[W] Something/Someone Forgotten

[Inigo]

[ooc] there will be no further posts on this story xD
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Scattered light clouds lit by the half moon in the sky drift lazily across the world, not a hint of a breeze or wind this night, vast sandy plains nearly as far as the eye can see, smirking lightly in the dark a robed assassin continues his journey towards the Pencillian Capital, treading through the endless sands tirelessly to no avail, staring out towards the horizon hoping to see their great blue monolith that reaches to the heavens.

Every few footsteps quickly broken by a ground shaking muffled thump, a lonesome journey made less so by a sentient war-machine from the past, painted upon steel beasts left leg is a barely visible zero-nine, scratched and rubbed off from the countless centuries wandering through this vast emptiness until it happened upon an unsuspecting human whom was fit for immediate termination.

Charging up a single Large Pulse Laser, sand and grit spewing suddenly from the ventilation tubes around the weapon as airflow is returned to the weapons heat sinks, coolant veins freezing the air as it blows past and through the fins of the heat sinks. An old hard disk whirring to life and chirping out sounds of its age as it spins wildly, information flooding into the machine, replaying through the last mission the machine had received, reviewing star dates and current dates which are unknown due to a software malfunction resulting in loss of date and time for the machine.

Looking up at the beast with what appears to be a weapon of sorts staring straight down at him, shivering in his boots, the sun beating down on both of them, what else was there to do? Unsheathing a blackened steel sword from a scabbard hanging from his back he prepares for his inevitable demise, but why here? What is this thing and why is it trying to kill me?

Sensing a momentarily change in the surrounding electrical field as the weapons capacitor begins to discharge, sprinting into a leap to deftly dodge the weapons shot, only to meet near death as he lays upon the sand as to his surprise the weapon keeps firing in rapid succession. Smoldering pits of sand all around him and his clothes now tattered and burnt barely escaping that last one, charging the beast and whacking his sword upon the weapons legs to no avail, the sword has been dulled and there are only a few scratches to tell future generations that once a man stood up against this machine and made a few inch long scratches on the paint job.

Terminals and recognition software buzzing to life after centuries of dormancy, examining the soldier’s armaments and current battle tactics failing to make a comprehensive match, deciding this thing is both inferior and not a threat the weapon powers down.

Well that’s the story of how we met, it was pretty traumatic. He mentioned his name was something like “Itsaryoken!”, the word he always heard screamed and cried out when he engaged the enemy, I’ve never heard that name before but it sounds eerily like a brief shout of surprise, like “It’s a Ryoken!” either way I don’t know what a Ryoken is, but he also has this bear or jaguar looking thing painted near his cockpit in a grayish tint, can’t quite make it out, maybe it’s a smoky ghost or something. I wonder if that famous Artist in Pencillia knows of this beast, then again maybe not, I heard she is most commonly identified via rainbow colored socks, but that seems like a pretty weird way to identify someone. There are faint letters above the zero-nine on the left leg, but most of it has been rubbed off ---rm-row, maybe this was a pilots name or something. Oh well.

Clouds were still rolling lazily over this deadly cold night, deserts are like that, deadly hot in the day and deadly cold at night. “What’s the date today?” asks the friendly assassin as they walk through the deep sands that stretch on forever, “It is currently three twenty-two AM on the First of Augustus Stardate Zero-Eight-Two-Zero-Zero-Eight” responds the machine in a seemingly monotone voice. Staring up into the sky at the brightest visible star glowing with a faint reddish tint, “I think I was supposed to do something, or say something to someone a couple days ago…”
“There are currently no registered entries for any activities taking place in the last week” responds the machine quickly.

Nodding in agreement, because there wasn’t anything, he forgot to put a date in for this event, staring back up at the star, “Maybe next I’ll remember” It’s always a sad thing to forget something that you wanted to, like that time when I forgot to disable all the security droids on that one job, that sure put me in one helluva pinch. I sure hope I don’t get put in a similar pinch for forgetting whatever it was I forgot.

There are some things that should never be forgotten, and forgetting them has dire consequences, have you ever been swarmed by hundreds of security droids in a tight corridor!? Each armed with Taser’s and various other sharp and pokey things!

[Inigo]

Standing High and mighty above the vast empty plains of this desert and it's rolling dunes, standing on the highest of them all and peer out across the great emptiness, "Well Mr. Stormcrow It's almost been a year now since that last time, but this time we wont miss it! Whatever it is!"

"There are no events or missions registered that will be taking place this week?"
"What are you serious?"
"Uhm, well lets put one in for a few days from now, just because we're not entirely sure when whatever it is, but it's soon! I know it!"

