Zombiedude101

Apocalyptica

Fallen, I was tempted to post our collab but something kept bothering me, so I figured I'd let you take a final look at it to decide.

Independent Comics Universe RPG

Unknown

The flames died down, the searing pain which tore across his body becoming a dull sensation of numbness, the ringing in his ears from the gas explosion becoming a subdued note of quiet, until there was nothing but darkness which surrounded him. Grunting exhaustedly, Jackie forced himself to his knees as he glanced around, hoping to find something but to no avail - only a shroud of darkness. He was within its realm once again.

"You insulted my legacy, Jackie..."

He felt the voice's presence, yet this time it wasn't inside his head, but instead came at him from all over. That choking, black tone which seemed to take care in making every word as agonisingly grating as possible, as if the only form of expression it understood was one of misery, chaos and evil - but then, maybe that was all that the darkness truly understood.

"You betrayed my gift..."

It spoke again, and like before the voice came from around him rather than within. Glancing around, Jackie shouted back towards the darkness.

"What do you want from me this time, dammit?!"

Silence followed, the darkness gave no answer but for the echoes of his own voice. Even now, after all this time, Jackie still had no idea where he was, or what the darkness had intended for him this time. When he'd died before, he'd gone to his own personal hell, one where the Darkness had reigned and forced him to face its own nightmares, an eternal war on the frontline trenches of the First World War, where he'd also met his great grandfather, Anthony Estacado - also trapped here by the will of the Darkness. But he also remembered how he'd found a light in that same darkness, fighting at Anthony's side to its very core until he'd been felled by another one of its nightmares, but all the same he was able to force it into submission, giving him the chance to finally take his revenge against that rat bastard Uncle Paulie.

This time, the voice spoke from within.

"This is not your time."

And he awoke.

---

Aunt Sarah's

As he stirred from darkness, the faint aroma of fresh cooking entered his nostrils and gave him even more incentive to wake up. A familiar voice gave him the final boot.

"You wakin' up, kid?"

Blinking several times, Jackie dragged a hand along his jawline as a man recovering from a binge-induced hangover might, glancing over towards Jimmy who was seated at a dining chair just across the room. Clearing his throat with a grunt, he answered sharply.

"I don't think I'm dreaming, at least."

Cracking a wry grin as he always did, the Grape nodded.

"Least you haven't lost your spirit kid, I'll give you that one. Jees, you really are one tough son-of-a-bitch. Christ, I woulda' thought Chef Vinnie had managed to cook a final dish outta you, but after the boys found you all busted up they took you back here for your Aunt Sarah to take a look at."

The familiar name made him smile.

"Yeah, thanks Jimmy.."

Right on schedule, she stepped into the room. Aunt Sarah wasn't a particularly imposing woman in any respect, standing just over five feet with short, greying hair which matched her pink and black sweater and greyed out pants, but regardless she drew respect from all those who'd come to know her - even the Chicago Guys. A long time ago, she'd moved from her life as a token Southern Belle to marry a distant relative from the Estacado clan, a respected mob boss, but even with such distance Jackie had always been close to her - were it not for her age, she most probably would've adopted Jackie from the orphanage as a boy, and even then she'd often visited him and vice versa, exchanging Christmas and Birthday Gifts. After losing Jenny, she'd been the only family he had left - and he was fiercely protective of the old woman.

Jackie brought himself to his feet as she approached, quickly drawing her into a loving embrace as she spoke up with her faint, Southern Drawl.

"I was so worried about you, Jackie.. when Jimmy helped carry you in here, I almost thought we'd lost you again.."

"I know, Aunt Sarah. I'm sorry, things got a little uh..."

"Complicated? I suppose the family always will be, especially now that disgusting piece of work Franchetti is no long around to keep the rest of those animals in line... but you need to be more careful, child. You lecture me on how I should take things more easily and let you do some things for me, that I'm all you've got left, but that works two ways kiddo.... ever since my Jimmy passed, you and Jenny were always there to talk to, and now you're the only thing I have left. Please, promise me that you'll try and take care of yourself a little more, if I were to lose you too... it might break an old woman's heart."

He nodded with a faint, saddened smile across his fine.

"I promise, Aunt Sarah."

"See? That wasn't so hard. Now c'mon over to the kitchen, I've made you and the boys something to eat, you must be starving by now..."

Even now, he couldn't help but stifle a chuckle at his dear old aunt's optimism.

Independent Comics Universe RPG

Nightrunner said
Almost like we should make a video game RP...Hey guys. I'll pass on dropping my usual excuses. I'm moving, so I'll probably post tomorrow.

