was predicting a one-hit KO.

"Get your hands up and step back!" the guy shouted at the orc outside as he closed in with gun firmly in hand pointed at him. The orc had obviously been ignoring his approach for lack of concern up until now.

I've always said that orcs have to be the ugliest bastards I've ever seen. They all look like professional body builders - even the women and children. Their faces are what I imagine cavemen must have looked like, prominent brows and jaws. Now their teeth are like a human's are normally from birth - I think they have one or two extra though or something - but they sharpen them from a young age until they're like a dragon's teeth: slightly hooked, but thick, firm, and very sharp. The thing that makes 'em stand out the most though is that they're gray-skinned, with a range of faint colour tints to them. Their warriors usually wore bulky metallic armours and wielded massive weapons or even bare hands.

Anyway, this orc turned to face the guy with the gun and let out a horrible belly-laugh. He was chubby for an orc, but bore all the scares of battle of a hardened veteran. Without a word, the orc suddenly punched the store owner square in the face in a hit that no doubt broke his nose instantly. The guy with the gun, much to my surprise, didn't hesitate and just fired his gun right at the orc. But as I knew it would the bullet swerved in mid-air as it got close the orc's body and veered off course into the store window, shattering it into countless pieces. The gun-wielder just stared blankly as the orc stampeded towards him and delivered a brutal clothesline strike. As the orc stepped back and smiled a smug smile, the guy got back to his feet with seemingly little more injury than being winded. The orc punched him in the chest this time, causing him to stagger backwards and clench his chest in agony. The guy seemed like he was about to drop like a sack of dead cats, but then suddenly let go of his chest and lunged forward to deliver his own punch to the orc's face. That's when the action really got started. The guy was quick on his feet and landed countless blows against the sluggish orc, but the few blows the orc landed were earth-shaking. I'd been hit by bare-fisted orcs in such fights many times, and I know just how hard they can hit.

Now normally I'd have been content to let this wrap itself up and leave this idiot to die for his own stupidity. But for some reason seeing this guy keep fighting what was clearly a lost battle got to me. It was probably that he reminded me of myself at a younger age, back in the wars when I found fulfillment in standing tall against the odds. Though maybe it had just been peaceful for me for too long and I was spoiling for some action again. Either way I was getting softer with age, I'd soon be as soft and squishy as the damaged shit these makeshift markets tried to pass off as edible food.

I took off with all the speed I could muster, and slightly slipped my blade from its sheath at my hip to ready it for a quick unsheathing to come. I closed the distance in no time, and the orc's next punch lost him his hand. I sliced it clean off with a downward slash, then pulled the blade back and dug it into the orc's side between two of his higher ribs. He fell with a contorted look of pain on his face and landed with a heavy thud in the dust.

"I thought you didn't want to interfere?" the guy said to me, wiping the blood trickling from his nose and mouth away with his hand.

"Shut up and be thankful I did. Don't you know anything? This orc is wearing MR Armour!"

"M...R?"

"Magnetic Repulsion." I said, tapping my sword on the orc's armour with each syllable, "The armour uses a magnetic field to repel metallic weapons and projectiles, like your bullets for example. This guy was wearing a thin version beneath his clothes - you can tell because the air seems to ripple slightly around his body. Standard issue for trips to shitty, low-tech places like this." I turned briefly to the store owner nursing his broken nose, "No offence."

"But your sword is metal, isn't it?"

Surprisingly, the guy had actually held onto his gun the whole time, but not for much longer. I waved my sword past his gun and it was wrenched from his hands and became glued to my sword for a moment. I then released it and it dropped to the ground in a puddle of the slain orc's blood. "My sword has MR/A - the 'A' is for Attraction - and a high output generator, so I can cancel-out the effects with an opposing magnetic field. Besides, armours can't use a very strong generator because it messes up your body in such close contact to vital -”

The other three members of the thug group suddenly emerged from the shop with surprised looks on their faces. I'd wasted too much time talking; I could have taken them down stealthily otherwise. I realised I'd been caught up in talking about the equipment and props of war again, and I'd been enjoying it. I was starting to get worried that I hadn't put the violence of my past as far behind me as I'd thought. The elf stepped forwards and raised an eyebrow as he glanced at the dead orc.

In contrast to the orcs, elves are like deities of beauty. They all have perfect faces and bodies, excellent skin tone, lush silky hair - hell they even dress in the fanciest and best fashion around. Their skin is capable of the same colour variations as a human’s as well. In fact, the only way to tell an elf from a human is by the elves’ long, pointed ears. With age, the points on their ears grew longer and longer – even though they somehow managed not to get wrinkles and other crap like that until much later in their lives. In terms of personality though, they're just ugly. They're arrogant, selfish, vain, petty, and pretty much every other bad character trait imaginable. But where the orcs are dumb, elves are super-intelligent. This elf was wearing an antique tuxedo, and had his dyed rainbow-coloured hair styled in some intricate series of knots and braids.

I raised my sword and grasped it in both hands, then put myself in a defensive position in front of the gun-wielding guy and the store owner's family to block them off from the thugs. "Is it worth you dying too just for one protection payment?" I asked.

The elf cocked his head to the side and squinted slightly at me, "I would say...that you know the answer to that question." He produced a quick smile and then stepped back to allow the human and other orc to get to me. The bastard had read me merely by looking into my eyes and glancing at my battle scars, and figured out I'd been around. I hated it when Elves did that.

The other orc that remained looked quite a lot like the one I'd killed, but to me orcs basically all looked the same anyway. Though this one wasn't using his bare hands, he was carrying a large stone club on his back. He was also wearing heavy, black MR Armour covering everything 'cept his head. As for the human, he was a sturdy man with several pouches filled with throwing knives, daggers, and stars strapped across his body at various places.He didn't appear to have any armour at all, just some simple raggy clothes.

