Enduring the Storm - A Journal Entry

[Nulion]

((This is my latest story...and although it can be depressing and saddening at times, these are troubled times for Nulion....It's told through him talking into a voice-recording journal, while sitting and admiring the view in Elysium, where he's been hiding for the past few days. I hope you enjoy reading what's on his mind!))

BEGIN_JOURNAL
19_JUN_29480

*click, the journal turning on*

It's...so peaceful here.

Faint echoes pass through the sky to my ears, from off in the distance. The sky, a sapphire torrent of energy and light, whorls above me...menacing, yet placid. I hadn't been to Elysium in awhile, that's for certain. It was the only place in the Shadowlands, maybe apart from Nascence, that I felt safe in...

The entire month of June for me, has been a living hell....And here I am, recanting it all for you, my journal...What I hope is that...if something happens...*long breath*....that someone will find it, and know the truth. Everything is in here....LIterally my life peeled open as a book. Maybe several months ago, the things I scribe here would have been best described as "hands off", but things have a funny way of changing.

I have nothing better to do with my time now, than to think about things as they have come to be. There's no work on Truth Tower....There will be no Council of Truth meetings....There will be no lounging about in Jobe, no food from the Bronto down in Newland, no shooting the breeze with friends of all factions....And very honestly, I'd never wanted it to go as far as it has.

When I'd met with Noraxu, what feels like years ago, I wouldn't have dreamed it would lead me to this. *heavy sigh* Well, let me explain, and get this off of my chest. Even a little.

Maybe the best place to start, is from where the last journal entry left off....That storm, that I knew was coming...

It's arrived.

The disc Cylie had been carrying, that same one Volcatius had asked me to get for him...well...I can imagine she didn't feel comfortable having such a thing nearby. Maybe to throw me off, she'd handed it to Toxor...But she didn't see how strangely he was acting. I don't think anybody could've predicted it...or explained why the man started just giving away his things. What could posess even somebody like Toxor to do such a thing? I guess for the time being, we'd just shrugged it off as nothing.

That changed though, a short time later when Toxor had asked to meet with me, over in the middle of ICC. Not only did he tell me he had the disc, flashing it in front of my face....but he told me that in order to get it, I would have to go through him. I'd thought that was pretty typical of him....being as headstrong as he was...But he really didn't want to give up that disc without a fight...And the worst part of all, was that he knew his insurance was damaged.....Of course, hearing that, I....I couldn't do a thing to him. How could *anyone* hurt him, knowing that?

About the only thing I could do, and the thing I did do, was just drop the subject and leave. I...I'm not a murderer...*heavy sigh* But like I said...things change.

I think it was a few days after talking with Toxor, that I'd heard from Tipha....And she has become so deep-rooted in the Legionnaire fold, that she had by this time been granted her own unit within the Legion...and dubbed by Volcatius himself with the title "Praefectus Legionis". Perfect Legion, I think....It's been so long since I'd taken latin during my old school years, but I did remember bits of it. Tipha's new title, though...it scared me. Everything I see in her, it's as if I'm looking into a mirror of my future self, seeing the monster I'm slowly becoming...

And yes, I....I am still becoming a monster in more than just that way. My body is still feeling so odd all over...I can hardly place it, but it's a feeling I'm positive I am never going to get used to. Even lying against this rock here, out in the middle of the Elysian fields, I can feel it making my arms numb, from the cold stone...*small shifting sound, grass rustling*

...That should do it. Anyway...*sigh*...where was I? That...that's right...Tipha. Talking with her though, she'd let me know that The Lord....was getting impatient of me. He wanted that disc, and by that time I had taken more than a month...yet it was still just out of reach. The instant I heard that from her lips...I knew I had to make a move.