A friend of mine did, actually - All The World's a Game, in case any of you might've seen it somewhere before.

On another note, sorry for my inactivity - some stuff's been coming up, but I'll be getting a post in soon.

Apocalyptica

Fallenreaper said
I have at least one idea, which includes Abigail waking up in an alleyway and having a bit of memory loss over what happened. It might allow some newbies to get in on this and what not as she would still remember her name and the important stuff, just not the events between her current situation and the last post, not to mention where she's at...hehee. (Which I have an explanation for this, I swear! It just has to be discovered IC as it slowly comes back to her.) However this is only if your plans don't free up Abbie. Also shortly will send you everything I talked to Aweena on about Abigail shortly.Currently I've got a small Remmy post about under a 1,000 words but I think I'll wait for a bit to allow someone else to post instead of spamming the IC. XD It could grew as well in that time.

In the meantime I've got something up for Remmy on the doc if you want to work with it, just got back yesterday.

Independent Comics Universe RPG

Wading Way
The Olive Garden

As the limosine pulled up outside the unsuspecting alleyway, Jackie glanced down towards the pendant of Jenny and closed his eyes, muttering something between a prayer and an apology on her behalf. It felt like an age before he finally brought himself to pocket the the pendant and step outside of the discreet cover which the limosine had provided, throwing a nod to the driver and taking a few quiet steps towards the alleyway and under the cover of darkness. Right here, right now - he could feel it. That excitement which the darkness always seemed to endow upon him on a night of killing such as this. Unsurprisingly, neither of Jimmy's guys had shown up as he'd initially offered; Jackie had sent them away and opted to handle the matter himself. After all, despite having taken out that rat bastard Uncle Paulie, a lot of people were still afraid of him. Afraid of what they'd heard, or caught glimpses of. And he couldn't have guaranteed their safety if they'd come along, either - the darkness had already taken Jenny from him, why would he allow it another opportunity to harm those close to him?

At the far end of the alleyway was a rusted old fire exit overhung by a crooked lamp which seemed to flicker constantly, but with a simple thought he spotted a tiny, imp-like creature skuttling out from behind a nearby dumpster and quickly grabbing a nearby brick, before tossing it at the bulb in order to smash it. With a grin which could've made a hardened veteran shudder, it turned towards Jackie with a set of dim, glowing eyes and gave him the thumbs up, before scuttling up towards the wall and scaling upwards as if it had changed the direction of gravity. Meanwhile, Jackie slowly approached the fire exit and after a quick grunt, he planted a boot against the door and kicked it open as if it were made of cardboard.

"Holy fucking shi-"

Without even bothering to listen to the surprised curses of the startled mobsters inside, Jackie quickly drew a hand down towards his holster and quickly withdrew a pistol, silencing the man mid-sentence before diving into the kitchen behind a set of stainless steel shelves as the bullets began to fly. Sure as anything, he timed his shots carefully, firing potshots at his attackers to goad them into taking cover, before waiting for them to pop back out so he could take a carefully aimed shot at their domes. Suddenly, a round tore through his sleeve and took a small bite at his arm, prompting him to let out a curse as he glanced up towards the ceiling, muttering to himself.

"C'mon, c'mon..."

And with that, his prayers were answered; a faint electrical sizzle popped across the room and the lights quickly dimmed, before fading out altogether - the handiwork of the darkling, which could've have come at a better time. Inside, he could feel that familiar, black voice chuckling as it spoke directly to him, as it always did.

"You like the blood, don't you?"

The next moment was something of a blur; he felt the black tendrils seeping out from behind him as its essence filled the room, the frightened mobsters letting out frantic curses or pleas to their beloved ones for mercy as he tore through them all. One of his 'snakes', the one to his left flank, quickly dug into one man's ribcage and tore out his heart before the other one, it's 'brother', tried to snatch it away, only for more hearts to become available for either one of them. Almost as quickly as it had begun, the fighting was over - the bloodbath had come. Having cleared out the kitchen and the dining area of the restaurant-bar of soldiers and enforcers, it seemed that his target lay in waiting upstairs - one Vincent Ricarci - one of Uncle Paulie's few remaining Lieutenants who'd laid claim to a sizely portion of territory and had become a problem in the eyes of the Chicago People. 'Chef Vinnie' as he liked to call himself, was said to have earned his nickname after Uncle Paulie had him murder the wife of a man believed to be a problem in Paulie's eyes, before feeding the wife's remains to the man in the form of a soup dish served to him at this very restaurant. Jackie never actually found out if it was a true story, but it didn't matter now - the only soup here tonight were the turned-out innards of the mobsters he'd just torn apart.

