OOC UPDATE: Okay, it's come to my attention that this story has...uh...gotten very long. Yes, I realize that, hehe. It's about 61 pages long on MS Word as of the current date (July 20th, 2007), and so I thought for those who don't want to devote all that time to reading everything, I would post a summary.
SO FAR... (Warning: SPOILERLICIOUS!)
Nulion has been living out in the wild because he's been on the run from his botched attempt at infiltrating the Legionnaires by pretending to join them. It worked too well, and so he's on the run. While out in the woods, he realizes that he is out of the medication he needs to hold the virus in his body at bay (The virus that will more or less turn him into a reptilian mutant if he doesn't keep up the dosage. Not only that, but the only doctor capable of creating the medicine, Kealy, is off-world on Omni-Prime trying to research and perfect the formula), and so heads to Truth Tower, where he used to work, to find information pertaining to recreating his medicine. The information isn't there.
On his way out of the tower, he runs into a Council of Truth meeting while it is just convening, and gets schooled by virtually every important Clan character you can think of. He is told to redeem himself, and will be under surveillance until he does so. Defeated, Nulion just goes home.
A week goes by, and he's still not had his medication; he's going completely nuts, and isn't exactly himself anymore. He calls for help on his comm, since he wants some food, but is too afraid to go out and get some, for fear of what he might actually end up eating.
A friend, Ashleigh, drops by with some food, but a woman named Tipha who also works for the Legion, comes along too, in order to manipulate Nulion and his disease into becoming assets for the Legionnaires. She gets called away, Nulion is hardly able to cope with being tempted into eating his friend Ashleigh, and just as Ashleigh and Nulion are about to have a more lighthearted moment, Nulion gets stuck in the neck with a tranquilizer dart.
He wakes up in an Omni-Med hospital room, without a clue as to how he got there. He then leaves his hospital bed, trying to get out of the building before he is used as a test subject for Omni-Med, but is quickly found by two atrox orderlies while hiding in a supply closet, and is very quickly tranquilized a second time. While tranquilized, Nulion has a particularly nasty dream...
After waking up again, Nuli finds he's back in the hospital room, with a female doctor. He finds out that she is Dr. Kealy, and that she has the medicine Nulion needs.
A week passes in the clinic, and Nuli is released...but he needs to find proof he wasn't a terrorist.
Several months pass, and Nuli is still trying to keep himself out of jail...He has repaired his armor, and is recalling a particular day in December where he visits The Cup, where a particular world-shaking event happens...
....Annnd, that's where we are now
There's lots of little details in between all of that, but there ya go! The summary!
NULION'S JOURNEY
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The wind picked up…whistling through the grassy pelt of the land. A small, metallic zipper dangled side to side, the occasional click resonating as it grazed against the track it was attached to. Sunrays, a mix of blue and yellow-red from the twin suns that poked ever so gently above the horizon spilled through crimson clouds to meet my eyes as they fluttered open. There was nothing else in this world, in this place, than me and everything I held inside.
The grass felt moist from the previous night’s dew, and the scent twisted through my senses, mingled with that omnipresent aroma of gaseous notum. Everything smelled so intense and raw…I pushed myself up from the tattered and soiled sleeping bag, smelling as only months’ worth of fetor would, taking in the world of the morning. The hills rolled off into the distance, interrupted by lush trees caught in the breeze, their swaying and rustling almost hypnotic. I both loved and hated this place…
Who knows what effect staying out in the open, without the human comfort of four walls, a ceiling, and a level floor to keep me safe, has had on me. I’m pretty sure that long ago, as a child, I’d always wanted to go camping with my family in the woods that flourished near my old home…even if they’d never wanted to go. And even then, I’d always had it in the back of my head that no matter what happened, I would always have the safety of my home to return to. I’d always have warmth…
Like any other human being, I took things for granted…and I regret it.
It wasn’t entirely of my fault that I wound up out here…Or was it? I barely remember. I can almost not feel whatever madness drove me to run from everything and everyone I held dear…and this was the second time in my life I had done so.
All I have to look forward to in my life is that time and place where everything I’ve struggled for will come to fruition. That shining moment where I make him pay for everything he’s done…I don’t even want to say his name anymore…it sickens me.
