He got up, holding his hands over his nose feeling them get moist. Yet again had his brother managed to give him a nosebleed.
As he moved his hands away from his face, he looked at hios brother standing there with a big grin on his face, still holding the baseball bat their father had given them. He cursed his parents for it, but in the same time, he knew how to get even with his him.
He knew that hand-to-hand he didn;t stand a chance. After all, he had taken after mom, smart but utterly no stamina and therefor physically inferior. It all looked okay, but it lacked power. His brother however had taken after dad, with strong muscles, standing tall over his brother, even though he was younger.
As he got up, he started the program he knew his brother hated more than anything and before he noticed what was going on, he stood there, frozen to the floor, unable to charge for him giving him time to simply state that enough was enough.
His brother was angry, but knew that anything he'd say now would result in him getting either burnt or electrocuted, leaving him in pain for quite a bit, so he wised up and admitted defeat.
This was but one of the many times where Jarel and his brother were sparring. They were merely playing in the backyard of their home, or so they thought. Their father however had an agenda for them, he meant for them to grow into fierce warriors, even Jarel, who had all the physical advantages of a turtle, but the intellect made up for that.
His brother, a nice kid, but rather crude, was shortfused and had always managed to get into some form of trouble, always coming out of it with the bruises to prove he did have a hard fight, although he never admitted to it.
All that time, mom was standing in the back, always ready with her healing pet, that weird blob with the tentacles. She didn't want anyting to happen to her kids, so it was there always. Sometimes, whenever mom and dad had a fight, Jarel and his brother could suddenly hear something as if there was a third person in the room, but they never dared to go see what or who it was that breathed so heavily. They'd find out soon enough, even though they didn't know it themselves yet.
After living in relative safety from the creatures outside the citywalls for more than 15 years, it had become time to venture forth into other areas.
Filling up backpacks they all set forth to find themselves a new spot to live. During the entire journey, for some odd reason, it was always mom coming home with the biggest loot and dad didn't hide his disgruntlement over that. Jarel and his brother didn't have a clue why this was, until they one day sneaked after mom to see how she did it. Unfortunately for both boys it meant a change of pants when mom summoned a demon that appeared rigth in front of them giving them instant runs, but they did find it cool. Mom wasn't too happy about it, she didn't want her boys to see just how much anger she could focus, but behind her hand she did have a good laugh over their dirty pants that they had tried to clean themselves.
During the long trek to other grounds they also found out the true nature of dad. He always went out on his own, usually taking two swords with him and that would be it. One day, they were waitng for dad to come back from a dinner hunt when a two headed wolf slowly strolled into the camp. Jarel turned whiter than he already was and froze in his spot, while his brother's crotch turned a deeper shade of blue and started to smell. Mom just got angry and told dad that he had forgotten to morph back into himself again. The boys felt silly, but now did want to know what all was going on, as niether of them had ever known what their parents did.
It turned out that dad was a wanderer, he was always looking out to explore, while mom was a priestess. Their love had caused quite an uproar, but eventually everyone accepted it and moved. They however wanted their children to grow up as such, children, not predestined to follow their parents' footsteps, which had worked. Jarel had all the makings of a Nano Technician, while his brother had all the makings of an Enforcer, even though he was not an atrox. The boys learned as much from their parents as they could before bed and went to sleep filled with questions that would have to wait until the next day.
They were questions that would never be asked. During the night, without warning, some people with murder on their minds found them sound asleep and knowing full well the professions of the elders, they took them out first. They were murdered without even knowing who had done it. Jarel and his brother woke up to the sounds of the weapons in time to see their mother's eyes close, their dad was already gone, laying there with eyes closed, blood streaming down his face frmo the hole in his forehead.
Jarel had learned from his parents and managed to run a program that glued all of them to the ground, but unfortunately, he did not have the ability to stun them. His brother thought the road for vengeance was clear and rushed forward, batting around as he saw fit, taking hits but dishing them out in even terms. He was outnumbered though, as was Jarel and while he saw his brother take a direct, deadly hit in the chest, he knew it had become useless to resist any further. He was taken in and beaten to the point where he was welcoming death with open arms, but it never showed at the doorstep.
Later, when he woke up more than he had done before, it wasn't long before he learned that in fact he had died. Not once, but may times, all in the process of the creation of a machine to sustain life by moving the dead person's soul into a machine that will combine it then with a cloned replica. They had perfected it to where it even replicated the things they had done to him to keep him from screaming. He could no longer see, his eyes had been removed, his eyelids were sewn shut. Same thing they had done to his mouth, it was sewn shut so they wouldn't hear him scream. Food was never administered, if he died from food deprivation or thirst, they would resurrect him again and again again....
When he woke up again, he noticed something had changed. He had no idea what, but he felt the temperature had changed, something or someone had cut him loose and he could feel himself again. The touch and feel of his own skin scared him, ribs sticking out, muscle had close to diappeared and he was thirsty, so thirsty.
Crawling on all fours he went to search for something to drink, and after a while, he put his hand in something wet. With a lot of effort he managed to put a finger in his mouth, tearing some flesh in his flesh where the stitches were and felt that it was water. Not clear water, but water.
After a while, he had found some implants to put into his eyes, he managed to find some clothes. It was still hard to see, all the colors were wrong, things looked blurry, but he could see again at least. He walked around the demolished complex, trying to find out where he was and what had been going on here and after a while he stumbled across a room that made him sick to the stomach. He saw tubes, large glass tubes with a fluid in them and in that fluid he saw all sorts of misshaped characters. He recognized some of them as looking like atroxes, but deformed, with two arms on one side of the body, some headless. He recognized several nanomages as they were called, like him actually and his mom. His mom... the thought of her made him sad. He would have to find out if somehow the technology that kept bringing him back and back and back was also used on her. It took a short time to find out they hadn't done so. The technology was perfected on him and some 20 others in stupid experiments mutilating their bodies. He now was alone.
He knew that the ones who had done this to him must have been from the corporation. The corporation was the only one with means to fund experiments at a scale such as this. He wanted nothing to do with them and by feeling as such, he wanted to seek refuge elsewhere. He soon came to see that in order to find peace he would have live alone, totally separated from all humanoids, for the clanners he came across didn't take kindly to him, he wore corporation clothing and while not with the corporation, while telling htem about himself and his search for refuge, one of them just got up his weapon, aimed and shot him.
He then went to live among neutrals, but found they had started to live by the sword as well, putting up mines, killing workers in other mines for the sake of bettering their own resources and thus having the ability to kill even more. The world in his absence had turned into a warring community, holding nothing in regard other than their own lust for money. Brothels were around, weapons are dealt in openly without any intervention whatsoever, contracts were put out on people's heads for having an opinion and being unbiased to the alignment of others. He felt a great grief, and with this grief he went out into the desert, where he now lives in peace among Rhinomen that treat him as an equal, while he tries to make people see the errors they are making in trying to make it a better world. They are destroying the world and the task at hand is hard, but with the help of friendly folk, uncaring for money or other physical possessions, there is still hope. He just feels sad that the most human people on the face of Rubi-Ka turn out to be part Rhinoceros. It doesn't stop him from doing his work, but it is a sad sad sign of things to come.
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