Daily Archives: January 12, 2012

The Deserter

Posted on January 12, 2012 by rochardscott

A Long Time Ago in the Land of Pangaea

   Linkera sat under a swaying tree on a hill thinking about how he ran away from his “responsibilities” and how he was a happier man for doing it. His golden brown skin matched the deep sunset that was placed before him, his long black hair blowing in tandem with the tree’s branches. He looked down at the simple village that was positioned at the base of the massive hill, the villagers were starting to light up the man-sized torches that would eventually light up the dirt roads of the town of Parta. He accepted that the residents of this peaceful town were the only people he should answer to.

He didn’t give a damn who created him; he owed his “masters” nothing.

He licked his chapped lips as the cool breeze dried his lips as quickly as they got wet. He longed to kiss his fiancée, a beautiful woman named Seraph. She was daughter to a Panayan minister named Calm and sister to a budding preacher named Carious. Linkera can remember when he escaped his “creators” to this grand land called Pangaea.

Pangaea was the only land mass on Earth. It was a massive continent  surrounded by nothing but water. The people here knew nothing of battles or war. They had no interest in winning or losing. All they wanted to do was live in harmony. He loved that concept of perfected civilization so much that he found it hard to believe that these human beings would ever be corrupted by anything, much less by his supposed nemesis, according to the angels and demons that made him.

Linkera got up and dusted the dirt off his simple beige clothing and playfully marched off back down the hill to Parta. The soft grass tickled the bottom of his feet as he whistled a Panayan love hymn. He always believed that the angels and demons with their useless ongoing battle between good and evil was irrelevant to a human world who had no concept of either idea. The Panayans only knew of love and prosperity. It was Linkera that was cursed with these foreign, painful concepts.

But he didn’t let his new family know about his frustrating thoughts, although it seemed that his soon to be father in law, Calm, knew more than he let on about Linkera’s “masters”. Linkera was somewhat confused on what it was that Calm did as a minister. Calm would always promote compassion and consideration to everyone he saw, but it wasn’t like they weren’t already doing it. But then again the Panayan ministry wasn’t created until his supposed enemy, Chaos, started to show up.

The rumor going around Pangaea was that this Chaos guy was going around the smaller villages and was starting to get everyone he came across to join some vague cause. The people of Pangaea had no concept of corruption in their vocabulary, but Linkera was told by his creators that Chaos’ primary goal was to drive the human race insane. Supposedly, he felt that all this structure and order flew in the face of the human race’s true nature.

Linkera looked at all the children scrambling to their homes to get to their dinners. Everyone in Parta had dinner at sunset. They were very big on structure and family time. He could only grin as he thought about how the war between the angels and demons was causing more destruction to humanity than this Chaos ever could. They told him that they came to earth from heaven to do battle against each other to save the souls of man. They would use the individual spirits of each person as a battleground. Linkera could always tell when a particular person was hosting the latest battle. They would have a flash of confusion in their eyes that would last for only a moment before they moved on with whatever they were doing. Linkera knew that a second in Earth time could range anywhere from hours to days in spiritual battle time.

It was amusing to him, especially for the angels that were trying to avoid the destruction of Utopia, that they did not realize that if they kept doing what they were doing, humans were going to fall in Chaos’ hands because of the contradictory ideologies swirling inside them.

Linkera was a few steps away from his home, when he looked around for any signs of danger. He was slightly paranoid that Chaos would show up in his town one of these days and inject craziness into his happy little town. Linkera spat at the ground because of that thought. The stone homes around him were decorated with personal touches such as each family’s symbol painted on the front doors. Each family had their own unique house painted in a color that defined their bloodline but still matched well with all the other spectrums of the town. He could remember that the two towns of the terrestrial angels and demons, who were known collectively as Terrawarriors, were colored in stark black and whites.