Stormcrow makes whirring sounds as he moves about and focuses on Inigo the seemingly undead assassin, "And what are we going to do when the time comes?"
"We could sing a song? maybe blow out some candles? Dude I don't know, I just know this time we're not going to forget! We'll remember that something is happening sometime somewhere within the next few days and it's probably HUGE!"

Inigo strikes a pose, "Maybe it's a grand memorial for a long forgotten battle! Or the day a peace treaty was signed! Maybe it's something huge like a giant celebration!"

"A celebration of what?"

"Mmmm, redheads! YES! LETS CELEBRATE REDHEADS! HOOOYAAAAA!"
"What's a redhead?"

Inigo looks around, that sure is a tough one, how is he going to explain this to Stormcrow? Clearly there has to be a way, "Ever seen a fire Stormcrow?"

"Yeah"
"Well it's sort of reddish-orange, redheads have hair, that is reddish or orange, or both! Sometimes varying shades of reds and oranges and so on, by the way, hair is that thing I have on my head"
"Why is it red? Do they have fires there?"

"Of course! And they have a fire in another place too, but we wont get into that."

It's been a long and tiresome journey for the both of them this past year, somehow the assassin has survived without food or water, that's pretty hard to come by in a desert, and you'd think that traveling in a single cardinal direction for an entire year would have lead you somewhere else but to more desert, but nope. Just desert, lots and lots of desert, if desert was a dessert, well lets not go there either, nothing good will come from that thought. Unless it's chocolate based.

If it wasn't for the Jinn consistently saving our butts from the dark Jinn, maybe we wouldn't here this year to celebrate redheads in all their fiery glory. All the world needs is Redheads and chocolate, but for some reason all this world has is sand. This world sure has bad taste in things, I'd like to have a conversation with it, but all it does is blow wind at me, and that's no good because it's always filled with sand and I cant see.

We've found a broken down spaceship, roman milestones, and various other curious object scattered across this vast desert, but the one object we seek now the Pencillian Capital seems hidden from us, how could a giant metropolis be so hard to find? Even at the top of the tallest sand dune, king of the hill! We still see nothing out in the vastness, nothing peaking up over the horizon, except sand. Lots and lots of sand, I'd make some sand castles, but well... Theres no water either.

Inigo falls down and starts crying, "Stormy! Why! WHY IS THERE NOTHING HERE!"

Why wont those wretched angles let those things kill me! It'll make it so much easier! Maybe there is water in heaven! Or in the worst case scenario, there has to be water in hell too!"

"Everytime you start leaking water from your eyes when you get like this, you waste a precious resource"
"But im not! Look!" Inigo points at his face, "There's nothing coming out! It feels like it but its all dry!"
"Please stop pointing at that thing on your head, it's unsightly"
"Oh that's low"

[Stormcrow]

Normally I wouldn't post on the [W] tag, but since you say there will be nothing else, that halfway hints that you don't mind.

I'll have to peruse this and comment later. But I have noted it.

[Edit]

Yep. I can't find anything in plain sight. Thanks for pointing out what should have been obvious to me.

[Inigo]

At least you can laugh at yourself for not getting all the references right awayxD

[Stormcrow]

Yeah. I'm totally busting up over here.

[Inigo]

Everyone is like, what're these two guys even talking about? What references? Am I not seeing something?

[Stormcrow]

Probably. But then, it's us, so it's not as though people would wonder all that much, you know?

[Inigo]

Three years since we've been hoofing it out here, three god awful, godless years. At least that's what it feels like sometimes, wandering around, feeling as if you're on the brink of starvation, death is a shadow that lingers behind you every step of the way, mocking you, inciting you to come hang out for a while. With no water I thirst, with no food I hunger, with no god I am empty of soul, it's like everything has been taken from me. I can't help but feel this way every now and then, I generally try to look at the bright side, and usually manage to succeed, but when you put it into perspective it is rather bloody annoying being out here. It's like one giant sandy vagina, but even they have moisture...

What a terrible thought...

"Stormcrow"
Stormcrow whom was at one point a 55 ton giant hulk of a war machine as since evolved further from simple sentience, he looks rather humanoid these days, standing at a mere 7 feet these days looking more and more human every day, minus the mounted weapons. Maybe he's gaining all the humanity I'm losing? "I can feel it too" replied Stormcrow, as Inigo perceived he was looking out over the empty plains of sand and more sand. It's like this every year at this time, suddenly there is something we want to do or say but we don't know what, all we can do is identify the feeling but even that's not enough. "Why is it always like this? What could we have forgotten?"

