[Namek] A Crash Landing

[Geeli Ou]

“Ouch,” Sid whispered as he peeled his body off the warm, sun-kissed earth. His baseball cap had fallen from his atop his head, allowing his dirty blonde hair to dance around in the gentle breeze. He rubbed his sore shoulder and pushed his body into a seated position on the heated dirt. About a hundred yards away, separated from Sid by an array of broken crates and scattered equipment, was the downed transport vehicle that he had formerly been a passenger on. The hull’s steel was twisted and mangled, mauled and ripped asunder by some foreign power. Clouds of smoke billowed from the wreck, and the simmering fires corrupted the otherwise silent and deserted landscape. There were no other signs of life for as far as the eye could see, not in any direction.

“What in the hell happened?” A voice faintly echoed across the earthen floor. Sid’s ears, picking up on the noise immediately, tracked its source like a trained hunting hound: a group of soldiers, or militia, or whatever they were, had gathered around some of the smashed crates and were searching through the remains. Sid snatched up his bag and eagerly dashed over towards them.

“Hey, hey we got company!” One of the soldiers shouted as the youngling raced towards the small group.

“No, I’m a friend!” Sid shouted as he smacked himself in the forward. He should have shouted to them before just sprinting over. Everyone knows you don’t trust strangers after all, Mrs. Jones in the third grade had taught him that. Then again, he didn’t know these people either. Could he really trust them?

“Stop!” One of the men, who wore a basic combat uniform with a single insignia sewn onto the shoulder, leveled his gun as Sid slowed to a halt and raised his arms high above his head.

“Don’t shoot! Please!” Sid shouted, his voice shaking with fear as he thrust his hands into the classic ‘I surrender, don’t shoot’ pose.

“Jesus Christ Brett, it’s just a fucking kid,” another man stepped forward and spoke. “Put your god damn gun down.”

The second man slapped the body of the first man’s assault rifle, knocking down the barrel and forcing him to lower his weapon. The aggressor apologized, and the two walked forward towards the still stagnant pre-teen. There were others behind them, who were simply watching the scene unfold and were continuing to salvage what they could from the scattered equipment

“What are you doing out here kid?” the second man questioned.

Sid hesitated for a moment, eyeing the man who had previously leveled his weapon at him, and then responded, “I was on the ship, sir.” He spoke as if he were being questioned and reprimanded by the principal, guilt riddled his voice.

“That ship was for militia personnel only! How in the hell did you get on?!” The first man interjected, his question rhetorical and his frustration palpable. It was understandable, Sid thought to himself, the man had probably lost countless friends when the ship went down. Anger was an emotion that was frequently redirected.

“Settle down Brett,” the second man continued, turning slightly and pressing his hand down on his comrade’s shoulder. After a moment, Brett seemed to calm. The formerly aggressive man glanced one more time at the kid, and then turned his back and returned to the other members of their group.

“You snuck on that plane, didn’t you?” The second man, an older man, asked as he stepped towards Sid.

“Yes sir, I snuck on that plane.”

“And why did you do that?”

“Because I’m going to help,” Sid responded. His voice was strong and confident, but there was fear in his eyes as he watched the transport vehicle smolder in the background. What could he do against something that could do that to a space ship?

“You were going to help were you?”

“No sir, I am going to help.”

The older man chuckled and reached forward towards Sid. The boy recoiled slightly, but a reassuring glance from the protective soldier made him reconsider. Continuing his original motion, the man gripped the child’s small muscles jokingly.

“Alright, well, you’re strong enough for me. Come help us carry some equipment and we’ll get you home, alright?”

“Yes sir!” Sid shouted excitedly, a grin spreading across his face. He raced past the older man towards the beaten, downtrodden group of soldiers and volunteers.

“We’re taking kids with us now, huh boss?” a third man walked up to the older man as the child departed and questioned him.

“Would you rather leave him out here to fend for himself?”

The question was met with silent approval, and the two older men watched with crossed arms as the mysterious young boy raced around smashed crates, searching for equipment to salvage.

[Chubbs Story Account]

The world keeps spinning.

