Let's try to keep this RPG realistic. At the moment, I am locking this topic cause I'd like this topic to stay just between me and arrow. The point being that we WOULD like the members to contribute, but to give us ideas about it, here -> https://amalganation.forumotion.net/anything-goes-f9/ace-arrow-rpg-editor-s-cut-t602.htm#6851

Likely, you've read MILLIONS of these like before, but amalga doesn't have it's own, so me and Arrow decided to bring one here~! Enjoy reading. It's been a really long time since I got back to writing fiction, like almost 4-5 years, if not longer. So my skills might be a bit dull.

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I seriously don't recall the days of origin, so well. The days when everything started to go crazy. I don't remember much of those old days, the days when things were normal. It's been so long. I've almost left that life behind; left it, behind a new name, a new face, a new personality...

Somehow, I still remember that past-midnight call which woke me up to this nightmare. Arrow, (I barely even remember his real name now) shouting down the other end of the phone: "WTF ACE! WTF is happeneing?!"

Now that I look back, I don't think there were words more apt to describe the situation. To describe the shit we were getting into. Humanity had just got served. It was like being locked in with a raging bull- the terror only matched by the pain that it would undoubtedly involve

Something moved in the corner of my eye. Might have been he wind. Might have been my eyes seeing things. But nasty things often resemble this "wind". Checking it out would be as good as standing where I was. I guess the best option would be to get a better vantage point. I moved cautiously.

Memory. How it sucks when it gets the worst things back to the mind's eye at such wrong times. If the days that followed were gone from my memory, then I can assure you that the first day won't ever get out of this mind of mine. I still recall Arrow on his bike outside my window, panting insane. Me badgering him to get upstairs - the empty road proving his constant argument invalid. Ignorance is bliss. I recall the cup of coffee in his hands falling and shattering on my floor as he started out the back window of my house. The speed with which we grabbed our things, packed a hasty bag, made a hasty exit - home forgotten, along with all thoughts except self-preservation. I still remember, if faintly (due to the repeated sound in the days to come) the screams that came from houses all around me.

A bag, my bag, filled with a couple of spare clothes, a few of my gadgets - iPod, Laptop. I wasn't even sure why I took any of that, was it some instinct? or compulsion? or was I just taking whatever I could lay my hands on... Another bag, Arrow (I'm not sure I still remember his real name anymore...) dragging it as fast as he could, filled with as much edible items as I could lay my hands on.

I don't remember if we conversed through that entire episode of insanity, where reality coalesced with the impossible. Our thoughts incoherent, our actions dulled, our intentions obscured...we had no idea what we were doing, even after we were on the bike. Even after having seen it, I was willing myself to not believe it - to demand nature to turn it into some figment of my imagination - I wanted to deny it. Sad how reality loves to bust your bubble at these times.

Apparently, the military had managed to secure power stations and other important depots. Or so I heard. So I imagined. So I hoped. I guess it was obvious with the power plants - cause we still had electricity running. The military had reacted so quick, at short notice, it was almost suspicious.

Life sucks sometimes. Life is unfair. Life can also be awesome. But not this time.

In those times, life was plain chaos. If anyone believed God to be looking down on Earth, they sure were naive. God might have looked down on Earth, but not this hell. There were five things absent by that time: God's Mercy, Government, Justice, Logic and Humanity. Chaos reigned among the people. Religious cults wrecking the city in the name of God prophesising the end of our world, Bands of savage goons rampaging and killing anything in their path. After all those years, I realised a simple fact: The city was my life. And today, life was in chaos.

Movement; confirmed. Blue cap? That wasn't today's colour.

'So we got company, eh?'

I flipped open my cellular phone and pressed redial. God knows who ran the Phone company. One theory stated that the phone switchboards were completely automated, and the people working there were only involved with the odd maintenance job. If that was true, then the phones would be fine as long as the power remained on.But who knew? It was just a little worse than a rumor and a little better than a guess.

A voice answered quick on the other end:
"Status? Report."

Keeping a low voice, making no sound, i slipped the cell back into my pocket and whispered into my headset.

"Intruder in the building. Level 2. East Wing. Blue cap. Possibly hostile, possibly armed too. Currently taking refuge behind in coffee shop behind sofa set. Permission to engage."

A moment of silence ensuded. My target was trying to chew into stale sandwhich. Sorry pal, if you got through this situation alive, without a hole in your head, you are gonna be puking and shitting for a whole day.

"Identify. Alpha or Omega?"
"Alpha", I replied.

A pause. And then, "We have visual. Cameras have sight of him. Wait for shot and KOS. Copy?"