The Terra Angel city of Anyin and Terra Demon city of Yangde were located in the center of the Earth. They were neighboring cities that were divided by a massive wall. The only way to visit the warring cities was to have an amazing connection to spirituality. Linkera understood this to mean that a stronger focus on the intangibles of existence granted someone access. The Terra Warriors were already purely made of spiritual energy and they created him with the energy of both sides. He was a  Terra bred human with the kindness of the angel and the brute strength of a demon.

He gazed at the infinity symbol that defined Calm’s bloodline on his wooden front door. Linkera was always impressed with Calm’s perspective on eternity. He would always say that the positive impressions we make on one another is the epitome of eternal life. Good works will survive in communities while selfish desires have limited life spans. Calm’s beliefs would probably have no effect on the Terra Warriors, Linkera wondered as he opened the door to his human home.

He looked around at the perfectly clean living room and sparked a fire at the fireplace to give a degree of warmth on this cool summer night. The rest of Calm’s clan were visiting relatives in the neighboring village of  Triste and they wouldn’t be back until tomorrow afternoon. Linkera looked at the synthetic green carpeting that covered the ground from the living room to beyond. The walls of the house matched the jade flooring giving anyone who visited the feeling of a verdant forest. He decided against eating anything and crashed overdramatically on the green carpet and rolled over onto his back and sprawled.

He closed his eyes to remember his last day living in the Terra Cities. The Terra Warriors were terrified of Chaos. They had no chance of beating him but they knew a human being could take him on. They called a truce and created Linkera in the hope that he would kill him. He could remember the endless training and hypocritical morality lessons imposed on him by the Terra Angels. Both sides weren’t fighting for their respective masters. They both were obsessed with winning and power. They didn’t want Linkera to fight for some greater purpose; they just didn’t want anyone getting in the way of their selfish desires.

Linkera could remember his frustration of being someone’s pawn, so he ran away from his creators and found his way to the overground where he infiltrated Pangaea and met the love of his life: Seraph.

He could care less about wars and battles. He didn’t believe humanity could be corrupted by Chaos, the angels, or the demons. He didn’t believe it was his fate to fight. He wasn’t supposed to exist, after all.

All he knew, as he fell asleep on the floor was that he was going to take the life that he was given and do with it as he desired.

He didn’t believe in fate.

He believed in freedom.

And the only freedom that mattered was to be in love with her; that was his definition of eternity and no chaos could ever come of that…

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Categories: Tales of Destiny, The Deserter, THE LINKERA-CHAOS ERA | Leave a comment

Secret Linian Man

Posted on January 12, 2012 by rochardscott

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1988

   The music wasn’t loud enough in Carlos Morales’s headphones to avoid the sound of the torrential downpour. The rain was rattling all around the bus carrying the future soldiers down the busy highway. Carlos tried to keep his eyes shut trying to ignore the impatience growing inside his mind. He knew that there was nothing he could do about it at this point. All he could do was hope to ignore his…needs.

This was the first time he made a trip to the mainland of the United States. He grew up in Puerto Rico all of his life, raised by his mother and the memory of a father who also served in the military. Carlos turned up the volume on his cd player, his  black, short-cropped hair seemingly swaying to the heavy metal music. He thought he heard somebody speaking to him, so he had to power down the Megadeth.

But just a little bit.

He opened his eyes again to see the young Asian man sitting next to him. They met and chatted for a few minutes before getting on the bus. They didn’t really speak that much afterwards, but he did remember that the guy’s name was Dylan Kim. Carlos noted the irritation in Dylan’s eyes and he prepared for the obvious complaint that was headed his way.

“Not to be an ass, but can you turn that music down? That stuff’s just a little too much for my ‘fragile’ ears to handle.”

Carlos grinned at Dylan’s attempt at being polite, but he knew that most people couldn’t stand metal, least of all his mother. He nodded politely and left the music at a reasonable level. Unfortunately, his mind focused on the shattering rain outside and his “urges” returned. He closed his eyes again and he forced himself to remember his last day in Puerto Rico.