The very next day, I'd confronted Toxor in the same place we had talked before, at the center of ICC Rubi-Ka. It was very much the same talk we'd had before....But this time, he was willing to maybe go about things another way. I'd tried faking a robbery with Cylie...but she was afraid to follow through. Toxor on the other hand...wasn't. Reassuring me that this time he was safely insured in Penumbra, the two of us agreed to fake a hit and run; it should have been flawless.

N...now, I've killed people before...I've shot at them, I've watched them collapse and their corpses fester....But it's that effect Rubi-Ka has on you, that shields you from everything you might be thinking after killing a man. I know how I'd feel...That his death was only a temporary thing, that he'd be back to shoot at me again another day....That in reality, there never was a murder. It was a wonderful thing for the mind to be able to bounce back from, to deal with the fact that by your own hands, you have slain another.

It's the comfort I felt as Toxor dropped dead, onto the checkerboard pavement of ICC...a single, miniscule disc rolling from out of his hand. It rolled along the ground, coming to a stop right at my boot...And as soon as I got the disc into my hand, I heard Toxor's voice on the comm. He was in Penumbra...dying. Sputtering out nonsense at first...he became a little more coherent...a...and the last thing he told me....was that I was the last sane man he knew. Was.

Then, there was nothing...*heavy sniff* I...I stared at his body, feeling the safety of this world slip away....I...I was staring at a dead man. And I had done it....*another sniffle...the sound of crying* ...I...g...god, I'd never meant to....

*long pause...*

...I...I think he'd wanted to die....And I was just the perfect tool. I...I wanted something, he wanted something....And he'd managed to fool me into it. I am a fool....I n-never claimed I wasn't...

*another long pause...*

....God rest your soul, Toxor....*sputtered out inbetween fits of tears..*

O..okay..c...c'mon, get a hold of yourself Nuli...g...get a hold of yourself...*heavy breath, sniffling*

...S...sorry. I couldn't help it. I've barely even had the time to s...sit down a think about this. I don't even want to think about this, it...it's just too damn painful...

*heavy breath...another pause...*

After....after the events of that day, I...I guess I was pretty depressed. Not even a bottle of vodka could drown it out...

D...don't get me wrong, I'm...not usually this kind of person...On the inside. I hate doom and gloom...I hate having to feel this way, I hate having to think the world is dark and black....I prefer the lighter side of things...To see and feel and think of the sun. I like to soak up the beauty of...of a place like Elysium, and to tell myself that someday...It's all going to be better.

I haven't given up hope....I...I have too damn much to live for. *sniffles softly*

*heavy breath* Any....anyway....Things don't get any better though....They just get worse. Toxor was...a member of the Omni-Tek Board of Directors. He was important to them, and held a fairly high position within the corporation. Around that time, the board meeting wasn't too far off....Now, I don't know what ended up happening there, but it wasn't good for me.

It was several hours after the meeting, I think, that I'd turned my comm on...And almost immediately, there was a message for me from Cylie....After having "threatened" her for that disc...things between the two us us had calmed down. We could talk again, we could share a cup of coffee or just shoot the breeze....That's honestly what I thought she had in mind then. She'd asked to meet with me...The tone of her voice did suggest something was wrong, so I cautiously agreed to meet with her in the fireplace room at Reet's Retreat.

I remember thinking, while looking at the fire, that something terrible had happened at the Board Meeting concerning Toxor, and she'd wanted to let me know about it. I...was still such a wreck over what had happened with him...I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for what happened, although....the fact that he *did* want to die comforted me. A very, very morbid comfort...

There wasn't too much time to sit and think though...I heard the door open, expecting Cylie. It wasn't her though...Around ten Unicorn Troopers stepped into the room, followed by a group of Omni-Tek employees and neutrals...And every single one of them wanted a piece of me. I saw Sotto in the corner...scribbling on a notepad, callously. I saw Anamelle glaring at me, wanting to, as she put it "rip out my symbiants and sell them on the black market."