The elf's slender fingers weaved into some intricate hand signal that was probably just some self-absorbed bullshit ad-lib. But as he did, the orc pulled his stone club from his back and swung it over his head in a circle effortlessly, while the human began juggling half a dozen knives at once with a twisted look on his face.

"That last orc was nothing. Watch this and you'll see why you were an idiot to interfere." I said over my shoulder to the gun-wielder while keeping my eyes on the two enemies in front of me.

"You interfered too!" he shot back.

"That's because I'm a veteran idiot."

PART TWO - THE FIGHT

The club-wielding orc charged in and swung at my head like it was a nothing but a baseball. I easily dodged his slow, heavy attack and moved around behind him to try for a decapitation. But as I was about to bring my sword down, the human flung a dozen metal stars at me. I managed to halt my slice against the orc and bring my blade back to a vertical position in front of my face, parallel to my body. My sword's Attraction field attracted the stars to it and stuck them against the blade. As the orc shifted his weight to spin around and strike at my body, I dodged again and tried once more to sever his head. But yet again the human interrupted with another ranged assault - this time with three large throwing knives. I performed the same move as last time, but this time I switched my sword to Repulsion mode. At the same time as repelling the knives, the stars that were attached to the blade were launched away - the end result was a flurry of projectiles fired back at the human. Yet it seemed he had a trick or two up his sleeve as well. The human moved unbelievably fast and was simply too quick for the projectiles. Pausing to reflect upon whether the human's speed was pure physical ability or a techno-enhanced ability cost me the orc's boot to my back. I stumbled and almost fell, but still managed to duck a follow-up swing of the orc's club. But while I was doing that, the human had chucked another pair of knives - and this time I couldn't avoid them.

What hurts more than a knife in the back from a friend? Two knives in the back from some asshole you've never met. We had a certain code of honour back in the wars, things such as striking a downed opponent or striking a man while his back is turned didn't take place. I had to try to remember that the Union didn't play by anyone's rules but their own.

Now I've realised over the years that stabbings don't get better each time. You never build up a resistance to it, it always seems to hurt as much as it did the first time. But at least in this case it wasn't in the cold. Nothing seems more wrong than feeling the heat from your own blood warm your skin as it trickles out.

I fell to my knees in an awkward, wobbly kinda way. It wasn't caused by the wounds either, I had a plan. If these two wanted to stomp all over the rules of honour, then I'd stomp on them the same way. As the orc bared his rotting, ugly teeth in a hideous grin and lifted his club high over his head and aimed to hammer me straight into the ground, I suddenly leapt up and sunk my blade into his throat. The club slipped from the orc's hands and he made a feeble wheezing sound. I thought he was gonna give up and accept death, but suddenly his angry eyes locked onto mine and he broguth his hands down from over his head clasped together and slammed them square on the top of my head.

I don't really remember much of what happened just after that. I have a few vague and screwed up images of falling and seeing blood, but then nothing until suddenly regaining consciousness a while (apparently it was only few minutes) later. I never got the specifics of what went on while I was out, but I awoke to see whiteness. After a moment of panic and complete confusion, I realised there was a piece of paper on my face. I snatched it away and sat up. I looked around and rubbed my head, trying to work out where the hell I was and what the hell was going on. I remembered soon enough when I spotted the orc that had KO'd me lying next to me wheezing and gargling away on his own blood. I stood up and remembered what was going on, but it seemed that it was all over already.

The fruit stand owner and his family were cleaning up inside their shop, the first orc was dead where he'd fallen earlier, the second orc was slowly suffocating on the ground near me, and the human was lying nearby as well - with a massive bullet hole in his head. There was no sign of the elf or the guy with the gun.

I realised I was still holding the piece of paper scrunched in my hand - so I inspected it. It had writing on it, written in the over-the-top decorative handwriting style that all elves are taught to write in.

"This is quite simply a ransom note. Bring 1000 credits to the ancient well on the outskirts of town by sunrise tomorrow or your young friend will be entombed there."

It ended with an unreadably fancy signature.

I scrunched the note up angrily and then ripped it to shreds. That bastard elf knew I'd have to go there with the money - but not because of his hostage. I had also realised that my sword was missing, obviously looted by the elf. I HAD to have my sword back, it was valuable both financially and personally. But while I was fumnig about it and missing my sword, I came to yet another realisation - while I was unconscious, that boy must have shot down the human. Not only was that an impressive feat with the speed that human had, but it meant my life might have been saved by that guy with the gun. If that was so, I'd be bound to repay that debt. So I was left with one course of action: go to the meeting, get my sword back and save the gun-guy. Only problem was I didn't have 1000 credits to bargain with, and I didn't have a weapon to fight with.

I then remembered my wounds and checked them with my hands. They'd been clearly sealed up by a Micro-Regenerator, having left its trademark texture to the remaining scars. That was a rare device, and a costly one. It wasn't likely that the gun-guy or the shopkeeper had that kind of device, so the only possibility was the elf. But just as I was beginning to think the elf wasn't such a bad guy after all, the orc suddenly stopped wheezing and choking for breath. I've heard that sound many times before, so it isn't surprising that I forgot all about the orc despite his noises. It was unusually savage behaviour - that elf had left his orc comrade to die slowly instead of quickly ending his pain. The elf had done this as a message to me. I knew right then that I'd be in the shit if that elf found a way to put me at his mercy again.

I decided it was time to call in a favour from an old friend.

Ok so with this latest update, I've rewritten and edited parts of the first entry, and posted the second. I also divided them into separate 'parts', and will continue this trend with subsequent entries.

I also toned down the language, so now it doesn't have any censored words and should be ok to be in this open forum.