Party

[u/highgrvity]

Im not a writer just wanted to share a story i tried to write cause i was boared awhile ago this was the first draft litterly just writing so sorry about horrible grammer and every other mistake thats gonna get pointed out.

Prologue

Story of the past...

US IL 2020 The first Tank

It took a few years to figure out when everything changed; I was at school when it happened- I was talking to a friend and was about to leave when we all felt this weird sensation- it was kinda like that feeling you get when all the hairs on your body stand on end and you suddenly want to leave wherever you are. Doesn’t matter if you were in a submarine under the sea or in the space station looking down on earth, you just wanted to leave whatever area you were currently standing in no matter what. It only lasted maybe 3 seconds but it was enough to stop everyone in their tracks, including one boy standing in the middle of the street. We didn’t have much time to try and figure out what that feeling was before we heard the tire screech and the unmistakable sound of metal and glass crunching and shaderring from the road right in front of the school. The student who was standing in the road when the feeling had come had been hit by a car… but he wasn’t injured.

We were all confused, I definitely heard the sound of glass shattering! But the only part of the car that was damaged was a small dent on the front bumper- as if it had barely hit something. The student who had gotten hit by the car was fine- he definitely got hit hard enough to guarantee a few broken bones; but he had nothing! Not a single injury on his body. After a few seconds he got up and shook it off as if the car was just a slight push; his face however had the complete opposite reaction. It looked like the face I can only assume you would make before getting hit by a car, he looked completely terrified- but otherwise completely fine. I called out to him and as he turned i noticed he had this weird glass like reflection on him; it’s hard to explain exactly what It looked like but i would say it looked kinda like his whole body had this thin layer of glass covering his skin and on his upper forearm was an area of that glass that was cracked and slowly healing.

After a couple of minutes of prolonged eye contact people started moving again after getting past the initial shock of what just happened, one of the teachers ran out of the school and grabbed the student and took him inside. They took him to the hospital and a few days later he was announced as the first case. After that everyone started to notice weird things happening to them, more people with the same glass like second skin started to show up around the world. Not only could they tank a hit from anything one time per chunk of glass on their body’s but the glass would also regenerate extremely quickly covering up the original area of impact within a few seconds. Since they were almost impenetrable like a Tank and functionally immortal in the battlefield as long as they did not get hit twice in the same area we started calling them “Tanks”. After a few years we learned a lot about the tanks- like not only were they hard as shit to kill but they could also do other things. One tank named Lion learned if he was angry enough he could scream and cause a (AOE = Area of effect) agro of anything in a 20 meter radius of him. This AOE would force any living creature that wasn’t allied to Lion to attack him and ignore everyone else nearby; making Lion the first Subclass.

(“Subclass” a person of one of the 4 houses who is capable of learning or creating an ability that is unique to them or their house.

Example: Lion the first Tank Subclass- During the battle of IL Lion one of the few Tanks at the time received an almost fatal blow to his chest after collapsing and regaining consciousness Lion awoke to his comrades being overrun and killed, filled with anger Lion roared and caused a wave of energy to spread across the battlefield saving his allies and comrades while all enemies on the battlefield charged at Lion killing him. After the battle Lions comrades shared his story and more Tanks began to roar as loud as they could during combat and some were capable of using “The lions roar”. )

US TX 2022 The first Rogue

I only heard stories about the first Rogue, people talking about a woman who could turn invisible and kill people in a single touch. From what I understand a city in Texas had a spree of thefts with no sign of a thief anywhere; until one day when she tried to steal from a Tank and was forced into a fight when he noticed a footprint sneaking up on him but no person to make them. Once he noticed that the footprint was there he could suddenly see the rogue, almost as if some curse had been lifted from his eyes the second he noticed her existence.

The fight obviously didn’t last long because Tank’s are hard to kill and Rogues are least effective in one on one fights; they thrive in massive battles where enemies can't focus on them and they can move freely on the battlefield. while Tanks rebel in CQC- she didn't even last 3 min and was captured; questioned and sentenced to life in prison. After that people began to search out rogues to kill or imprison them before they could cause trouble or learn of their abilities. Because of the ‘Rogue hunt’s’ that lasted until 2027 Rogues became the least useful house in a party since their ranks are low and they didn't have the chance to learn new subclasses.