About that time...seeing all of that....I wanted to curl up into a corner and just cry....I couldn't though. I couldn't do anything, but flatten myself against the wall, and stare into my own reflection off of the Unicorn man's glossy armor....Maybe to the people there who saw me, I wasn't afraid. I stood there the best way I could as the Unicorns mocked me...Told me all the things I already secretly knew to be true, that the Legionnaires were just a crock, that I was just a fool for following them....Something in the back of my mind though...told me He was still watching. I couldn't fold inward...

If I did, all of this would be for nothing.

I can remember the lead Unicorn asking me in that cool, self-assured voice of his, for the disc I was carrying....But I couldn't give that up. I just couldn't....Not even with a gun in my face. If I did that...Toxor will have...have died for nothing. The disc was supposed to be a bargaining chip right into Volcatius' lair...And the very next day, we'd break down his door and end this. We'd END IT!! I'd make him PAY for everything he's done....to the children....to the others....to me.

But...how could I tell anybody that without Volcatius learning about it? Fact of the matter was, I couldn't do a thing about it...I would have held strong...I would have kept that disc right on me...but the Unicorn whispered something in my ear, that changed my mind. If I didn't give the disc up....He and his men would go down the line of everyone I knew, and hunt them down. I...I knew he wasn't joking....And the thought of everyone else I knew having to pay the price for something I had done....I just wasn't prepared to accept it.

Defeated, I handed that damn little shard of plastic over, and told him to get the hell away from me. Ever hear that old story "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"? If you did, then you'll know he'd want a glass of milk. The Unicorns wanted more than just the disc....They wanted me to follow them outside, for...for whatever reason. Maybe it was punishment for what I'd done to Toxor....I don't know, but...it scared me, what else they would have wanted.

Unicorn men are...persistent. They don't ever take no as an answer...And when I refused to go with them, they used force. I felt an armor-coated hand grasp around my neck, literally dragging me out of the room...He brought me outside, shoving me up against the warm sandstone wall outside of Reet's...leveling his assault rifle at me. "Goodbye, Mr. Age," was the last thing he'd said, before these freakish purple shells lanced from the barrel....One into my forearm, one into my shoulder...And..*sigh*..a last one into my forehead.

[Nulion]

I've been to reclaim so many times, I've lost count...There have been so many ways I've died, that it honestly doesn't even bother me anymore. This time though...it was massively different. I'd reawakened in Old Athen...but the second I came to, I simply fell to the ground. It was the worst pain I have ever felt....Glancing down at my arms, I could see the stiff fabric of my armor shorn away, bleeding flesh beneath torn open by Unicorn shells...I could even see bits of a symbiant buried inside, wrapped snugly around bone, twitching and shuddering at the injuries even IT had taken.

There was a hole in my shoulder, and one in my forearm....It didn't take me too terribly long to figure out what had gone wrong, either, even through the haze of pain and depression. I'd learned some...disturbing news, some weeks before. Apparently...someone has been incredibly angry with me; enough to land me at the top of some assassin ring's hitlist. Some days after my second encounter with Toxor, a man had appeared on the Nrpb node, asking to meet with me at Meetmedere. It sounded legit enough....And though I was cautious enough to have brought my rifle with me, I wasn't exactly prepared.

A man jumped out from behind me, taking my rifle from out of my hands, jamming it backwards against my neck, like it was a piece of chokewire...He held on so tight, and I couldn't even break free. From out of the corner of my eye I could see a white stim in his hand...just a mere inch from my skin. I'd found out later on what they were...Soul-Disruptor Stims. One prick, and that would have killed me permanently. Just before the needle made contact, I wrestled him off of me, and he took off before I could even see what he looked like....

Later that night, I did get a few explainations from an unlikely source, a drunkard atrox named Gelmerno. Apparently he was part of that assassins ring....but even so, he was very loose with his lips. Suppose I should thank him for that....Without him, I wouldn't have known that they'd been tampering with my insurance records, too. I'd insure maybe twice a day from that point on, but each time I did, the insurance was either corrupted or deleted. So...that's why my arms ended up the way they did after reappearing at the Reclaim terminal.