I guess it had to turn out like this. I have killed so many, I often wondered how human I was anymore; and how much of me was devoid of soul, driven insane by circumstances.

"Do you copy, Ace?"

"Yeah, will shoot on sight. I have potential shot." I wished I could save that bullet. Maybe if someone could sneak up on him and kill him. So damn tough to find bullets. Our last escapade brought us a sack load of ammunition and weaponry - likely meant for some military camp, or just a transport. We found it abandoned. No trace of humans. Thought to capitalise on the situation and took our chance. The armoured vehicle we found is around the back, in the parking complex, out of sight. Guess our guest will end up having a new hole in his head - apart from his ears, nose and mouth, of course.

Then a thought struck me.

"Suggestion. Could he be a scout? Interrogate and then terminate?"

Another pause. Stupid pauses. I hate keeping the cell on for long. Though on the bright side, I didn't have to pay the bill...

While somehow we had electrical power to our self-proclaimed HQ, I think whoever WAS in charge of the electircal supply, and I know SOMEONE was, had decided not to waste too much power and shut off the street lights. While that was a boon, it was an equal pain for us. Back then, on the bike, riding through the night was a little spooky, with no street lights and only the headlamp and the moon to help. Arrow said his parents were beyond our help. Hard as it was to believe, deep down inside I had wondered how my parents were doing. Having gone for a week out of the country, they were to come back in another week. Would they have ended up landing their jet into a city filled to the brim with chaos and destruction? We didn't know where we had headed. I barely remembered much else. That was the beginning of my transition. My change from past to present.

The pause ended.

"Negative to that. Just finish the job."

I cut the call. KOS. Kill on sight. My crosshari alligned, I took aim. His head popped slightly above the cushion. My finger pressed the trigger. I disliked watching the blood spray like that - but I guess I was getting used to it, by now. The weapon barely made any sound.

"Target dead. Waiting for confirmation."

"Stay on target. Confirmation due. Target had moved out of camera range."

One of the team appeared in my scope vision; yellow head band, as was today's team colour. Anyone not with that band on their head was treated hostile. And unwelcome. Colours changed daily. The team member walked carefully to the scene. We knew someone had our backs when we walked into danger. We lived that way. Likely, the member knew I had him covered. I saw his lips move from the corner of my eye. The earphones crackled to life. "Target confirmed dead. Please return to rounds."

I guess that was enough action for a day. I kept my eye on the member though. He turned, unaware of where I was. Practice makes perfect, and I considered myself a good eye for sniping positions. I smiled. It was El-t. Or, well, that's what we called her. The few of us here were quite close to each other; watching each other's backs, helping each other in times of need; I doubt any other party out there could have been better at what we did. In times like these, we needed a close knit group - ones we could trust in, have faith in, so that we didn't lose ourselves to this insanity that ruled the world out there. I flipped the scope cover down and let the rifle sling around my back. Then I unholstered my side-arm and continued my rounds. Two hours to sun down. Two hours to lockdown. I think it was my watch today. El-t's and mine.

Arr0w:

Present Day:

StartOfFile READTHIS.txt

I'm not sure how I should write this, but it just seems like it is of the utmost importance to do so. I'm sitting in a mall right now, place called OutOrbit on the outer suburbs of the main city. There's an electronics store here, and I've commandeered the use of a fine looking laptop to type this on. Thank you, Military, for the power supply still being on. Although I'd bet the power isn't meant for us.These commercial buildings happen to use the same power grid currently connecting to the Nuclear Reactor and it's adjoining government complexes, around 22 km from where we are now. Nobody wants to risk shutting the power off there, which is I guess why we aren't in the dark right now.


I leave a copy of this file on every PC that I use. All the display PC's here are going to have one soon, and then I'm going to move to the next electronics shop and do the same.
I do this, mostly in the hope that the police or some other authority figures will find it, when they come looking for our corpses.

If you're reading this, and you're wearing a uniform, **** ***, *** ***** .
Seriously.
It's like you gave up on the whole freakin situation within five minutes and hauled off leaving us to deal with things. This isn't the first time we had to deal with your shit, but this is the WORST time.

We have that 'Never say die' attitude, don't we?
See what that's caused?

If you aren't in a uniform, you're probably a fellow survivor trying to find help, or- the impossible- the crisis is over, and you were first on the scene trying to find the truth about what happened.

Intrepid Reporter 'Generic Name Here' With cameraperson 'Lens Kumar', this file is for you.