[Geeli Ou]

Namek was very green. That was the first thing he noticed as they trekked across the seemingly endless landscape. Emerald plains stretched for as far as the eye could see. In some places the grass was long and danced with the wind, in other places it did not grow very high and retained its stiff, stagnant posture. Trees of varying sizes dotted the landscape, more so in the areas where the planet kept her grass trim. Some trees were larger than any Sid had ever seen on earth, stretching out like massive umbrellas over their heads and protecting them from the wrath of dual suns (Sid had learned about Namek’s two Suns in science class. He thought it was very neat).

In the distance a smoky column rose from the horizon. Their de facto leader, the Older Man who had rescued the youngster from Brett’s hostility, had said that he could smell wood burning from that direction. Sid could smell no such scent, but he trusted the Older Man. When another member of their group questioned their direction by noting that the presence of smoke could signify a village or establishment that was controlled by either the natives or the invaders the Older Man shrugged off the skepticism by simply stating that ‘aliens don’t burn wood.’ Sid knew that that probably was not true, but he understood why the Older Man had said what he had said. Whether the source of the smoke was alien or not, they really had no other choice; they had no other destination. They were stranded in God-only-knows-where.

He had been charged with carrying a large duffel bag, much larger than the backpack he used for school, filled to the brim with boxes of assorted ammunition. It was heavy, and he was tired, but he did not complain. This was what he had asked for, to see to it that justice was served. While he was frustrated at their predicament he knew that this was what he could do right now to help those around him, and that was enough. That and the bag was so heavy that he couldn’t think, he was just too tired. All he could do was walk. It reminded him of his blitz ball games back on Earth. In the junior leagues they weren’t allowed to use the hovering technology they used in the pros, and so they just had sprinted and sprinted until they couldn’t sprint anymore, and then they were substituted out. Sid had a bad habit of staying in the game long past exhaustion, when he could no longer think, only do. His current situation was sort of like that. He only hoped that he was better at soldiering then he was at blitz ball.

“Watch yourself kid!” Sid crashed into the crouched man in front of him. He regained his balance before he fell, however, and quickly kneeled next to the man, pretending that the near-accident had never happened.

“Why’d everyone stop?” The youngster whispered back at the man whom he had almost ran into.

“Something’s going on ahead.”

“Yeah, and this far out from the Spaceport it’s probably not friendly,” another soldier chimed in, inserting his two cents in the conversation. The first man nodded in agreement. Sid would have preferred that he disagreed.

No one moved. Everyone was silent. Sid sat still between the two soldiers he had just conversed with. His hands were shaking, but he tried to hide it, and he clenched his eyes closed to turn back the welling tears. How do you describe fear? More importantly, Sid continued his thought, how do you stop it? He was just a kid, what was he doing out here, fighting an adult’s war? He was scared shitless. It had never occurred to him that something would actually go wrong.

The Older Man, who had been at the group’s front, ducked back and slowed up towards their center. The other men moved inwards towards him, but his raised hand halted them. Instead, he whispered to a few, and they spread the word back to the rest. They had been spread out, rather than one, larger conglomerate, as to avoid detection, or so he had been informed.

“There’s something ahead of us, definitely alien.” He paused and waited for the momentary chatter to die down. Sid’s heart dropped into his stomach. “There’s only a few of them, looks like a scouting party. I don’t think they can see us, so we’ll need to move quickly to neutralize them. Catch them with their pants down.”

The other men nodded, and then fanned out, as if they already knew what they would have to do. Resting his eyes on the youngster, the Older Man then shuffled his way over towards Sid.

“You stay in the back, alright? This will be over before you can even blink.” The Older Man rested his hand on Sid’s shoulder and winked before cracking a friendly smile. Sid suddenly wasn't so scared anymore.

[Geeli Ou]

The sensation of relief and reprieve that had crashed over him after he spoke with the Older Man was quickly eroded by the cruel reality of battle. He seriously doubted the obstacle that stood before them was a mere scouting party. The evidence for this belief lay next to him in the form of a bruised and broken former militiaman. Dozens just like him lie scattered across the battlefield. Some were dead, others, like this one, were lucky to only be seriously wounded. A bone in his arm had been fractured so severely that it had pierced his flesh. The worst part was the blood. Sid watched it pour from the wound like a river that had broken its banks and surged forward in its newfound freedom.

Sid had tossed the man his canteen. He couldn’t think of anything else to do. They didn’t have any bandages, or any medicine, or anything.