His mother, Carmen Morales, was ultimately the mother AND father figure in his life, and she was the primary reason why he was joining the military. She knew, as a very select few on Earth knew, that the dark days were coming soon and the world needed all the soldiers it could get. She raised him to become one of those soldiers.

He needed to join the Linian military group, Last Line.

The Linians were a secret group of people dedicated to stopping a man named Chaos from destroying everything human civilization tried to maintain. He was supposedly coming back to finish what he started and the members of Last Line, who had members who infiltrated every major and minor governmental institution on Earth, had to be prepared for his second coming.

There were a few more Linian groups such as The Illusion Guard and Sheild of Destiny, but Carlos’s family were members of Last Line. His father was a respected soldier who died before he was two years old. He had no memories or strong feelings towards his father. That he had an ambivalent attitude about Ramon Morales really drove Carlos crazy. He didn’t remember his mother being sad about the death of her husband, but he assumed that she probably put all that negative energy into training her son to be a soldier.

Carmen Morales was known as one of the great Lieutenants in Last Line history. She met his father when she joined Last Line at eighteen. The amazing thing about the Linians that impressed Rain was that gender was irrelevant to their “special forces”, something that the rest of the human race needed to get over. Soon.

His parents were a dynamic duo of sorts. They were known for their ability to stop “Anomalies” from ever being exposed to the public. Last Line referred to the beings that came from the other realms that had no business on Earth as Anomalies. Linians were the only people on Earth that were aware that other lifeforms existed beyond the Solar System. Their job was to keep this secret from being exposed in the hopes of stopping fear and chaos to spread on Earth. Every once in a while, someone would see something that they weren’t supposed to and Last Line would have to cover it up by dismissing these individuals as delusional. It was a small price to pay to avert mass hysteria.

His mother and father mission success rate was one hundred percent. They did not allow one Anomaly to be exposed to anyone who wasn’t a Linian.

In the back of Carlos’s mind, was the awareness that the rain had stopped. He opened his eyes and was thrilled that his “urge” had gone away. Hopefully the Pittsburgh chapter of Last Line got his request of necessities. He looked over at Dylan Kim knocked out and he realized that he must have been in deep thought for a while now.

He looked out the window and saw a massive military installation lying beyond a massive rain-soaked grassy field. The gray sky was starting to slowly fade away as Carlos started to wonder how blue the sky was back home. But then he started to think about the piano at his home and he was glad that it wasn’t raining right now.

The bus pulled up into the stone-walled fortress that looked like it was built sometime around the fifties. He gently nudged the drooling Dylan Kim awake as the bus stopped in the dampened courtyard. They both noticed all the severe looking instructors lined up in front of the shiny gray entrance to the building looking like a line of cranky trees. Carlos knew that one of them had to be Commander Deborah Faucett.

Commander Faucett promised his mother explicitly that she would knock even more sense into the young Morales. How anyone could be more rigid than his mother, Carlos did not expect that fact to be surpassed. But legend had it that Faucett was as hands on as any commanding officer has ever been in Last line history

The front door of the bus slid open with a pressurized gasp as Lt. Faucett broke from her rank of angry colleagues to march right up the steps to the front of the bus and barked at the riders, “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, you need to get your asses off this bus and line up in front of your masters RIGHT NOW!”

And as quickly as she returned to her lineup, every single recruit on the bus moved quickly of the bus and lined up in front of the commanding officers in horizontal rows  twelve going four deep. Carlos noticed a woman that they met, Melissa Davis, was the very first one of the bus, and impressed the higher-ups with her precision movements. Dylan had an obvious crush on her and Carlos, even though he found her to be an intelligent blonde bombshell, let Dylan take the lead because he expressed his attraction to her in the open first.Carlos didn’t sweat it; there’s always more women out there.