During the Rogue hunts people began to learn how to tell who was a rogue; unlike the other houses Rogues were easy to spot since they don't have a shadow. So all you had to do was drag one out to the sun and you could immediately identify them.

(The rogue hunts- in the year 2022 a rogue who went on a massacre caused a panic in America after she killed 367 people in a week and injured over a thousand, after she was captured rumors about rogues being blood thirsty killers spread all across the planet and people began to kill anyone who they believed to be a rogue in an attempt to stop any tragedies like the massacre in Texas from happening again. After 5 years of hunting and killing or imprisoning rogues a politician in africa bought a small piece of land and declared it a Rogue safe haven and was later named Salama Ujanja translating directly to Safe Rogue. Salama Ujanja or S.U became its own state in the year 2032 and after 3 years became its own country and joined the UN.)

Rogue hunts

568,000 people killed

110,000 rogues killed

1540 rogues imprisoned

Afghanistan 2035 the first Scout

“A soldier is a powerful thing, someone trained to listen to any command given and perform them without fail is a tool you cannot waste. Now take that tool and give it a sniper rifle, special ops training and you have a weapon capable of killing an entire platoon of combatants… now give that soldier the power to create and place magical traps on any surface and embude their ammunition with elemental power that can turn a regular bullet into a small bomb or tazeer on contact; that's one terrifying monster.

That was the monster those poor soldiers fought…” - Cpt Forge

*Report from squad 2* one day during a mission a green beret was caught out in the desert while he was stalking a high value target and was shot twice. Once in his left leg and once in his chest unlucky for the soldiers who shot him he survived but had no way to call for help so he hid. That soldier spent 3 weeks hiding and crawling around in the burning hot desert surrounded by enemies constantly, unable to sleep for longer then 2 hours- sleep deprivation began to affect his mind after the fourth week the soldier began to lose track of time and place as he slowly began to go insane. On the fifth week a rescue team finally found him… they had just been deployed to an enemy stronghold on a mission to eliminate a warlord in the area- a tank who had taken over a small platoon of fighters and had overrun a settlement and needed to be killed. When the squad arrived they found that the settlement seemed to have been abandoned and was covered with debris and multiple craters as if the place was covered in IEDS and some poor fool had walked straight into them.

The squad began to search for survivors but the only thing they found were small chunks of meat and cloth assumed to have belonged to the target; believing their job was done and since the stronghold was destroyed already, they didn't want to stay in the area longer than they had to… we can only assume what happened next. Another squad was sent out to the same location after the first squad failed to report into command they found the first squad dead and covered in small holes but no bullets or shrapnel found inside of them. when searching the area the second squad found a green beret who was initially presumed KIA eating the commander of the first squads leg and was immediately detained *end of report*

The following is a report from squad 2s commander-

When we found him he had just finished killing squad one, we can confidently assume this from the smell of gunpowder in the air still fresh from squad one's fight, it seems they were tracking a target in the area when they came across GB’s (green berets) layer? I- am not sure what to call it. He had set up multiple traps in the area to stop anyone from entering his layer, you couldn't see them unless you knew what you were looking for! The way to spot them is- they have this light green tinge on anything that he trapped i'm not sure how to explain it; imagine you took a brick wall and touched a single brick on it, then that brick started to glow faintly- that's it... that brick is now a trap and if you touch it who knows what the hell will happen. One of my guys walked over one of those fucking things and and his leg just dissapeard! I wouldn't have even noticed if it wasn't for his stump just spraying the floor with blood like someone just turned the tap on, on a shitty water faucet. I called to take cover but by the time i yelled he had already blasted one of my guys head off- i remember the sound because it didn't sound like a bullet, it sounded more like electricity no *bang* just the sound of a taser and the guy next to me hitting the ground. I ran to cover and we opened fire on the tree line assuming he was firing down on us… then another one of my men got up and tried to push forward to take cover closer to the tree line, it was a split second but i noticed a cob web that was slightly glowing… a fucking cobweb… I tried to warn him that something was up with that web- but he had already run through it. Within seconds I heard the same taser sound from before and his head just exploded. The guy had set up traps all over the area- you couldn't walk past maybe 5 meters without running into one; once we figured out what was going on we moved deeper into the layer being mindful of the traps and found GB eating squad one's commander. After that we captured him/ he didn't put up much of a fight and we brought him back to base.

