The Strangemen

Chapter One: Homecoming

Simon Hall had grown up in Mill City thinking it was a dump, but since then he’d travelled the world and gotten acquainted with life in other countries. Simon had been through war zones in the desert where little stood but rubble under clouds of smoke. He’d been to the refugee camps in the barren mountains filled with the sick, the lame and the dying. He’d been to drug plantations where slaves slept in tin shacks too hot to touch. He’d been deep in the jungle where beasts preyed upon the tribes living amongst the trees. After all he’d seen, he knew Mill City was a dump.
There was no place quite like it on Earth. Once a prosperous beacon of industry it’d been in steady decline since the 50’s. As the jobs dried up, so did the population. Perhaps one house on an entire suburban block might be be occupied, but it couldn’t be called a ghost town. Scores of crack addicts and other users drifted between the empty buildings scavenging for any sign of copper, or a place to light up. Most folk lived in rat-infested apartment complexes near to the city core, were surprisingly there was still life. They even had a basketball team, who could count themselves fortunate to still have jobs, unlike most of the others who made Mill City their homes. The police, ambulances and other social services had abandoned the largest percentage of the city in favour of those who could still pay their taxes.
The house Simon had grown up in had burned down years ago. Surprisingly, Simon had not been responsible. His mother still lived somewhere in the city, but he wasn’t sure of the address. His sister might still be alive, for all he knew. His father had died in a fire when he was fifteen. He’d been responsible for that fire, at least.
After so many years, most of the streets were foreign to him. Most street signs had been stolen and sold for scrap metal. Houses he thought he might remember had been burned down, or boarded up. There were “For Sale” signs on every house, even if the house had been torn down. It was rare to see a car pass by, and rarer still to see one parked. He had taken to walking down the middle of the road simply because he could. It was near-to-pitch black, as the street lights hadn’t come on for years. It wasn’t clear as if was due to wire theft, or the power had been cut by the city. Eyes watched him through boarded windows and he could hear people murmuring to themselves. One drunk stumbled out in the street raving at him, only to be pushed down and stepped over. The was a sound of breaking glass as the bottle in his coat shattered under Simon’s feet. The man continued screaming at him as he went on, but he didn’t have the strength to get back up.
He was headed into the factory district, where things got worse. The factories were where the corruption had began.Mill City was once the fastest growing city in the country, until the first automaker pulled up stakes and shipped overseas. The steel mills closed down one by one. As the jobs fled, so did the people. The factories were still there, like a lost city. Most of them had been empty since before he was born. No one went near them, even the addicts. At best, they were a place used to dump bodies. He didn’t want to think about the worst.
As he passed under broken traffic light, a gang of hooligans approached from one of the nearby buildings. It might have been a shop at one point. An addict walked away with fresh-bought drugs stuffed into his pockets, telling him that it was still a shop of sorts. There were three black cars parked in front of the building with at least three different ethnicities surrounding them, and he briefly wondered if they had any connection to the party he was trying to meet. His suspicions immediately subsided when he saw their black and white gang colours. He had no idea who they were, but he had an idea they were going to tell them. He wondered if he should just simply ignore them and keep walking, but he knew the would just chase him down. He did his best not to sigh and stopped as a kid with a visor turned upside down and sideways approached him with a bat.
“What you doing here, son?” he asked, although he looked ten years younger than Simon. “Trick or treating?” He was wearing as much jewelry as possible, with about four chains around his neck and five about his wrists. There was at least one ring on every finger. He looked as if he had a skin condition. Simon could relate.
Simon sometimes forgot he was wearing a mask. It’d become like a second skin to him, after he lost his first. He reached up to scratch his face beneath the fabric. The others all laughed as they circled him. The kid was the only one openly armed, but he knew there had to be some guns and knives hidden under those baggy clothes. Frankly, the larger, obviously steroid-abusing gang-banger with teardrop tattoo concerned him more than the kid with the bat. “Something like that,” Simon said as he absently looked down at his watch. He was one of the few people he knew that still carried a watch. It was his dad’s, and he wasn’t likely to part with it. The look in the kid’s eye told him he should consider it. He still had about fifteen minutes before his meeting.
The mention of, “Trick or treating” reminded Simon it was close to Halloween. It was almost Devil’s Night, when his father had died all those years ago. Kids would start fires and break stuff until the cops chased them off as an annual tradition. It wasn’t really, “Devil’s Night,” without a few deaths. He’d participated in his fair-share of the holiday when he was not much younger than he was now, although it seemed liked ages ago. No doubt the kids before him were getting geared up to try their hand at the event, although he wondered how much different it was than any other day of the week to them.
“So where the treat, huh?” the kid got in close with the bat. He could smell the weed on his breath and clothes.
