Cross Species Definitions (Short Story)

((Alright, here it is. Well, the first part of it, at least. I couldn't think of a good title, so the one up there is a WIP one.))

In Paragon City, oddities were an every day fact of living. With metahumans of all shapes, sizes, and colors calling the City of Heroes home it was often generally thought of by the more ordinary populace that nothing could surprise them any more. This was especially true in the run-down neighborhood of King’s Row, where most of its inhabitants lived in a state of resigned acceptance of their horrible lot in life. Being Paragon City of course, the exceptions are almost more often than the rule; a fact that helped keep the people of the Row going even though it seemed to be impossible to substantially improve their lot.

But their story is another time and place. This one happens to deal with a sight that even the most jaded of resigned elders hadn’t seen before. Namely a lone Rikti, heavily armored but unarmed, slowly walking down a side street as it was seemingly lost in thought. But even more shocking was the fact that no heroes were attacking it, though a fairly large group of Longbow looked to be tailing it. Silently hoping that nothing bad would come of this, most of the Row just tried to ignore the lone Rikti and went about its business as usual.

But then again, exceptions to the rule are very popular in this city.

*****

Warmaster Cher’tak of the Rikti Traditionalist faction glanced up at the overcast sky and mentally sighed, the clouds looming heavy and grey as though in mirror of his own mood. The occasional hostile thoughts that leaked in through his mental barriers from the unseen people in the tenements rising up on either side of him didn’t help matters much but Cher’tak considered the discomfort as a form of penance. Considering what he and his people had done to them, Cher’tak felt he certainly deserved to be hated.

Physically shaking those thoughts off, the Warmaster briefly lamented his slipping mental discipline. Ever since several weeks ago Cher’tak’s mood and emotions had been in a downward spiral, even worse than he had felt after discovering the truth behind the original invasion and the betrayal of Lord of War Hro’Dtohz. The fact that he couldn’t remember what had caused this only caused the gaping sense of melancholy he felt to become tinged with the self-loathing he had begun to feel for his part in the invasion and the deaths of thousands of innocents. Normally he could tuck those feelings away, rationalizing to himself that he had simply done his duty as he had known it, but now he couldn’t and neither he nor his fellow Rikti could figure out what to do about it. With his skill in battle slipping away as surely as his self-confidance, Cher’tak had decided to do what one of his few friends had suggested some time ago.

He had gone out to take a walk.

After getting the necessary clearances from Vanguard and obtaining permission from Longbow and the Freedom Phalanx, Cher’tak turned in his bladerifle and was escorted to King’s Row. Even now, half way through his allotted time frame, the Rikti could feel the unwavering focus of the trio of Longbow Warden mentalists to his rear. Despite the fact that Cher’tak was in no means a mentalist and had displayed no thought of harmful intentions, the trio remained as vigilant now as they had upon first meeting him. Simply thinking about them raised a noticeable reaction as he could dimly sense their mental shields doubling in strength under his regard. Sighing again and tugging his thoughts closer to his chest Cher’tak walked on.

So far Cher’tak had wandered more or less aimlessly around the neighborhood, only changing course to avoid sounds and thoughts of battle, not wishing to get attacked by some hero caught up in the heat of the moment. But this time Cher’tak had something of a goal in mind, a small plaza just ahead of him with some form of statue in the middle fronting a large structure that teemed with more minds than the Rikti had seen in any one other building so far. He faintly remembered something about the average hours of a work day on Earth and reflexively checked the Traditionalist mental network at the edges of thought, confirming that the reason so few people were around elsewhere was because they were busy at their places of employment.

Cher’tak was very glad for that, but put the matter out of his immediate thoughts as his feet finally brought him up to the foot of the statue. Much smaller and less impressive than the almost ubiquitous hero statues scattered about the rest of Paragon, it seemed to be nothing more than a bespectacled, overweight human sitting on a bench while checking his wrist. Cher’tak wondered at that pose before belatedly recalling that most humans commonly wore time telling devices there. Of course, Cher’tak was still confused as to the meaning of such a pose, but the small plaque under the stone man’s feet demanded attention.

Crouching down to get a better look at it, Cher’tak mentally sighed once more as the human glyphs proved as impossible to decipher as always. Ruminating on the problem as he slowly stood back up, Cher’tak glanced behind himself at the group of Longbow that were just now crossing the street to join him in the small plaza, though they would remain a healthy distance away, just in case. Refusing to follow the mental trail of just what ‘just in case’ might entail, the Rikti turned toward his group of minders and walked over to them.