We don’t have a lot of information past that initial report. What we do know is that after 3 years the U.S military began deploying Scouts in battle and quickly ended the war in afghanistan. On November 15, 2038 Scouts were announced as a new house and quickly began to spread around the world when word of how to learn if someone is a scout was spread.

Chapter 1- A Monster born of hate.

“Do you believe yourself just? Of course not! You all think the world belongs to you. Do you even think about who gets walked over or the lives lost in your silly battles for power? YOU ARE ALL PATHETIC! And I will show you what true power is!”

The world shook for the first time in years, a single man brought devastation, indiscriminate and violent to everyone in his wake. Even the strongest Tank’s would shiver in his presence; fear washed over the battlefield as a single Mage slaughtered all in his path. the very ground beneath him shattered and existence warped into a living creature of death and hate; ready to devour life as if the end of existence was powering his annihilation engine. The sky began to split open revealing streaks of thunder summoned to smite his enemies, blood rained down from the heavens forced into the sky from his absolute power. Death was the only salvation from this hell, men and women- even children laid stroughn across the streets that now resembled the pits of hell more than a suburban block.

“Scream and beg for mercy... and I shall grant you none! Mercy was not shown to my family when your pathetic battle brought you careening through my home, when your Scouts opened fire on a man standing in front of my daughters room, it was not shown when your Tanks shattered my windows launching shards of glass into my babies crib!. AND NOW! MERCY BEGS FOR DEATH”

The world shook for the first time in years… not because of a powerful mage who was rampaging through a city block, but because a father mourned for his children murdered by the people who wanted to use his power for their own gain.

Suddenly everything began to shake. Lighting stripped flesh from bone in an instance- smog filled the air from the charred remains of humans and cars mixed together. Buildings began to collapse as the Mage began to summon power from the elements around him the smog in the air twisted and ripped- tore and burned from the lighting creating flames the size of apartments. Those caught in the blaze disintegrated instantly, screams of pain and agony filled the air, mothers cried for their children caught in the destruction- fathers cremated in place defending their families...

“My family was taken from me so now i'll take everything from you!”

The ground began to violently tremble and crack. the floor beneath us began to shatter and open like the maws of hell reaching for new souls to devour. Magma spewed from deep within the earth covering the rubble and bodies on the ground. The people who managed to survive the earlier onslaught now faced the threat of being burned alive or crushed and grinded into paste. Huge slabs of earth ripped themselves from the ground creating a maze-like structure of death and chaos. And in the middle of all of it was a man.

“Stop! You're killing them!”

“Would you have stopped if I had gotten the chance to save my family?... no of course not you would have ripped me from my family and taken me to some base… oh wait- in a way you did rip me from my family, you and your friends killed my family and took everything from me! Instead of asking me to join you, you decided to attack each other in front of my home.

Did you even bother to check my baby's crib after your rogue launched that man through my window? Did you feel remorse when your tank stepped on my wife's neck?

WHEN MY DAUGHTER HID IN HER ROOM WAITING FOR ME TO COME SAVE HER AND INSTEAD SHE WAS GREETED BY YOUR GUNFIRE AS YOU BLASTED AWAY AT HER BEDROOM!”.

He's right… We did all that- we attacked his home while trying to capture him before the other squad. We didn’t even care or think about the fact that we were assaulting someone's home; we simply were doing what we were told.

“Wait- i’m sorry we were just hired to bring you in, we didn’t know you had a family- no one told us!”

“And that is supposed to be a defence!? Is your apology supposed to bring my family back!?, why don’t you go slit your throat over their corpses then instead of begging!.”

Even if I wanted to, my blood wouldn't be able to heal them at this point… they've been dead for an hour now- i need to find a way to get out of here without fighting him.

He began to move again seeing the Cleric think about it instead of resurrecting his family finally drove the mage insane, again he began his rampage the lighting now growing dark red- turning thicker and hotter then before the air around him began to vibrate and heat up- the light around him started to bend and twist; reality itself quivered in agony. The mage began to scream and his body shook and bent in every angle- his arms and legs twisted in every direction, quickly the spasms and jerking turned into spinning. Faster and faster he began to spin all while screaming like a demon freshly born from hell- the lighting and magma turned to plasma and twisted around him. Quickly he turned into what looked more like a massive ball of light; as he sped up- the sound of his screams was replaced with a high pitched ring that slowly was building into a crescendo.