With one smooth motion, Simon snatched the aluminum bat from his hand and jabbed the but of it into his throat. He then put the front of it into the face of the kid with the teardrop tattoo. That staggered him back enough to give him room to swing. He went for the kneecap first before finishing with the head again. The kid next to him was struggling to pull his weapon out of the back of his pants when he brought the bat down on his head. By this point, the bat was already dented and streaked with blood. A knife was drawn behind him and the wrist it was being held by snapped as he swung around and upward. The blade went clattering onto the cracked pavement as he headbutted the fat kid in the nose. There was a commotion over by the cars, and he could see guns being drawn. They would have fired if they weren’t afraid of hitting their own. There were still three more kids within reach. One tried to tackle him, but Simon sidestepped and hit him at the base of his neck with the butt of the bat as he was lunging forward. One of the girls turned and ran back to the cars, crying for her boyfriend as he swung one-handed, striking first one head, then another back and forth like the chime in a bell.
The others had backed off enough to allow one of the gangbangers at the car to fire off a shot. It went wide and struck the building across the street. Two more shots followed, each missing. Simon reached out and grabbed one of the kids trying to run and strangled him with the bat as he pulled him in close. He used him as a shield between himself and the opposition by the cars as he slowly crept backwards towards the abandoned building behind him. One of the kids fired a shot over his head as a warning, which he didn’t take, while the kid in his grasp tried desperately to escape. Simon lifted him fully off the ground and let his feet dangle as he stepped backward. He glanced absently at his watch before peering back over his shoulder at the doorframe he was inching towards. The kid tried to knock back at him with his head, but Simon merely ignored him. He decided he was close enough and threw the kid forward into the street as he ducked inside and through the main room of the building. The kid decided to make a break for instead of pursuing, as the others fired blindly into the building. Bullets penetrated the plywood covering the windows of what must have been another shop.
Simon was already out the back door and running before the first of them made it in the front door. By the time they came out the back, he had already disappeared.
From his vantage point on the rooftop, he watched as they desperately searched for him in vain, shouting out threats upon his life.
“Was that necessary?” Rook asked him with arms crossed over her breasts.
Simon caught his breath. “No, but it was fun,” he smiled at her in the dark.
“You didn’t kill any of them, did you?” she asked in a hushed tone as she looked over the other side into the street.
“Do I ever?” Simon realized he was still holding the bat. He threw it down into the street and waited as the gangbangers took the cue to follow the noise. The gathered around the bat, looking helplessly around the empty back-alley. He looked at his watch again. “Sorry, we don’t have much time left.”
“We could have drove,” Rook complained. “You know that, right?”
“I wanted to get a feel for the city. Anyway, my license is expired. At least I think it is.” He looked over at her expectantly.
She glared back at him. “I should leave you here to deal with those punks.”
“I already did, or as much as I feel like dealing with them. Damn, I don’t even know what gangs there are anymore. I mean, who are these kids? Some of them don’t even look like they’re out of middle school, if they ever went. Whatever happened to the Beatdowns or the Cruds?” he said longingly.
“The who?” Rook was at a lost. She shook her head. “Anyway, we’ve got to book it. Here, you can carry this from now on,” she unslung the duffle bag from her shoulder and tossed it to him. It was heavier than it looked. “Are you okay, by the way?” she asked with sudden concern. “You didn’t get hit, did you?” she reached out in the darkness to touch his cheek.
He batted her hand away absently. “I’m fine,” he assured her, although he hadn’t bothered to check. It had gotten eerily quiet in the alley below him. He glanced down, but he couldn’t see any movement. He thought he saw one of the kids laying face-down in the alley, but they were all wearing black and it was made ever darker by a cloud passing over the crescent moon.
“No more of this stupid thrill-seeking,” she warned him. “We’re goddamn professionals. We don’t need to be starting trouble if we can help it.”
“We can’t help it, though,” he reminded her and patted the duffel bag.
Without warning, Rook took to the air, spreading out her eleven-foot long wings blacker than the night. She blotted out what was left of the moon as she perched herself on his shoulders and dug in her claws. In a moment, they were both airborne and she dragged him along after her in her tallon feet. He barely had enough time to sling the bag over his shoulder and grab on to her ankles. With each beat of her wings she wafted her perfume down at him. It was a heady scent. With her birthday coming up, he absently wondered if she needed more of the stuff. They flew for several blocks over the rooftops before setting down. Rook hovered in the air for a moment or two to allow him to touch the ground with his feet before letting go. She drew in her wings and dropped down beside him. They were in the shadow of one of the old factories, although he couldn’t say which one. There had been plenty of businesses that went under. There was a signpost still standing with no sign on it. “Is this the place?” she asked him, ruffling her feathers and then folding her wings behind her back.
The building opened into a courtyard where a single black truck was parked with the engine running. The headlight illuminated the darkness. “Has to be,” Simon said and checked his watch again. “Damnit, we’re late. Be a dear and scout around for me. I should be good for a few minutes.”
She reached out and kissed him on the cheek before silently taking flight. He could barely feel it through his mask.