The mentalist trio, already being on high alert, didn’t react much to his movement, but the rest of the Longbow tensed up and more than a few went for their weapons, only the stern order of the commanding officer keeping their itchy trigger fingers at bay. As Cher’tak came to a halt a few meters away from the squad, the officer stepped forward and asked the Rikti what he wanted.

“Request, desire: Translator: Human glyphs,” answered Cher’tak as he looked down at the officer who’s face contorted in thought before he nodded and pointed at one of the troopers.

“Williams, front and center,” ordered the officer and half a second later a petite blonde woman crept out of the confines of the squad and saluted the officer, giving Cher’tak a nervous look.

“Answer his questions to the best of your ability, Williams,” added the officer as he motioned for her to follow Cher’tak. “If you fear for your safety, you know what to do.”

“Y-yes sir,” stammered Williams, her youth apparent in her voice and nervousness. Cher’tak silently wondered what the officer was playing at, giving him the aid of a woman who could barely bring herself to look at him, but figured that it was some arcane form of ‘hazing’ which Cher’tak had heard about.

Waving for the human to follow, Cher’tak changed course back to the statue, his footfalls ringing heavily in the still air. Hesitating for only a moment, Williams hurried after him, her lighter steps moving at twice the pace just to keep up with his longer strides.


((*cough* And that's the first bit. Tell me what you think, people, I could really use some criticism here. Been a damn long time since I tried writing something like this.))

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Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.

Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.

NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.

I like it!

That's a great start!

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My COX Fanfiction:


Blue's Assembled Story Links

Aye, good read. Nicely thought out there.

However, though this might just be me here, it feels like it's rushing me along through his emotions, not really touching each with enough emphasis to fully convey the sensation. Your word choice is also a bit passive and repetitive, which may have something to do with that; not entirely sure. Other than that, the only thing is the paint. You're giving me an outline, but if I didn't already know what certain things and people looked like, I'd have no idea how to fill in what's appearing in this story.

Now, I don't mean like full, detailed descriptions, but more subtle things like, "The woman's deep-blue eyes gave a brief, nervous twitch the moment the Warmaster's monochromatic helmet turned its unblinking gaze at her fair-skinned face". Small details, scattered here and there - like strokes of a paint brush - I find make the best mental imagery, as it feeds the reader what you saw when writing the work bit by bit, as he or she follows your words.

Still, all in all very intriguing. Looking forward to more.

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"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi

Characters

Try to use more pronouns. You don't need to remind us every other sentence that Cher'Tak is the one going through this. If there were more people involved, then it would be understandable.

If you don't feel like using "he" every other sentence, try using descriptions instead, like "the <color> armored alien" or "the <height adjective/physical marker (such as a scar or tattoo)> Rikti." These vastly improve the reading experience, since it helps get a mental image of the character.

Otherwise, it's looking great. I'm definitely feeling a sense of tension as the events unfold.

Keep it coming!

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My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

A 'human' Rikti... I see much potential here. Do keep going with this!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

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((Alright, advice taken. Used more pronouns, tried to describe everyone a bit more completely. I myself have been having trouble pinning down exactly what Cher'tak is feeling, but I think we'll get to that in a bit. Here's the next part.))

“So uh…” Williams began to ask, hesitating when Cher’tak swung his head in her direction, not changing stride in the slightest. “What exactly did you need my help for?”

“Require: Translation: Human glyphs,” he answered, giving the human woman another once over, noting how the long rifle slung on her back seemed almost as tall as she was. A perfect example of a Rikti soldier he was about eight feet in height and Williams barely came up to his chest. It was hard to imagine something so small being able to fight effectively, but he had seen it before.

Just the thought of all the heroes and soldiers he had killed saddened him again and he fell silent, not noticing the odd look the blonde trooper shot him as they finally came to a halt in front of the statue. He glanced down at her once they stopped to catch her reaction, both in a test of his abilities to read human faces and simply because he wanted to know how this young woman would respond. It seemed to work as Williams ignored him for a moment, simply staring at the statue with what appeared to be a far away look in her eyes. Her expression contorted briefly into a picture of sadness, an almost text-book example that Cher’tak had been taught by, before she mastered herself and regained a look of cool professionalism, no hint of the nervousness from before in her face or voice as she spoke to him.

“You want me to read the plaque to you?” she asked, green eyes looking all the way up at his for the first time. Wondering at this change in her, the Rikti simply nodded.

“Correct,” droned his translator, a sound as expressionless as his helmeted face and something that he had always hated. How could one prove oneself to not be a ‘faceless alien invader’ when one could not even display base emotion?