Of course, one cannot live in solitude without the problems of life, both past and present, picking at the flesh like vultures, leaving scars of memory and conscience….Out here in the place animals called home, old wounds resurfaced.
My attention darted swiftly from the makeshift campsite I’d set up the night before, off into the distance. I could see a figure, a shape shuffling along through the grassy plain. It trudged along slowly, neck lowered to the ground, doing what it did best; grazing.
A month and a half ago, I’d have thought nothing of it…I’d have smiled in its direction, thinking to myself how wonderful it must be to have no worries, no cares in life other than a full stomach and a warm patch of grass to lay on by nightfall. To that figure, there is no Omni-Tek. There is no Clan. There’s no war, no consequence, no guilt…there is only existence and subsistence. In that month and a half though, I have been through more changes than I could have dreamed of a scant year ago. Instead of gazing upon that animal with envious eyes, I’d glare at it with all the intent of a predator looking to survive.
A slight flick of the switch at my weathered, grimy NCU belt reactivated technology forever bonded to my body, and I hastily faded to glass. Nothing but ghostly footsteps could give away my presence, and even they were barely noticeable amidst the wafting grasses. Hurrying along, the whistling of the wind through the fields quieting my advance, I stepped up right alongside this creature, this miniature Bronto…My hands, visible light refracting just enough through their prism-like appearance to see them against the backdrop of everything else, reached towards the hapless minibronto’s neck....I had to be quick.
The minibronto pulled its head up slowly from the earth, gazing around, as if nothing were wrong. I could only tense…feeling my stomach tighten up, desiring nothing more than the meat off this thing’s bones…I craved it so badly, as if I had gone weeks without a scrap of food. My heart raced, my fingers twitched…every single muscle in my body wanted to squeeze…to dig my claws down into its flesh and rip its head sideways, snapping and popping every bone out of alignment, ending its life for the extension of my own.
But…the minibronto turned away, something else having caught its eye…it walked calmly away, down the lush hillside towards its family, its herd. I could only watch…My hands were frozen in place, where but moments ago they’d have squelched the life from its body.
It started as a trembling weakness in my knees…and from there it could only grow, leaving me slumped onto the tall grass, tears rolling down my glassy face…dripping onto the soil. The only thing to escape my lips, staring down at that minibronto’s family, was the slightest bit of an animal-like whimper. I’ve done it before…but even now, the pieces of me that are still human cling onto the sensibility that tells me killing is a sin. Human thoughts seeped back in, and all I could feel was that thick coat of remorse…
I slumped to my side, the tears still flowing. My eyelids transparent, I was forced to sit and watch what I, with my bare hands, had nearly destroyed. It reminded me of myself, actually…and how much I longed for family and friends. To be in the comfort of my own herd, to hug myself up against my own mother and never let go. The thought though…just turned to more anguish. I’d left them for no good reason…I have no right to be back with them. What would they want with an animal for a son..?
That is what I was becoming now, wasn’t I? I was becoming nothing more than a cog in the great engine of life, instead of one of those who could operate that engine. I don’t know what it was…maybe living out here did it? Maybe it was a side-effect of being too close to *him* that reactivated the dormant nanovirus..? Maybe it was just the fact that my ‘cure’ from last year never really stopped anything, only slowed it all down? And if that’s the case…then how long do I have left before not caring at all about consequence, about life, about feeling? The thought scares the living hell out of me.
Being scared and afraid though, isn’t going to get me a meal. I was still hungry, and…I wasn’t quite in the mood to go after anything that still had a heartbeat. I have to keep it in my mind that I’m better than that…that I can still cling onto myself. Maybe the best thing to do, all considering, was to use up a small amount of the credits Foosball had given to me several weeks ago. It was enough to keep me fed, whenever I’d like it, for the next couple of months at the very least.
Gathering myself, I climbed to my feet, grabbing at my NCU belt, flipping the lightbender off, my body once again returning to the world of the visible. My hood blowing off from a strong gust, hair flailing at the mercy of the wind, I gazed in the other direction of the bronto herd. Newland City was just off in the distance, nestled between two gigantic formations of rock, their shadows cast long over the lake…Pulling that credit chip out of a securely-zippered pocket, a slight smile crossed my face, looking forward to having an honest meal, like a civilized man should.