The ground exploded before him, interrupting his thoughts and sending him crashing onto his back. A wave of sand rose up from the point of impact and washed over his fallen figure. Reacting quickly, Sid rolled onto his stomach and then crawled on all fours to the nearest mound of discarded duffel bags, taking refuge behind the tough fabric.

Everything was moving so quickly. Orbs of energy rocketed towards them from across the battlefield, and the human’s meager rifles fired back explosive packets of a similar energy. Sid rolled onto his side and peered around the mound of bags. His canteen lie on the ground, dropped from the crisped hand of the burnt and disfigured man he had given it to just moments before. His body lay lifeless.

“Oh my god . . .” Sid whimpered. His lip curled and his brow furrowed as his face clenched. He couldn’t take his eyes from the battlefield, however. He watched as the small party of aliens pitched baseballs of power into the men who had been traveling with him. Sid couldn’t even remember how the battle had started. Everything was moving so quickly, too quickly. He pulled his knees up to his chest wrapped his arms around them, holding onto himself tightly as he rocked back and forth, tears flowing from his eyes. His parents would be worrying about him by now, and his friends would be equally confused. He would probably never see them again.

The sound unclasping metal caused him to open his eyes. The explosions and shouting and violence that surrounded him became drowned out by the sound of the separating metal. Sid looked around and was surprised, almost shocked, when he realized that the source of the sound was his own backpack. He uncurled his body and reached towards it, but stopped when he noticed that the bag was unzipping itself.

“What the hell?” he whispered. After wiping the tears from his cheeks, Sid grabbed the now open bag and peered into it. Sure enough, the mask was staring back at him.

He dropped the bag and closed his eyes. He shook his head a few times, and then glanced down at his knapsack. The massive, colored eyes stood back at him. For an inanimate object they were quite piercing. Then again, he thought, this mask was no ordinary piece of carved wood.

“I can’t do it,” he whispered and looked away, but quickly found himself being drawn back towards the mysterious artifact. It whispered back to him, it called out to him. Whenever he needed it, whenever he had doubts, it seemed to come to life. It was as if his weakness gave the mask strength.

“No, I won’t. Not again.” Memories flashed back in short segments. He was standing over a bleeding man. The sound that a car makes when you open the door while the vehicle is running was coming from his right. He could see the plastic door in the very corner of his vision. The body was lying as if it had been pulled from the car. In the distance, he could hear the sound of his dog whimpering. She was dead. She had been dead for a week prior to this memory. Why was this happening now?

The scene in his head remained still, it was frozen in time. As he inspected the brief segment of the recent but forgotten memory he noticed his own shadow just above the man lying on the ground. His head was very wide, and oval, almost like the title character from ‘Hey Arnold!’ (one of his favorite cartoons as a child).

“Hey, kid!” A voice rang in the distance. He turned and peered around the mound of bags, tearing himself loose from the grasp of his own memory. The Older Man had been shouted to him, he was crouched with a group of men behind a nearby duffel bag. “Toss us one of those bags, we need more ammo!”

Sid grabbed one of the duffel bags and heaved it across the gap towards the men. Almost as soon as it left his hands it exploded in the air. The detonation ignited the ammunition, which acted as a secondary eruption and sent his body careening backwards.

“Run kid, run! They know where you are!” the Older Man’s voice echoed, though he could hardly hear him. His ears were ringing. His head hurt. His body ached. He rolled over and groaned in pain, and then pushed himself up on his feet and went to sprint in the opposite direction. As he was preparing, though, he stopped himself and turned around once more. The Mask peered out at him from within his back pack. Sighing heavily, he reached over and pulled the ancient device from his school bag.

“Here goes nothing,” Sid whispered. As he pressed the mask against his face, he could feel the familiar demons surging through his body. The sensation of raw, uncontrollable power consumed him. Wind ripped around him. His skin thickened and his clothes became loose. His vision changed, it became vibrant and open. The final surge came and then the Knock, and he could feel his body being tossed around on the ground. And then it stopped, relaxing in its own way.

He stood up and looked like what he had come to call an ‘ancient forest demon’ and faced in the direction of the alien invaders. He felt quirky, as if his body was filling with something foreign and he only had partial control of himself. An orb of energy was fired in his direction; it sparkled and cracked as it came in his direction.