The woman nodded and turned to look down at the plaque, her ponytail twitching a bit at the motion and the sudden breeze that kicked up. Struck by the irrational desire to feel the wind on his skin and perhaps to dispel the faceless horror that he felt he must seem to her, Cher’tak traced a finger under his chin, down the front and back of his neck, and up the bottom of his crest, a seam appearing under his touch. Grasping either side of the helmet in his hands, he peeled the device off, a faint wet sucking sound accompanying the motion as the bio-lining complained about being removed. Pulling it completely off and running one dark red gauntlet over his slightly wet head, Cher’tak sighed again, but this time a bit happier as he smelled the fresh air, the pollutants easily ignorable.

It was then that he noticed Williams had been staring at him the whole time and that he had missed he recitation of the plaque, so quickly had it gone. Attaching his brighter red helmet to the small slot on his waist, Cher’tak cleared his throat in a small burst of static and unconsciously dragged a hand over the long scar on his crest before composing himself.

“Apologies extended,” he said. “Brief preoccupation: Concluded. Repeat translation: Please.”

Williams flicked a brief glance over Cher’tak’s exposed face, eyes drawn to the scar thanks to his hand motion and wondered what could have caused it before mentally kicking herself for thinking of this alien as a person, nodding in response to him before gesturing back at the plaque.

“It’s not much. Just reads ‘Cyrus Oliver Thompson. Heroes may die, but heroism never shall.’”

Duty discharged, Williams shuffled her feet intending to slip away back to the safety and comfort of her squad but stopped as the red armored Rikti held out a hand to her.

“Assistance: Still required,” he said, nodding toward the statue. “Lack information: Cyrus Oliver Thompson. No: Significance: Self. Ally Williams: Request: Supply information, significance.”

The trooper sighed unhappily, if very quietly, and moved to stand next to the Rikti again. She crossed her arms and furrowed her brow as she tried to remember what she could about Cyrus Thompson.

“First of all, call me Bethany or Beth, not ‘Ally Williams’,” she said impulsively, refusing to look up at the Rikti as she talked. “And second… I don’t know that much. It only happened a few years ago, but I was only sixteen at the time and was busier with boys then reading about some hero sob story on the news.”

Inwardly she winced at how harsh she sounded, but figured the alien wouldn’t understand it. Well, hopefully not, at least. Half-expecting some sort of irate reply that would send her scurrying back to the squad with her tail between her legs, Beth was a little surprised when the Rikti laughed. Or tried to.

“Very well: Human Beth,” Cher’tak said after his translator quit making the annoying spasming noises it considered a translation of laughter. “Self name: Cher’tak: Designation: Not needed, necessary: Current time: Simply: Ignorant alien: Holder of knowledge.”

Beth blinked up at Cher’tak who glanced down at her, confused green eyes meeting mirthful black ones before she looked away and huffed out a breath in exasperation. It was really hard to hate someone when they acted like such a person.


((It's kind of amusing when what is really a single narrative has such good 'chapter' breaks in it. Anyway, I'm a little unsure about what I did here, what with freely switching between Cher'tak and Beth's PoVs. This isn't something I originally intended to do, but I think I'm going to use this story both as a character building thing for Cher'tak and as kind of an introduction to Beth.

I don't have a Longbow character yet and I seem to have taken a liking to this girl, is all. ))

EDIT: On a complete and total side note, I'd like to thank the Halo 2 music for rocking and serving as the perfect inspiration music for this.

That's all. Blame my ADD meds for making me so talkative.

---

Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.

Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.

NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.

I love the last line...

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

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It worked fine, Khell. I didn't have any trouble following what was going on and you seemed to hit all the right notes on proper noun and pronoun usage. Well done.

Cheers, mate.

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Good story and I like the interaction between them at the end. Are you going to be doing some more?

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Good story and I like the interaction between them at the end. Are you going to be doing some more?

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Oh right, I completely forgot about this story...

<_<

>_>

<_<

I'll see about getting the next bit up after I'm done with all my various Halloween things. So late tonight or sometime tomorrow.

---

Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.

Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.

NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.

"Cyrus Thompson was a hero. Called Breakspeed or something. Breakneck, maybe?" Beth contemplated that line of thought for a few more moments, then discarded it to continue her explanation. "He sacrificed himself to stop a ritual the Circle of Thorns was doing. He gave the Freedom Phalanx enough time to put a stop to things."

The agent glanced back up at the towering Rikti, who had shifted his gaze back to the unassuming statue. Standing like he was, facing her but looking to the side so that his face was in profile, he looked exactly as alien as a Rikti should. His armor in its spikiness and colored in various shades of crimson, oddly proportioned limbs and head more reminiscent of a dinosaur than anything warm-blooded, eyes completely black and filled with alien emotion... Beth shivered. A person? What had she been thinking?