He checked the bag one last time before approaching the vehicle, making sure to keep his eyes on the empty windows surrounding him. There was a man sitting on the hood of the truck talking with two others standing before him, but they were impossible to make out until he got closer. The two on the ground were wearing all black, with bulky bulletproof vests and helmets with sub-machine guns slung under their arms. The door of the truck was open and music was blaring out. They were smoking and joking until the saw him. “Oi, there! Is that you, Arson?” called out the man on the truck. “Come a bit closer.”
Simon immediately recognized the accent. “Blasted,” he forced himself to smile. The two other men pulled back. They didn’t go for their guns, but they made sure they were there. One extinguished his cigarette while the other reached into the truck to turn off the radio. The truck itself was armoured, but it could pass as a regular vehicle on the streets. A gold, “M,” emblazoned the side of the door.
Blasted hopped off the truck and slowly approached. “Is that really you?” he asked in his thick British accent. “Been a while, hasn’t it. ‘Ere,” he pointed at him with his one hand. “Why not lift up the mask and let me get a look at you here in the light.”
“If that’s necessary,” Simon said. Walking a few steps over, he lifted up his mask briefly to show the scar tissue underneath. The cool night air hurt his skin, and he quickly pulled it back down again into place. Blasted, like him, wore a mask, only his covered his entire mouth. The top was open to let his brown hair flow free. He had a helmet that went with the getup, but he never wore it. He claimed it messed up his hair. His eyes were covered by a pair or red goggles sewn into the insulated fabric. Even with the mask, there was no question it was him. His mechanical barrel arm was his name tag.
“Oi! What did I tell you,” Blasted said to his two companions. “A right ugly bastard if there ever was one.” They chuckled among themselves and Simon kept smiling  his fake smile. “You know the good doctor could fix that up for you in a jiff, right?”
“I’ve had enough of the doctor to last me a lifetime, Blasted,” Simon said.
“Nonsense. You can never get enough of the doctor. Why look at ‘ere,” he held out what had been his arm at one point. It was now a mess of machinery in the form of a gun barrel dyed metallic green like the insulated mask he was wearing. “The doctor’s made some improvements to the old design. Let me show you.” Holding out the barrel towards the building, he fired off one shot without looking. Simson rubbed his eyes until his spotted vision came back. The flash of light had blinded him momentarily. The wall he had aimed his gun-arm towards was now a smoking pile of rubble. Steam seeped off the backpack Blasted wore over his shoulder, which was connected to his arm by a thick tube. Pigeons were flying around wildly in the dark after having their rest disturbed. “What do you think? I can do that all day now without having to change my pack.”
“Impressive,” Simon admitted.
“Like I said, you’ve been gone too long, Arson. Just think of what ‘appened while you were gone. We’ve moved up in the world, while you’ve been off galavantin’ around. Where you’ve been, anyway? Last I heard you were in the jungle takin’ care of that bit o’ business,” he leaned casually back against the grill of the truck.
“That was a few assignments ago. I’ve working for Lou, dealing with his suppliers,” Simon explained as he unslung the duffle bag and set it next to Blasted on the hood of the truck.
“That’s a right dangerous business, it is,” Blasted said. “Working for Lou.”
“Oh?” Simon raised a quizical eyebrow, although the expression was lost under his mask.
“Like I said, you’ve been gone a long time. Lou’s on the out with the bossman, especially after what ‘appened,” Blasted elaborated.
“I hadn’t heard,” Simon said, and he quickly checked his surroundings once more. He wasn’t liking how the conversation was going. “This is my first time Stateside in almost a year. I’m not exactly in the loop on these things.”
“You want to know why you’re the one here, givin’ me this bad instead of some no-name?” Blasted unzipped the bag with his one human hand and sorted through the contents with disinterest. There was enough cash in there to live the rest of your life off of. To him, it might as well have been last week’s garbage. “Lou’s gone rogue. Or rogue enough. Not really my place to say, either way. He’s been ignoring direct orders for a long time now. You can see how that can be troublesome for us. Especially when he’s got someone like you under his thumb. You’ve been with us for a while now, but you’ve never really been in the main circle. We want to know where your loyalty stands on all this.”
“Where I stand?” Simon repeated. “On two feet. I work for Lou, it doesn’t mean I’m his man.”
“So you’re with us, then?” Blast pointed to his chest.
“I work for you, it doesn’t mean I’m your man,” Simon said.
The barrel of the gun came up ever so slightly. “Freelance, then? That’s not what I want to ‘ear. There’s no neutral ground anymore. Bossman wants total control now that the Royals are gone.”
“What?” Simon looked warily down at the barrel. “What do you mean, the Royals are gone?”
“Aw, you missed it,” Blasted told him, lowering the barrel again, “and we sent you an invite and everythin’. You didn’t get it?”
“Get what?” Simon demanded.
“This is too rich,” Blasted laughed to himself. “Guys, get a load of this,” he told the others, who chuckled too. “Bossman wanted you in on the whole operation. It was supposed to be your time to move up in the rankings, so long as you could get the job done. He called Lou to call you, since you were off the grid. Message either didn’t make it through, or else you didn’t answer. Bossman isn’t someone you ignore.”
“But what are you saying about the Royals? He took them down?” Simson was confused.
“They’re dead,” Blasted said sharply. Simon knew he was beaming under his mask. “Every last one of them. Dead.”