"Estacado, you fucking rat! You think you can muscle in on -my- turf just because you iced Uncle Paulie?!"

He could hear Chef Vinnie's screaming as he ascended the steps, though the man had failed to acquire the same level of intimidation or malice that Paulie had always held in his voice. Rounding the corner, he spotted the labelled boiler room which he easily knew to be the location of Chef Vinnie's final stand, yet what met him when he gave the door a boot was able to throw him off guard.

"Try that demon shit now, you fucking prick!"

"No, no no..... worthless puppet!"

Before he could react, Jackie spotted Chef Vinnie - sweating like a pig in all his miserable glory - with a lighter in one hand and what looked to be a torn away gas pipe in the other, with the thickening smell of gas spreading across the room. He knew damn well what the guy was about to do, even if it meant cooking himself in the process - and so did the darkness.

"Burn in hell, Estacado!"

Spinning on his heel, Jackie made a sudden dash for the nearest window as he spotted the flicker of light behind him and the faint lick of flames growing ever closer and closer. Just as he was about to reach the glass and dive through, the sudden force of the explosion ejected him through anyways. Of course, his fall was broken by an SUV - which incidentally had its entire roof caved in by the force of Jackie weighing upon it, and the last thing he recalled was the sight of a familiar beloved walking towards him, urging him to wake up before he finally blacked out.

"The host will not die...."

Apocalyptica

By the way, from Monday-Friday next week I'll be away though I'll try and find a way of keeping tabs on the RP. Got some work up on the doc yesterday, too.

Apocalyptica

By the way, I had something of a second character in mind who might have a significant role to play regarding the 1007th in the future. Since you're all an excitable bunch, I'll throw you a pair of initials - C.A. And yeah, this is sort of a character I've used before on an MTA RP server I used to go to, albeit in different circumstances.

Apocalyptica

Got another IC post up, anyways.

Apocalyptica

“It should be calmer back here, most of the folks around seem to have their own families to worry about these days.” Coltrane idly pointed out the makeshift trailer park which had been laid out across a residential area within the haven, a mass of mobile homes in different forms which ranged from would-be brand new pre-fabricated home models to rundown RV’s which were barely fit to drive, all of them carefully set to form a small town of its own within the haven. Luckily for them, most of it had been placed on top of vacant sites which had been due for redevelopment pre-outbreak and therefore the ground was either road, sidewalk or solid concrete as opposed to the intolerable sandblasted dustbowl or waterlogged conditions one would’ve expected at a traditional trailer park.

Making their way towards it, Coltrane led Remmy on past men and women who were either on their way to or headed back from the next working shifts for whatever duties they had whilst a few children were occasionally seen roaming about, doing what kids usually did - obviously. One or two strangers seemed to vaguely nod towards Coltrane as if they’d bothered to remember his face, but they were still strangers to him nonetheless - it’d take more than just a few weeks before he’d truly fit in with the others.

A few minutes of weaving through narrow shortcuts between the numerous trailers which lay astrewn across the area later and they were at the door of a familiar trailer. Well, familiar to Coltrane at any rate.

Remmy’s head still hurt like hell. He was thankful when Coltrane had helped him to his feet and supported his lanky ass upright on route to the trailer park, unable to focus enough to take in the hash together area like many others across America. His hand was wrapped in a strip torn from his shirt bottom and pressed to his temple, an attempt to stifle the gushing, which had darkened in color. Thankfully it only looked worse than it really was.

Unable to keep standing without the ground tilting, Remmy held on tightly to Coltrane while the man led. Inwardly Remmy was too busy fighting off his slight nausea and placing one foot in front of the other in their path through the trailers. Even the sounds couldn’t distract him from the unbalance caused by the bottle’s slam against his head yet it had faded some. After what felt like an endless maze, the man was relieved to see they had arrived and shifted to brace against the door side. Coltrane reached to unrig the manmade lock which keep others from entering in his absence as the last of the looped around wiring and crude padlock came undone and they made their way in, Remmy once again helped along.

Finally arrived, Remmy was eased upon an old, mothy seat in a one room living space. Its surface seemed even more dated than the eighties themselves, patterned in a grimy brown and slight plaid. Even in his pain, Remmy couldn’t help but make an amusing thought. For all he knew, if anything survived the apocalypse itself when it came then it would be this ugly couch. Inwardly he winced at the thought, causing Coltrane some concerns from the sounds of it, and the man’s voice sounded from the connected kitchen’s direction followed by a cooler’s lid slammed shut.