"Heroes: Sacrifice," the emotionless translator blurted out after several long moments of silence. "Soldiers: Fight. Doctors: Heal. Engineers: Create. Heroes: Sacrifice. Further explanation: Cyrus Oliver Thompson tribute: Required."

"His tribute? What? This is a /statue/," the girl sounded puzzled and vaguely insulted as she furrowed her brow up at Cher'tak.

Another rasp of static filtered from the translator at his throat as Cher'tak mentally grunted, his brows dipping in a mirror of Beth's annoyance.

"Translation: Imperfect," he tried to explain, his spike of irritation causing an uneasy shifting amongst the Wardens watching the pair. "Reiteration: Cyrus Oliver Thompson sacrifice: Statue. Other: Sacrifices: Lack statues. Why?"

"Because if we put up a statue for every hero that had to die in order to save the day, this whole city would be a graveyard!" Beth snapped back, briefly forgetting the detachment her drill instructors had tried to drill into her along with the fact that the alien she was addressing could probably snap her in half with or without his weaponry.

When Cher'tak raised both gauntlets in a gesture of surrender, her surprise was clear enough that he could both see and feel the emotion crossing her face and mind. The novel experience dredged away a bit of the miasma clouding his own emotions, but soon enough his melancholy was back in force.

"My doing: Many: Hypothetical statues," his translator grated out, spiked shoulders slumping in time with the words. "Duty: Insufficient shield. Apoligies: Birth body Beth. Permission: Departure: Granted."

The alien shifted in place, more squarely facing the statue as he pulled his helmet from the clamp on his belt in preperation to don it again. Beth frowned and turned to face the statue along with him, clearly regretting even broaching the subject of the war. The Rikti were supposed to be faceless, fearless, and /emotionless/, damn it.

"Look... Forget about it," she began tenatively. "Just give me a moment to try and remember what details I can."

She barely noticed the Rikti's nod, being too occupied trying to cast her mind back to half-remembered television broadcasts and the news report her dad insisted he read to her during breakfast. Cher'tak watched her in something akin to amusement, her mind so transparent that he could practically see the gears turning even if he lacked the skill and strength to visualize exactly what was going through them. Despite living on this Earth for almost a decade Cher'tak had had so few interactions with humanity outside of fighting against or with them that this chance to watch one in mental motion was practically unique.

"Okay, alright, ahhh..." Beth hemmed and hawwed for a moment, a little creeped out by the way Cher'tak was staring at her. It was a lot like how the guys would stare at her as she came out of the locker room but with none of the sexuality. It was simply... intent. Alien. Like he hadn't actually seen her before. Out of reflex she waited a moment for him to snap his gaze up to her eyes, only to realize that they were already there and had been the whole time. She really needed to remember he wasn't human.

"Query: Hesitation."

The atonal voice snapped the trooper out of her loop and she quickly refocused on the task at hand.

"Nothing, nothing," she said quickly, then slowed down a little. "Cyrus was a retired hero, not an active one. He was old and had disease or defect, something that would kill him if he ever used his powers again. The Circle snatched him, a couple of models, and a kid because they all fit some special requirement the cultists required."

As Cher'tak turned to face her she unconsciously squared her stance, hands from from her chest to clasp loosely behind her back as if she were giving a report. Something about his focus reminded her of her old drill sergeant.

"The Phalanx tried to stop everything but they kept getting stonewalled for one reason or another, allowing the Circle to gather all the sacrifices and start their ritual. They were summoning this giant demon, something that would have caused a lot of damage before anyone could stop it. Cyrus... still had something to give, so he gave it in order to interupt the lead mage. He died shortly after."

Bethany closed with a curt nod, returning her gaze to Cher'tak's face instead of a point several inches above and off to the left of his shoulder. She waited in silent expectation, curious to see how this human-like alien would respond. He disappointed her by simply turning back to face the statue, heavy boots clomping on the concrete.

"Clarification: Former status: Cyrus Oliver Thompson: Civilian. Abandoned: Lineage: Hero?"

"He was a civilian, yeah. He might have had a job, but I think he was just collecting social security and... living out the rest of his life."

"Duty: Absent. Honor: Retained."

Beth hesitated a few moments, then nodded. "I guess so. Once a hero, always a hero."


((Four years late, but something is better than nothing, eh? I'm not quite satisfied with how this bit came out but that's probably because there's no way I can recapture my old tone. More will come, I've got a deadline now. Hopefully you all enjoy.))

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Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.

Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.

NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.

I do, yes. Very much so, in fact. Glad you decided to continue this after all.

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"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi

Characters