Simon took a moment to absorb the information. “That’s not....”
“Possible? Oh, it is,” Blasted assured him. “I was there. Bossman has the Crown’s cape decoratin’ ‘is office. Still has the blood on it.”
“Wow,” Simon didn’t know what else to say. The Royals had been such a major part of the scene, that it was difficult to imagine the world without them.
“Which brings up another point,” Blasted looked over at his two cronies, who were listening to something on their headsets. “Bossman is cleanin’ his plate. The Royals were just the first move, but they’re not the last. ‘E’s got big plans and Lou isn’t in them. So I’m goin’ to ask you again who’s side you’re on?”
“My own,” Simon told him plainly.
Blasted nodded his head for a while, then shook it once. “Wrong answer.” Touching the side of his headset, he spoke into the mic under his mask. “Eagle.”
Simon hissed inward through his teeth and took two steps back. He scanned the skies for some sign of warning. He didn’t have to wait long. The moonlight was blacked out momentarily as Eagle swooped in. His wingspan was over twenty-feet wide and carried a massive bulk of muscles. He’d been over six feet tall before the doctor started his work on him. Now, as a human and animal hybrid, he was closer to eight. His pale skin was dotted with tufts of white feathers that got denser until they covered his wings. His hands and feet were talons sharp enough to tear through flesh and strong enough to pierce skulls. He wore only a pair of dusty jeans. As he set down, he tossed a limp figure onto the ground before Simon. He could see Rook’s blood on his talons, but not where she had been hurt. She was motionless as she lay there and he wanted to go to her to see if she was even still alive, but he couldn’t afford to give up even an inch of ground to them. Eagle stretched his wings as far as they would go and threw his head back to screech through his inhuman beak. In the echo off the walls, Simon could hear another sound of guns being cocked. Red lasers dotted the ground around him as the windows filled up with snipers. He couldn’t tell how many, but he knew he’d be dead if he moved.
Blasted stepped forward and reached out to grab him by the lapel of his jacket. With his cybernetic strength, he easily lifted him off the ground. He put the barrel of his other arm into Simon’s face. “That’s two. So where’s the third one, then?” he asked.
“There’s only two of us,” Simon told him without flinching.
“You’re a rotten liar. I know you always travel in a pack. Better fess up, or lovebird gets it,” he turned his gun on Rook.
Simon weighed his options and realized he had few left. He’d walked into a trap. Rook might already be dead. Still, he didn’t give an answer. Blasted obliged him by powering up his gun-arm.
“Something’s wrong,” Eagle said suddenly. The words were barely distinguishable out of his beak.
“What now?” Blasted said, looking around. “Is it the other one?”
“Don’t know,” Eagle replied and flew up to one of the sniper nests in a gust of wind that blew Blasted’s hair back. He perched himself in the opening of one window and stuck his head in. His body and wings took up the whole space. “Guy in here is out cold,” he said as he pulled his head back out.
As Simon watched Eagle, he saw out of the corner of his eye one of the red dots in the windows blink out. Then another one. Eagle, with his enhanced vision, saw too. He flew over to one of the windows, then another. At third, he put his head inside and spent a long while looking around. Then, he suddenly gave a shriek that hurt Simon’s ears. Sparks of blue electricity arched off his back and wings and he fell limply three storeys to the ground with a sickening thud.
Blasted wasn’t exactly sure what happened, but he didn’t waste any time responding. He fired off three shots in rapid succession until the entire walls caved in, raining rubble down on where Eagle lay. He watched for a moment, then motioned for his cronies. “You, go up there and check,” he said to one. “You, go and check Eagle,” he said to the other. Turning his attention back on Simon, he turned his gun around. “As for you, you can die.”
“You can burn,” Simon told him. Making good on his threat. Simon opened his mouth and and spewed out orange flames into Blasted’s face. There was a reason, after all, they called him Arson. Blasted screamed, although the flames didn’t penetrate his mask or insulated clothes. He’d been wisely chosen for this mission due to his choice of attire. He had one weak spot, however, and that was the top of his head. It was the only place he wasn’t protected, and his hair caught fire. Within seconds it had burned down to his scalp.
“Kill you!” Blasted screamed mindlessly as he fired blindly. Simon could feel the heat from the shot, but it didn’t touch him. A piece of wall fell away far behind him.
Simon raised his hands up, ready to unleash Hell, when a sensation struck him. Looking down at his chest, he saw a red wet circle spread out through the fabric of his shirt. Not all of the snipers had been taken out. The pain set in and he felt himself stagger. He fell to his knees before Blasted, who was likewise on his knees, clutching his burning scalp. Without realizing it, Simon found himself down on the cold pavement. He struggled to stand back up, but he didn’t know what direction up was in. He gave in and lay down, cursing himself silently. He saw Rook laying not far away, but it was as if she was spinning around.
“Bossman,” Blasted choked in pain as he rose back up to his feet, “told me to bring you in alive. I’ll just tell him you… Who the hell are you?” his voice suddenly changed to that of surprise. Lying as he was, barely able to move, Simon couldn’t see who he was talking to. Blasted fired off a shot, then another. They streaked right over Simon. He saw a pair of boots leap over his face and heard them crunch the ground opposite him, then a muffled cry from Blasted. “No! It can’t be!”
“Tell your Master I’m coming for him,” was the last thing Simon heard. The voice was somehow familiar.