"We haven't forgotten, we may not be able to remember, but we haven't forgotten"

I guess he's got a point. "Say, that reminds me, how many days has it been since those things attacked us?"
"One hundred and thirty two days, don't jinx us, last time we both nearly died, the angels haven't been showing up like they used to"

Four bloody months? Used to be a weekly event back in the day, "Yeah I wonder why..."

For some reason I was reminded of an old song from when I was alive, or back when I was home anyways, Simon and Garfunkle's Sound of Silence, just as that thought had passed and what lyrics and melodies I could remember of it began racing through my head Stormcrow stretched out one of his mechanical arms and pointed to the darkening sky as something began to cover the sun with no apparent haste. Like a snake slowly devouring it's victim, all the time in the world the darkness has, slowly consuming the light.

There stood an armored guardian, watching the sun being devoured along side us, not a word was spoken between us until the sun had been consumed, all that remained was a flickering ring of light around the darkness.

Stormcrow was the last person on this 'earth' that I ever expected to cast aside the thought of the guardian next to us and continue on our way, "Let's go while we have the darkness on our side, the heat of the day is at bay for the moment"

"Stormcrow, my hair is standing up"

He glanced back towards me briefly, and before I could react his arm had already extended and some form of weapon nearly missed a head like appendage that rests on my shoulders, "you jinxed us" he muttered.

How superstitious of a machine! I spun around unsheathing my battered sword expecting a fight, but there was only one, and it turned to dust and floated away into the air. The guardian had not so much as moved to react but instead sat down, "A lot of good you are" I began before I stopped to think and potentially be tactful which was something I really haven't had to do in three years since it's just been Stormcrow and me, "Good day miss" I started and decided there wasnt anything to add to that.

Oh screw tact.

"What the fuck are you doing sitting there? Where the hell are the other two? And why do I get a feeling that eclipse wont be going away anytime soon?" I shouted, I was pretty angry, fuck this desert! And those three women whom appear and disappear at their whims, saving lives only to leave them to their own despair and self loathing! This whole situation is a bag of dicks! And that's terrible!

"Oh fuck it, lets go, if she wants to play little miss mute over here let her do it by herself"

Stormcrow didnt say anything for miles, neither did I even though the bloody iron clad wench was following us.

"You didnt feed it did you Stormy?"
"NO!"
"Are you telling the truth? It's okay I wont be mad at you"
"I didnt! I swear!"
"Are you sure? You can tell me"
"Buuuut I didn't!"
"Young man!-" I started before Stormy decided to get smart, "We dont have any food anyways"
"Oh yeah good point..."

It only took two days before she finally spoke, and when she did it still made no sense, "The healer has been missing" and then it clicked, Stormcrow pulled a stupid face, if that was even remotely physically possible, "Four months I asked?"
She nodded sullenly, I asked if that had anything to do with the eclipse, she nodded. BLOODY HELLFIRE!

So now what? One of the three is missing and the world is going to end or something? What kind of a retarded balance is that? If this was someones story, they're a terrible writer, plot holes everywhere, like why didnt the eclipse happen when they first got her? Why now? Why are these guys still in the desert after 3 years? Why is this guardian coming to them? We're not heroes, we're not even special, we don't have super power!My cloak is made out of curtains, it still has the rings in it for the curtain rod! What the fuck are we going to do? We're cannon fodder against the hordes of those things.

And I hate being fodder...

I looked at my wrist as if a watch was there, "Well! Look at the time, we've gotta get going eh Stormy? Dinner in an hour, we can't be late. You know how your wife gets when were late..."
"Wife? Oh yeah"

And so we continued on our way.

Shouting silly remarks about how she wasnt invited to dinner, why is she still following us, you wont get any food from us! Stormcrows wife hates unexpected guests. *PLINK*

What was that just now?

"Was that you?" I asked
"Wasn't me" replied Stormcrow, we looked back and she was laying in the sand face first.

I sure feel like being an asshole right now since they're the bloody reason we're still out here, but for some goddamn reason I cant bring myself to leave the dang woman there in the sand. "She's too heavy for me, you pick her up"
"It's your idea you pick her up, besides what if one my weapons accidentally goes off?"
"Do you have that problem often when you're around women?"
"...huh?"

So I ended up carrying her after losing all 10 matches of rock paper scissors. I'll beat you one of these days...

The next day finally arrived, the eclipse was still looming in the sky, the armored guardian was less armored since it was heavy as hell, I made Stormcrow carry her affects, "Stop it Stormcrow! You're not supposed to try those on!"

Everything was as usually except for the lady and well Stormcrow trying to increase his armor points as he put it, that day every year had finally arrived and there was nothing note worthy about it, but then