Sid shot forward his hand and reached out towards the incoming ball. The world around him began to slow as he extended his fingers towards the orb, which was now barely moving. Within an instant, the world had come to a crashing halt.

“That’s pretty cool,” Sid whispered as he hopped over the mound of bags and inspected the baseball-sized sphere. He wrapped his fingers around it and moved it around, and then pitched it back to its origins, towards the invaders. As the ball was released from his hand, time slowly began to reinsert itself, and then fully reengaged the world in real time as the ball began to head back towards the aliens.

Sid looked on as the orb crashed into the ground near the fleeing invaders and detonated, hurling their bodies across the earth as they had done to his fellow militia men. Now seemed like as good a time as ever to test out his new toy.

[Chubbs Story Account]

The enemies are numerous (you may specify the exact number), with one Commander, whose CA is roughly twice that of Sid's. A frontal, lone assault would be suicide.

[Geeli Ou]

They recovered quickly. The Invaders that had been displaced by the redirected orb of energy had reassembled their ranks. Now that they were all positioned together, Sid noted that there were five in total. There was one in the front, who was the tallest and the most broadly built, and four who flanked him. There were two staggered on his left and two staggered on his right. The Commander wore different garbs than his subordinates; they wore yellow robe-type outfits and he wore what appeared to be a type of armor. Suddenly taking action did not seem like such a great idea. The only experience he had in combat situations came from playing video games and, one could argue, participating in dodge ball and blitz ball at his school. And those did not exactly prepare him from a battle with a bunch of strange looking, full-grown aliens who meant to kill him.

Sid then realized what was most problematic about his predicament. It wasn’t that he was overmatched, which he was, or that he was terrified, which was also true, but that he had no idea how to fight.

“Kind of have to give it a shot, I guess,” Sid whispered, his chipper manner hampered by the reality of his situation. In fact, he hadn’t really been himself since he abruptly decided to board a militia interplanetary vessel bound for an intergalactic war. In retrospect, that didn’t exactly sound normal for a twelve year old.

A lightning crack interrupted his thoughts. His eyes flashed forwards. Another orb of energy, band of electricity jumped and sparked outwards from the central sphere. The alien to the right of the commander was crouched and his arm was extended. He stood out in comparison to his relaxed-looking comrades. It was he who must have fired the blast.

On instinct Sid swatted at the glowering orb as if he were backhanding a tennis ball. His hand sheathed itself in energy and deflected the sphere to his right, sending it crashing harmlessly into a distant section of earth.

Not knowing what to do or how to operate in such a situation, the youngster relied on his instincts and emotions and, simply put, did what felt right. Preparing for another orb he dug his toes into the ground and crouched, mimicking the attacking Invader across from him. He brought his arms up by his sides and clenched his fists. A small cocoon of white energy wrapped itself around his body, slowly at first, and then accelerated as he focused his attention on the shimmering hues that wrapped against his form. It crackled against his skin, and the familiar sparks of electricity danced outwards from his own energy and into the air, just as the Invader’s energy orb had.

Distracted, even amazed, with the white layer of power that had wrapped itself around his body, Sid didn’t even notice the commanding Invader fire off an energy salvo of his own. The orb, this one black and menacing, crashed into Sid’s aura and sparked against it, separating his ‘cocoon’ and detonating against his chest.

Fire flared outwards from the initial point of contact and licked at the edge of his mask, causing his head to unwillingly jerk away from the flame tongues. The outfit that his normal clothing transformed into when he adorned the mask, the ones which he imagined to be those of some sort of ancient forest fairy, crinkled and shrunk as the explosion ripped against the fabric, and against his flesh. As the orb reached his chest, and consequently ripped against it and burnt away the flesh, his body was hurled backwards. After traveling a dozen or so feet in a high arch, his form crashed down against the unforgiving Namekian plains and skidded across the earth, tearing up the grass and leaving a nice and long trail.

“Ugh,” Sid groaned. “This is not going well.”

[Geeli Ou]

Sid rolled onto his side. His fingers slid towards his darkened wound, sliding through the thick blood that coated his torso. The flesh was missing in many places, ripped into pieces and disintegrated by the explosion’s might. In other areas his wound had cauterized and his skin crisped and flaked upon being touched. It was blackened and hard, yet fragile, like the burnt skin on barbecued chicken. He doubted that his own burnt flesh would have been so tasty. He groaned, and then pulled himself onto his knees.