The Occultist

While watching youtube on my 360, I saw a corner advertisement for a seperate, unrelated video. I was watching a video about the Gamecube and it was trying to direct me to an "ad" for this:

The text for it read: "The Occult: Black Magic, Ghosts and Dungeons and Dragons," all of which is awesome, but you'll notice that the inclusion of, "Dungeons and Dragons" at the end is a dead-giveaway. This is a re-hash of the idea from thirty years ago that Dungeons and Dragons = SATAN! 

The arguement is this: If you've ever rolled a 20-sided die and crit an orc, you're definitely going to Hell. The people spouting off this argument have clearly never seen the game played. The objective is to kill the ever-loving shit out of anything resembling Satan, which would at best make him wary of recruiting you for his army of Hellspawn.

Also: This "ad" is over two hours. That's not an ad. That's a movie. It shouldn't take over two hours to tell someone Satan = Bad!

Quite frankly, I'm just upset about the misleading title. I expect a 1000% more awesomeness and maybe some boobs when you mash enough words together like, "occult," "witchcraft," "ghosts," etc. together.

The entire "video," is just this bullshit image. And one of the side-bar websites listed, "muslimhope.com," is a pro-Christian/anti-Muslim site bordering on hate-speech. Going to this site probably puts you in a goverment watch-list, or rather a more-specific government watch-list. That's the legitimacy of what's going on.

Looking at the comments section, I couldn't find one overty-ironic or negative comment, which means that the close-to 100,000 people "viewing" this are dead-serious about what a man with a name similar to "Weasels" has to say. Just like they're dead searious about this:

Apparently I was wrong this whole time. It's not, "Astral projection," it's, "Astro Projection." 

Like so.

Seriously, it's like a virgin trying to explain sex with all this junk about Ouiji boards and witchcraft. At least try to conjure one demon before passing yourself off as an expert.