Walking off the bus, the aftertaste of the passing rainstorm filtered through his head as he hoped that what he requested was waiting for him in his sleeping quarters. But first he had orders to attend to and that could not wait.

*                                                            *                                                                 *

Through the miracles of modern luck, he found himself sharing a room with both Melissa Davis and Dylan Kim. Once again, gender didn’t matter to the Linians: they were too sophisticated socially to act like children. But what impressed him even more was that the piano that he asked for was waiting for him there as well. The healthy sized room gave the trio plenty of room to breathe and the piano was not an inconvenience at all. His roommates looked at the instrument with slight confusion as Rain decided to explain why he needed it:

“Not to bore you guys to death but I always had this thing when I was a child that involved the rain and a piano. I guess whenever it rains, I just have this urge to play the piano. I don’t understand why that is, I just know that I can’t think of anything else when it rains. They called me ‘Rain’ back home because of it. So… I apologize in advance if it rains at a bad time.”

Melissa’s blonde locks dangled as she unpacked her bags full of clothes and essentials on hr bed, “No problem, Amadeus. I mean how often can it rain?”

She got her answer as they heard another round of torrential downpour pounding the top of the building. Rain was relieved that he could sit down and play out a beautiful arrangement that mesmerized his partners as he hoped that he would do his parents proud and be the best Linian he could be…

Categories: Secret Linian Man, Tales of Destiny, THE SECOND ELITE ERA | Leave a comment

Linian Girl

Posted on January 12, 2012 by rochardscott

 

Karen Weathers

Piersdale High School, New Jersey 1994

The cafeteria was unusually cold today in Karen’s mind. It was almost the end of May and the noisy lunchroom still felt like Siberia on steroids. Karen was sitting  at the end of a lunch table alone waiting for her friend, Jeanette Kean, to meet up with her. She hoped that conversation would be able to keep her mind off the chilliness.

Scanning the room to see if anyone else was displaying signs of being frosty, Karen came to partially conclude that it was all in her head. The other possible reason was that she wondered if getting a birthday gift for Terrell Dest was a good idea.

It wasn’t a good idea for a covert bodyguard to have romantic affections for the person she was supposed to protect.

Karen scratched the top of her head that was covered by long black hair that draped around her attractive ebony face. She ignored the obvious looks from the jerks scattered through the room that were looking for nothing more than a trophy babe. She was annoyed that it was taking Jeanette so long to get her damn food. She was afraid to let her mind wander back into the past.

She was glad that the powers that be didn’t place Terrell in her lunch period this year. She needed to have time for herself at some point in her life. She could remember when her parents told her what her purpose in life was to be: to protect the life of Terrell Dest at all costs.

They told her this when she was ten years old.

It was hard enough being part of a secret group that ninty eight percent of the human population had no idea ever existed. She could remember the day that her parents brought her to a certain meeting.This was where the children of this secret group of people called Linians were exposed to  their so-called “purpose in life” .

Karen could remember that her ten-year old self could barely process the history of the Linkatsa Religion that the children were being taught that day. They were told that they were followers of  the teachings of a man called Linkera. This Linkera was a man who existed at the beginning of time whose sole purpose was to fight this other “man” called Chaos. Chaos’ goal was to drive all mankind to insanity and, if he failed that goal, he would wipe out the human race completely.

Karen tried to shut her mind down from remembering the day she was forced to live for another person’s safety. She wondered  how the world would respond if they learned about this secret history of human civilization. She knew that the Linians, since the beginning of time, have kept the story of Linkera and Chaos from the rest of the human race. Most of her friends weren’t Linians and it frustrated her that a whole other part of who she was had to remain in a forced shadow.

In what felt like ages, the lanky looking Jeanette Alexander sat down across from Karen with a lunch tray that had grilled cheese, fries, and a boxed apple juice on it. The cheesy odor meshed well with Karen’s personal pizza’s semi burnt ozone. Karen looked into Jeanette’s almond eyes and  remembered the first time the two met.