The Invader hissed above him. Sid had not anticipated that he would have moved so quickly. His fears were reassured as his eyes came to rest on the armored midsection of the Commander. The beast looked at him curiously, tilting his head to the side as if he were inspecting his wounded prey before he delivered the finishing blow.

Sid tried to avoid his foe’s constant glare, but he could not take his eyes away from the looming alien. He was shaking now; even the power of the mask could not hide his inner fears.

And then, all of a sudden, there was a miracle. The sound of gunfire tore through the silence of the Commander’s inquisition and rained down upon his back.

Sid jumped backwards, stumbling as he grabbed his wound, and watched as the Older Man stood tall, firing energy packets into the armored chest of the alien officer. Relief and love for their leader’s heroism washed over him. But it was not pure, he realized quickly. His gratefulness was corrupted by shame and wanting. Where was his own courage when he needed it most?

“Damn,” Sid whispered. His mother would have been disappointed with his language. He dropped his head for a moment. Shame. Embarrassment. Nervousness. Fear. They all washed over him.

Time slowed, but it did not stop, and Sid raised his eyes once again and noticed the Commander turning around, slowly and unwounded, to face the Older Man. Twice now this elderly officer had saved his life, and now Sid stood and looked on as his imminent death descended upon him. First, the Older Man would be killed, and then the Commander would slaughter the rest of them before turning back to the masked child, his original target. The Commander’s lackeys were so confident in their leader that they stood relaxed on the edge of the battlefield, watching with excitement as he descended into their ranks.

His fingers were crackling now; he could hear the familiar sound attacking the air. He looked down and, with surprise, noticed the white energy from before swirling around his finger tips, sparking and dancing around his hands as they had from his aura and from the energy orbs. Instinctively he hurled his hands forward and held them there. He could feel the power rushing through his body, originating at his soul and surging forward towards his hands. White energy began to gather in his palms, which contained the material and molded it into a large orb. With one final push Sid sent the sphere careening towards his opponent, a small tail trailing behind the larger, basketball-sized attack as it sped towards the back of the armored Commander.

The Invader cried out as the blast detonated on his back and sent him stumbling forward, but did not knock him down. Part of his armor had been destroyed. Reacting, but not thinking, Sid warped towards his opponent, his body vanishing and then materializing as it usually did when he teleported. As he reappeared, he pulled back his comically thickened hand, a result of the transformation, and curled it into a menacing fist, which he plowed into the exposed section of the commander’s back.

And then time stopped. Sid took a moment to breathe. He was exhausted and shaking violently. He needed to learn how to control his powers, running on instinct and reaction would get him killed sooner or later. He knew that. They needed to get out of here, he wouldn’t be able to surprise-attack the Commander for the rest of the battle, and eventually his subordinates would enter the fight proper.

Sid warped over to the mound of duffel bags where his fellow comrades had positioned themselves and, one by one, he moved their bodies so that they were all near one another. Not knowing exactly what he was doing, the masked remnant of an ancient power walked into their midst, making sure that part of his body was in contact with each other them. He then teleported, bringing himself, the Older Man, Brett and the rest of the militia away from the battle field. He warped and warped again until he was sure that they were far from the Commander and his soldiers. All the while he kept to their prior course, heading towards the column of smoke over the horizon.

Once they were safe, he released his fellow soldiers and collapsed in exhaustion. As he fell, he reinstated the power of time.

“Holy shit, what the hell just happened, how did we get here?!” one man shouted. Sid’s vision was closing, and closing fast. He reached up and pulled the mask from his face, transforming himself back into the innocent twelve year old that they all knew him as. He dropped the artifact at his side and began to embrace his exhaustion. He let his eyes close.

“I think the kid saved us . . .” He heard the Older Man whisper to the others as he left the realm of the consciousness and entered that of dreams and memories.

[Chubbs Story Account]

The world keeps spinning.

*DEBUFF* Second-Degree [Indefinite] - Sid is wounded. It will not heal of its own accord until the end of the Saga. If given medical treatment, it will heal more rapidly. Until it is healed, Sid suffers a 30% CA penalty, with increased danger in all future encounters.