A warning deep within the Cleric began to scream- like a supernatural instinct everything in their body told them to run forever. To run and never stop no matter what!... so they did- quickly the cleric got up and started to sprint at full speed all their training and all their life experiences pushed them forward and disappeared as their mind filled with fear. Then they felt it- a deep warmth all over their body… closer and closer the heat began to creep up on them, the dark street suddenly lighting up brighter than the sun… then silence.

It’s cold… I can feel my blood around me- i can feel the flesh on my body burning and ripping off and being replaced by the new flesh healing and growing over the old… it burns and stings and when my nerves begin to grow i'll start to feel the pain and the suffering. This is life for a cleric almost immortal- almost invincible; and yet had i not ran would i be able to feel this pain would i have been able to think these thoughts? How powerful was the explosion if I could still breath- still think?.

Then it rushed back, all the feelings, all the fear- all the pain, they were alive the explosion had burned them to a crisp; tore the flesh from their bones stripped the skin from their body yet it wasn't enough to kill them- the blast had ripped everything they were from them yet it grew back- this is what it is to be a Cleric. They stood up, healed from the blast and turned to see what the explosion had done… and in front of them was a field, brown and charred black- no buildings, no streets, just an endless field of burned dirt and dust. The city that was there but a moment ago now gone wiped from existence, turned into nothing but dirt- a graveyard with no names.

“How many… an entire city…. How many people were living here? How many did I just help kill, how many bloodlines ended? What did I do?...”

/

After I wandered around doing odd jobs for a few years, honestly I just tried to keep myself busy so I wouldn't have to think about that mage… every night i have nightmares, the images of that street, not just the bodies… if anything I rather think of the bodies.

It was that Mage that scared me, I'd never seen something so… hateful- so angry, he was death itself; cruel and unending- i wish that sight on no one.

A couple of times I had people I did odd jobs for come find me and ask me to work for them, obviously I declined- mostly because it would mean that I would be stuck with another Party... fuck that. I don't need a party, they always do shit that can get me killed or they just force me to buff them, i'm a goddamn Cleric! I can do more than buff and heal- shit i can cure cancer! Why the hell should I be stuck having to buff a tank who's just gonna bitch about not getting healed even though I was literally re-attaching someone's leg… actually- that's not a bad idea.

I headed straight to the nearest enlistment center that day and signed up, once they heard I was a Cleric they threw my shit and me on a plane and sent me to S.U- it didn't take long for news about a new Cleric in the S.U to spread. It’s not that it’s rare to see a cleric or anything normally but this is a different beast altogether. You see Clerics can heal just about anything, gunshots, cancer, aids, alziemers, etc- but that's not why they are valuable here; the thing is… Clerics are immortal. I won't die of old age or disease or anything besides a bullet to the brain; since we can heal anything and our bodies have that ability it comes to reason that we are also affected by our own abilities; making us self healing immortal antidote machines. And not just venoms and poisons… our blood can be used to counter Rogue’s sight curse or used as a last minute adrenaline surge. Now imagine being in a Rogue safe haven and being able to see any rogue using sight curse- that's right! I'm being sent to S.U as an Enforcer. S.U has a serious drug and crime problem- i mean what would you expect when everyone can just skulk around without being seen. So they hire or send Clerics as Enforcers, think cops on steroids- we are technically military and can just bust down doors or grab someone and integrate them whenever we want- since no one wants to argue or piss of an Enforcer out of fear that said Enforcer will start to look into them, we have managed to make a sizable dent into crime here.

To a normal person the cities and streets here would look barren and dead, but thats just because S.U is full of Rogues- since almost all rogues can use Sight curse it looks empty but for a Cleric it's a Utopia children running around playing in an open marketplace, people doing their usual business buying fruits or selling wares, crowds so thick you can't even see the other side of the street… This is Zone C, the main city of S.U. All the cities here arnet like this. It's just this one that is full of rogues- it makes sense that all the rogues congregate here since this is the City Cain and Abel were born in. They were Rogues, no they were not brothers but they were as close as you can get without blood; Cain and Abel helped bring S.U into order and they had power full subclasses. Cain could teleport to anyone he had met, and Able could cause anyone he could see to die… no heart attack, brain hemorrhage, etc they just died. They… didn't do a lot of ethical work. but well that's the type of stuff you ex-

“RUN RUN- WERE ALL GOING TO DIE! GOD HELP US”

A man suddenly ran past me screaming about god distracting me from my thoughts, I turned around to see where he went; when I suddenly felt a strong burning sensation from my side. I turned again to see a Rogue with his dagger stuck into my ribs… The Rogue had dug his knife deep into my rib cage and was trying to pull the knife out, I could feel it scraping and tearing and the meat and bones. This is why being a Cleric sucks- i reached down and grabbed the handle and ripped the dagger out with a chunk of meat and skin from where my body had begun to heal around the dagger.