“Everything alright?” Coltrane’s head popped out around the corner, his eyes fixed upon Remmy warily.

Remmy simply nodded best he could. His body had leaned forward while his hands cradled his head, the blood’s flow slowed enough to remove the rag. The bayou man’s breath was steady and slow to push back the queasy sensation threatening to overwhelm him. He stayed like that until he heard the sound of Coltrane’s approaching footsteps and forced the aching body upright, his back leaned against the couch’s scratchy texture. Coltrane’s body was towered over his position and in his hands were two dark beer bottles, still damp with beads of water sliding down either side. Remmy immediately was about to push the offer away when Coltrane’s words made him reconsider.

“It’s not to drink, use it for to keep your head cool and keep down any headaches.” He shifted both bottles to one hand, then reached to remove the rag from his seat and plopped down once more to offer Remmy the beer, taking a swig from his own.

“Feels like my head is gonna need stitches brah.” Remmy’s mouth turned up into a casual smirk. His fingers wrapped about the bottle’s narrow neck as it loosely hung there, his mind turned inwards. His next words announced his thoughts subject clearly. “Are you sure he’s gonna be alright?”

“From what you guys said, all the shit you’ve been through; yeah, he’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.” Coltrane answered, reassuringly. Walking back over towards the window, he leaned forward to peer through the shades which were almost constantly drawn across the glass. Personally, he called it something of a bad habit developed through having to catch rest in a world where the wrong type of vouyer would get him killed, and even now the idea of leaving them exposed for anyone to peer inwards made him uncomfortable.

“Y’know, I wanted to ask- how’d you and Simon end up getting to know each other? You seem like something of an unlikely partnership.” He snorted amusedly at the last remark, glancing back over towards the wounded Cajun for an answer.

Remmy let a boyish grin creep to his lips, his mouth crooked which seemed to give him a relaxed attitude and appearance. For the moment, he was silent. His body pulled backwards to rest his lanky back against the couch with a muffled creak and his hand held the bottle’s base loosely against his throbbing head. He hissed when the cold surface touched the tender spot before he took a deep breath. Remmy’s eyes drifted a bit back into his memories while he answered Coltrane, taking a slightly risk in the thin trust that Simon appeared to have earlier.

“It’s a bit complex. See… I work with a group called Sentinels.” His eyes spotted the confused look Coltrane gave him and immediately fought the urge to burst out laughing. A motion which would’ve hurt his already roughly patched side, chancing it to open again just to bleed. “We’re just an odd collection of folk who want to do what’s right and help. I worked undercover as a slaver which meant I worked, slept, ate and buddies most the time. One thing while undercover was all I had to do: Scout ahead and signal to my pod where survivors were before the slavers got them. Sometimes it was too late to stop the events from happening or save the poor souls I caught. If I didn’t then likely be would’ve been in a ditch the next morning, unlikely I would’ve joined them as slavers aren’t the forgiving sort.”

Without thinking, Remmy pulled the now warmer beer from his head and pressed it to his lips. He tilted it up and down a bit, letting the yeasty taste burn at his throat all the way down. His hand rested in his lap when he continued his reminiscing. “Simon and his friend, a woman, gave us a chase to remember. At some point they drove their vehicle right off a cliff and into a river. I almost followed until I crashed on my side, pinned to the ground. Somehow they made it to an abandoned bar where I ended up scoutin’ around for supplies. That’s when I found her, just layin’ there and asleep. I signalled the pod as I helped haul her to the dark outskirts. I didn’t once fuckin’ think to check for others and by the time I returned...They had found him. I’ll never forget that. If I had just stopped and looked around, I could’ve found him and got ’em both out..”

Remmy let out small, bitter laugh at his mistake. As to chase away the sense of failure, he took another swallow of his beer then resumed to place it upon his head. “To top that off...Kurtis is gonna to kill me for rabbitin’ off after Simon despite the original goal.”

“Slavers, huh..” Coltrane frowned disdainfully, rubbing a hand along his jawline as he set his beer down before shifting his focus back towards Remmy. “I’d heard rumours and all, before and after I came here, never knew some people would be so fucking... inhuman”, he grimaced at the idea of being forced into slavery, picturing an image of being chained up whilst dragged along the long stretches of highways which ran across the West Coast. “ Raiding camps and attacking people for their supplies is one thing, roaming around with the Condemned’s another, but slavery? Fuck.. at least some of those people have you helping them out. Look, give us another hour and we’ll head off to find Simon again, alright?”

Orbitum 2 - SciFi Space Nation RP

I'm going to put in an application soon, I think. Just give me a little while.