It was at that very Linian indoctrination.

She could recall seeing Jeanette seated in between both of her parents, her little toothpick legs barely reaching the ground yet they swung back and forth with impatience as this tired looking but serene old man was introduced to the audience after that brief explanation of  Linkera and Chaos.

They called him Mystic Calm.

He supposedly knew this Linkera personally. He told the children that he was alive for almost as long as the earth existed. Karen, at the time, believed in Santa Claus, so that piece of information was not a stretch for her kid comprehension. He went on about things like having respect for all living things and stopping Chaos at all costs. She thought that if the rest of humanity had ever learned about how the Linians put this much pressure on children, it would be labeled as child abuse.

The children also were told that they would have to protect a certain person at all costs. Supposedly this person would be able to take down Chaos at some point in the future. When Karen was told who this person was, she was surprised because she had been in every class with this guy since she was in Kindergarten.

His name was Terrell Dest.

After the meeting, Mystic Calm took Karen and her parents aside to an office behind the nondescript meeting area and told the three of them that Karen was to be Terrell’s primary bodyguard.

Karen snapped out of her remembrance by way of Jeanette tossing a mangled french fry at her forehead. Young Weathers laughed, but on the inside, she envied her silly friend for having a relative lack of responsibility.

As proud as she had become with the Linian culture, she learned eventually that fifth grade in public school turned out to be a joke compared to what she would  learn to deal with…

Karen was trying to focus on whatever gossip Jeanette was blabbing on about. Something about Wilson Esco getting punched in his mouth by his girlfriend for cheating, but her mind was still fixated on her duties as Terrell Dest’s secret bodyguard.

She remembered learning from her parents that there were Linians that had positions in every single government around the world and that they could position members where they needed to go in order to fulfill their respective missions. They told her that certain members of the Piersdale School Administrative Board had positioned Karen since Kindergarten to have the same classes with Terrell. They figured that would be the best way for Karen to have some sort of understanding of her “responsibility”.

She made this whole bodyguard thing to be a game when she was younger. It was like a video game mission or something.

At least that’s what her imagination told her.

As she began her Linian lessons and started her physical training in the martial art of Linkatsu, she started to befriend the clueless young Dest. Fifth, sixth and seventh grade went smoothly for Karen. The two of them would do plays together and wrote cheesy adventure stories. She learned through her family that Terrell’s adopted parents were Linians as well. Karen felt a tinge of guilt about Terrell’s life being overly monitored, but what could she do about it?

It seemed that eighth grade would eventually change everything…

Karen focused her attention back on Jeanette’s useless chatter and quickly excused herself to go to the bathroom. The cafeteria still felt cold as she exited into the hallway. The dull beige of the walls gave Karen’s psyche the feeling of being a prisoner. Everything she did for Terrell when they were thirteen years old blew up in her face and she couldn’t explain to him why.

She made it to the filthy girls bathroom which had THAT dingy smell. It wasn’t strong but it had a persistent buzz that tickled her nose. It was like candy and mild vomit swirled together. She went to the sink to splash cold water on her face and her mind traveled back to middle school.

It was the day before she and Terrell were about to perform opening night in the school play called Tender Battles. It was written by one of their teachers who was a failed playwright. She remembered Terrell talking about that teacher, Ms Henderson, and how scary it was to put all that hard work into something and still not achieve what you want.

Karen argued that maybe Ms Henderson was meant to be a teacher and not a writer, but Terrell didn’t want to hear about what people were meant to do. It was at that point that he started to tell her about these weird dreams he was having. He told her that he had dreams about living these past lives that felt as real as the conversation they were having. She looked into his eyes as they darted around in his sockets looking for some explanation for knowing things like how it really was during the Industrial Revolution.

Karen tried to downplay her fears at the time because she was scared that he was remembering his past lives. The Linians told her that his essence was to be reincarnated over and over until the day that he was fated to face Chaos.