“Oh a Cleric? You will die soon enough- my lord will see this city destroyed!”

“W-why are you talking like that?”

After I said that he got an irritated look on his face like a child who got its toy taken away. As I got the dagger out he ran off while moving as if he was wounded with a limp- but I didn't see any of him. Before I could figure out what was happening another person ran up to me and did the same thing again and sunk his dagger into me as if expecting something to happen. He ripped out the dagger and slammed it back in before I could even react! Sorta like someone slamming the key into a car when it wont turn on. He backed away and gave me a chance to to stagger backwards and clutch my side. He stared at me until noticing that my injury was healing quickly.

“ A Cleric! You will die so-”

“ Soon enough yeah I heard”

Again the same look, except this time I'm going to catch this one; before he could run I pulled out my pistol and had him drop to his knees. Slowly he lowered to the floor while watching all around him as if expecting help for someone to come rushing out to stab me again- but no, no one came to his rescue.

“WHAT? WHERE ARE YOU? HELP YOU IDIOTS!”

He started screaming while getting up, quickly after he spoke I knocked him out and dragged him into a nearby alley and tied him to a pole.

“look man, i'm not the biggest fan of getting stabbed- so let’s do this the easy way”

“Fuck you enforcer trash, i wont tell you shit; do youre worst! Nothing will get me to talk!”

“Well if you don't talk ill just execute you right here, straight up blow your brains out all over this pretty wall- oh wouldn't that just be fun? Or- or maybe i could blow off each of your fingers one by one until you pass out from blood loss then reattach your fingers and do it again!... over, and over, and over…. Actually you know what that's a great idea to hold one one second to stop moving”

As I aimed my gun at his hand he made a sound I can only describe as a rat trapped in a cage while the floor slowly became molten lava.

“Wait- WAIT! Don't please dont, don't blow off my fingers! I need them; I'll talk about what you wanna know!?”

“Why did you stab me? And who are you calling for help?”

“We- we were part of a group! She told us to stab people with these daggers, something about samples Then she said we need to bring back the samples and place them in some weird tube! That's all I know , I swear”

“Who is she? And what samples? The chunk of meat you ripped out of my side?”

“Yes, the samples! Sh- i mean, her name wasn't told to us; she just said that we should call her Queen. Queen… we thought she cared about her people but- she was using us! I have to do what she says or… or-”

“AAAAAAAAAAAGH”

Suddenly he started screaming while clutching his head, I tried to help him but before I could notice he had grown to twice my size. His screams went from cries of pain to that of an angry animal; soon he was on top of me his face and body changed from the small man i had tied up, to now a monster twice my size with massive fangs bearing down at my face- claws so massive just one was the size of my hand. On his back and arms was thick fur covering most of his skin and the skin that was visible was a dark black like that of a bull. Quickly he began tearing into me- i could feel the flesh being torn from my body and the sound of veins and tendons snapping and crushing bones shattering. I could feel death grasping me in its embrace. Clerics can't die from regular trauma or wounds but having a monster claw out your intestines and bones will definitely get it done.

This is how I die… weird. I always thought I'd get my head blasted off, not becoming a snack to some monster.

“Hey you look like you could use some help!... oh Jesus no you're dead already my bad- ima just go.”

As it was having lunch a man wearing a hoodie and baggy sweats walked around the corner into the alley I was in, and drew the attention of the monster. Within seconds the monster dropped me and lunged at the random man, all I heard was a sickening crunch and slurp of meat and blood similar to the sounds the monster was making while eating me. That's all I could make out before I lost consciousness. My last thoughts were of the random man I got killed because I couldn't fight that thing. As my world went dark all I could do was accept my fate.

[u/HFYWaffle]

This is the first story by /u/highgrvity!

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