Lying there on the ground, I clearly remember the tears....I'd been set up by a friend, and the disc I'd tried so hard to get, and that Toxor died for, was gone....The pain just hung over it all, so intense I was in and out of consciousness....

I don't remember how long I sat there, bleeding...I clearly do remember trying to use a few medistims on the wounds though, and they didn't do a thing. The nanobots just fizzled off into nothing, and stung the wounds like peroxide. I didn't have much else to do though, and not many other places to go, than home....

Later that night, after having taken care of the wounds with some old disinfectant and wrapping them in bandages, a relatively new friend of mine stopped by to check on me. I think he understood why I was so afraid to tell him where I was, though....It took awhile for him to convince me. Foosball is an adventurer...An alright one, if still kinda-sorta inexperienced...At least he knew something about first-aid. And he knew by having a good look at the wounds, that the shells from the Unicorns, those strange purple things, were still embedded in my arms. The bullets were coated with some kind of nano-nullification agent, the very same kind that meta-physicists had access to in their shutdown programs. Well...the agent had been seeping into my bloodstream ever since I was shot. That's why stims and nano-programs weren't doing much of anything to help. The only way to stop the agent in its tracks it seemed, was to remove the bullets by hand.

All Foosball had with him that he could use though, was a pair of tweezers. It hurts even thinking about it...but after a few excruciating minutes, he was able to pry most of the fragments out. Those lumps of metal were coated both in my blood, and in that foul-looking purplish gunk, that even seemed to evaporate into wisps of smoke as the breeze blew by...

I know that Foos had told me to go and find a doctor as soon as possible, but what I never told him, or anybody else, was that I was scared of the doctor....I mean, to the point of it being a phobia. I *hated* doctors, and hospitals, and everything about them. It's hard for me to understand why, though....When I was a little kid, I used to love the doctor's office. The doctor was always so friendly...Honestly, I think it was because I was his only Opifex patient, so naturally he was very interested in working face to face with a little, thin, grey child. How that friendliness ever sparked a phobia though, I just dont get. Maybe it was the needles? I sometimes think maybe it's the fear of the unknown, since each time I go, I worry that something might be wrong. I can never know for sure if there is or not, can I?

That's why I was afraid to go see a doctor, or go to the hospital now....What if those assassins came back? What if the injuries were bad enough that I could lose one of, or both of my arms? How long would recovery take? ...Why me?

Maybe I ask myself too many questions....Maybe I'm too unsure of myself. Not exactly a trait you'd expect of a sniper, is it..? Shooting a rifle is all about being sure of yourself, and sure of your aim. One false move, and you miss your window of opportunity. With arms like these though...I wouldn't have to be worrying about shooting a rifle anytime soon.

See, it was a few days after being shot that I finally got up the courage to visit the hospital in Old Athen....And it was my very first time being admitted to any sort of hospital, here OR on Earth. Of course I was scared...Even the scent of antiseptic sends a chill down my spine. One of the first things they did, while I was lying in that stiff bed was remove the symbiant from out of my right arm...That is to say, my shooting arm. I saw that slimy thing being tugged out like it was an oversized leech, still clinging relentlessly to the bones in my forearm. Of course it was a hazy, half-conscious thing....I was drugged so badly I felt nothing the whole time. They explained to me very thoroughly though, why it had to be removed...because it was dead.

I knew that symbiants could die, but...it wasn't something I'd ever seen before, let alone in my own arm. The thing had died two days prior....and was steadily rotting beneath the bandages I was wearing. One more day, and I'd have had my entire arm removed. I guess it was good that I'd caved in when I did, right..? It didn't help at the moment though...I was so scared, lying in bed half-drugged, crying...