They also told her that he wasn’t supposed to remember these things as well.

She tried to comfort him and tell him that he wasn’t going crazy but he started crying and told her that he had always felt like he wasn’t who he was supposed to be. She started to cry and hugged him. They embraced for a long moment until he broke away and apologized for being lame. She tried to comfort him again with kind words but, by that point, he was beyond embarrassed and asked her to go home. She respected his wishes and left.

The next day, she didn’t see him at school all day. She started to get worried but her parents told her that he was just taking the day off. It wasn’t until an hour before showtime that Terrell showed up. But he didn’t speak to her the whole time. It wasn’t until after the show ended that he said anything to her. He told her that he need to be left alone to figure out things and she needed to respect his decision. She knew that his decision was final, so she did as she was told.

Of course, she still had to keep her eye on him.

It hurt her to have to watch over someone who she cared about, but was not able to get close to. She watched on as Terrell started to shut out his school friends one by one until he became a loner. This situation continued on from eighth grade onto ninth, tenth and the eleventh grade.

Karen looked into the bathroom mirror and couldn’t tell the difference between the splashed water and the tears on her face. She cleaned herself up and steeled herself for more of Jeanette’s yakkity yak.

She walked out the bathroom and bumped into none other than Terrell Dest.

Terrell was the last person of the face of the planet that Karen needed to see right now. She flashed him an awkward smile and he returned the gesture with respectful eyes to go along with it.

After a moment of silence and heavy glaring, Terrell said, “Hey Karen. How’s everything?”

She looked into his brown eyes and imagined how much pain he could have experienced through his many lifetimes and if that was what was making him go insane.

Reincarnation must be so much fun for the psyche.

Karen also knew an empty conversation starter when she saw it. But it would be beyond ignorant to just walk away, so she decided to play the social game. She smiled again and said, “The same old stuff. I mean the school paper is eating up most of my time; I have to hold everyone’s hand in there. Honors classes are kicking my ass at the same time. Thank God school’s almost done. How are you?”

“Me? I guess nothing really. My parents are getting on me about what I’m gonna do after I get out of school. I really don’t care, but I humor them. Love them to death, but the nagging gets a little tired.”

If there is one thing in the world that Karen Weathers couldn’t stand (besides keeping her Linian lifestyle a secret), it was people who just do nothing with themselves. The Linkatsa Religion gave her that sense of focus, especially her Linkatsu training. Long considered the most technical martial art ever created, developed by Linkera himself, she was the first person in Linian history to ever master it. The other Linians couldn’t grasp it, so they just trained in the other relatively simple disciplines.

It was said by Mystic Calm himself that Karen was officially the most physically powerful person on Earth. No other human being could stand a chance in hand to hand combat against her. Nonhumans, on the other hand…

If Terrell only knew that he had the best bodyguard in human history on his side, would he actually open up to her more? But she could never tell him that.

That  really sucked.

Only for her, of course.

Terrell started to make the motions of moving away from her as he said, “I know it has to be hard for you that we’re not friends anymore. I’d like to be friends with you too, but with the way I feel about everything in my life, I really need to keep away from people until I figure myself out. I really hope you understand that.”

Karen could only nod her head.

He continued, “You have to know that I miss you. I do, but I don’t want you to see me like this. I’m trying to get over my mess. I know I will someday and I’m gonna make everything up to you.”

He grabbed her hand and gripped it with love.

“You’re my best friend.”

He let it go and walked away from her.

With the sound of his footsteps echoing away from her, Karen couldn’t stop crying. She realized at that moment that she wanted her best friend back but now was not that time.

As she wiped away her tears and composed herself, she started to head back to the cafeteria. She realized that this would not be the right time to give him his birthday gift.

But next year, when they’re seniors, he’s getting his gift.

And she’s absolutely getting her friend back.

Categories: Linian Girl, Tales of Destiny, THE SECOND ELITE ERA | Leave a comment

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