Ugh...I'm such an infant sometimes...*soft chuckle*...It's just part of me that never dies.

I was just about to fall asleep, I think....Despite the surgery they planned for the next day, and how frightened of it I was, I needed rest. I...couldn't fall asleep though, because right in the middle of the hospital room, I...I could hear Him again. Combined with the drugs...it was surreal. Kind of an out of body experience. I remember sliding off of the hospital bed, onto wobbling feet...And with all the strength I could gather, I was able to fish out the lightbender from a drawer of personal belongings that was next to the bed. It hurt to even turn the thing on...but it did still work just fine on me, my body fading from the visible to the unseen.

I had to get outside...I practically dragged myself to the door, arms limp, hearing Volcatius calling again...Saying that "The time has come," and that "Tonight, this city would be cleansed of its filth." I should have been scared...But I wasn't. It's...sort of a blur...I can remember stepping outside to screaming and gunfire...I remember seeing Legionnaire men running all over the town, attacking anyone and anything they laid eyes on. All I could do was drag myself onward, with the chaos of battle erupting all around me....People yelling on the comm in panic, trying to organize efforts to keep them from getting into the city.

I even remember a group of clansmen that tried to barricade the entrances to Old Athen...And I told them, wearily, that they'd fail....None of them seemed to understand in the least, even after telling them how Legionnaires didn't need to use doors. They...they just turned inward, even amid all the chaos...*heavy sigh* It's hard for me to say this....But I made a lot of enemies that night, just by talking into my comm. I had clanners left and right shouting "Turncoat!" and "Traitor!" and of course, Hyperion telling me that he now had all the proof he needed to condemn me from the Council of Truth meetings. Hyperion....*sigh* It....it still hurts, thinking about what needed to be done. He *does* know that this is all a ruse, but he is trying to make it convincing. And he's doing a damn good job....Maybe a little too good. He, and several others, have a very real and very serious bounty on my head now.

E...ever since that night, and...and seeing all of those Legion men killing everyone in the city....Even hearing one of them tell me how good a servant I'll end up making....And having to lie to everyone I know through my teeth that I supported those bastards...W...well, ever since then, I just haven't felt safe anywhere near society. The only place I could find respite, and a place to heal, was in Elysium.

After being operated on the next day, wounds sewn up with nano-suitures, I left the hospital before they could even officially release me. I needed out....

So...*deep sigh* Here I am, lying against a rock beneath these sapphire skies...recanting this all to you, my journal. I...I'm praying hard for a light at the end of this tunnel I've gotten myself trapped in, and I'm not even really a religious man...

I want closure...I want an end...

*small sniffle* ...I...I'll do whatever it takes to see things through....It...it's like I said earlier, I j-just have too damn much to live for. I'm still hopeful...even in the worst of times. I can still see, in my mind, the day I come home....and give my mother a giant hug, maybe tell her that her son is never going to leave home again. *sniff*...It...it's IN my future...I know it....I know it...it has to be...

*short pause..*

....It keeps me going. And...and that's what I need most.

*sound of rustling....several things being taken out of a backpack...and a small fire being lit*

I'm...going to get myself to bed now. I need the rest, and...and my arms still hurt. Telling all of this to you has....helped. It really does help, getting things off my chest....even if it's only to a voice-journal...*small chuckle*

Goodnight...

Here's hoping the best for the future, and for whatever it brings.

*click*
END_JOURNAL
19_JUN_29480

[SneakyPax]

(( Sweet! About time someone posted in here again. Was about to get desperate. ))

[Nulion]

((Hope ya liked it! ))

[Neista]

((Another great story, I like it))

[Nulion]

((Thanks! *feels all warm and fuzzy* ))

[Homeostasis]

((Kudos! I enjoyed your continuing saga immensely.) )

[Nulion]

((Thank you again ))

[rotender]

(( I like talking in brackets! ))

[Nulion]

((Uh....I'll take that as a compliment! ))