EDIT: In recent times I've realized, a third type of person might be reading this, too long pitifully ignored in all the previous messages I've left, so I thought I'd fix that here.
This is for you, all you psycho gangmembers who've made more trouble for us than the crisis and the government combined-

**** *** Too.

Don't bother reading ahead if you're trying to find where we've moved to. I can't write that info because I don't know where we'll be heading to next. All you'll get here is a history of everything we've been through. Who knows, maybe there's one of your fellow gangbangers mentioned in here.
They usually have a small role though.
Few lines, at the most.


I'm writing this to you, reporter, to make your life just that much easier. Don't go and deal with the same shit I had to, just take this file. Smell that Pulitzer prize? Those guys love the whole 'human suffering' shit, you're sorted for life because I left this here for you.

EDIT: Provided, of course, that someone hasn't found the copy I've put up online yet. Yeah, we got lucky, we found a place with working phone lines an

EDIT 2: Okay so I'm not sure if that file finished uploading or not, but either way, I want my name on this. In a world where I can die at any moment, a chance at immortality means a lot to me.

Open the next file, and you'll get the blow-by-blow account of what happened. All the way back from day 1.

EndOfFile READTHIS.txt

*Continuing where Ace's story left off*

*2 hours later- 6:30 pm*

ARROW:

SKREEEK SKREEEK SKREEK

The supermarket cart I was pushing squeaked horribly as it's one jammed wheel dragged across the marble floor.
I rolled my eyes. It was the end of the world going on, and I still get stuck with the broken cart.

Not that I was going to transfer to another cart though. It took two people to load the body onto that cart, and it was wrapped in plastic sheets, 'borrowed' from the Furniture department. The 'bag and tag' treatment to this particular customer was owing to the fact that Ace had shot him in the back of the head.This corpse was missing most of it's face and was leaking all over the place.

The group and I had drawn straws to see who had cleanup duty this time.
I had drawn the short straw, which meant I was the guy who had to dispose of the body. We weren't exactly sure who this was (or used to be), but we knew two things.

1- He was armed (we found a positively ancient looking police-issue handgun and something that was either a short sword or a long knife on him.).

2-He wasn't one of us.

Our motto in this situation was 'shoot first, ask questions if survivors remain'. Not very moral, but then morality don't keep you alive now, does it?

The fact that we had commandeered the use of such a large structure (the mall)meant that we had access to resources (food, water, etc). Resources that other groups (a**holes) would rather keep for themselves. Their desires were backed up by a reasonable amount of brute force (whole mobs of terrified people who joined them to find shelter), making them a pain to deal with.

It's not that we were being selfish or anything. Just that we didn't want to share. Perfectly reasonable, given the circumstances. Teaming up with them was not a great solution either. Such a large operation has too many weak points. No, to survive you needed to be organized, and one cannot organize a mob.

So there you have it, in a nutshell. We're basically a small group playing by our own rules in the ruins of a once great metropolis, and not everyone is okay with that.

Fortunately (In this particular case) There aren't many survivors still in the city. Almost all of them have formed their own groups or factions and are usually far away from each other. Except for random encounters like today.

I wheeled the body down into the parking section. The lights were off, as the power had been rerouted for other uses, so I had to use my torch, held in my mouth while I pushed the cart with both hands.

I walked down the sloped floor of the parking complex, past the security check post, to the ground floor.I kept walking to the far end opposite the entrance.

Back in the normal days this place was for employees only- A huge walk-in freezer for a novelty restaurant called 'The Wild Grr-ill' or something. Their big selling point was their exotic meat steaks, deer, yak, elk, gnu, all kinds of things. 'Shot in the Africa, brought to-a India' and shoved into a ginormous cold storage room.

As it turns out, the freezer came in pretty handy for us.

I spun the circular locks and wrenched the heavy steel door open. The cold mist spilled out from the freezer, revealing about 4 plastic wrapped corpses covered in ice crystals. I wheeled in number 5 and dumped his headless ass onto the frozen floor. For good measure I got out a bottle of water (The exorbitantly priced stuff I took from the Multiplex) from one of my several pockets (I was wearing cargoes from some Adventure sports store, with more pockets than I bothered to count) and emptied it on the fresh corpse. That would speed up the ice formation.

Couldn't dump the corpse outside. Fresh blood would attract some unwanted attention to our location. Couldn't drive far off to dump it-Too much of a risk.
Couldn't just leave it. The smell would be unbearable.
So we had to deal with it this way.
If only it wasn't so goddamn creepy.

I locked the freezer and headed back out.

I stepped up the parking slope with the front wheels of the cart not touching the ground (and therefore not squeaking my ears off).

Thanks to which I was able to hear a faint crackle from the security check post.

An Unexpected sound like this at an Unexpected time like this is not something you want to hear in a dark parking complex, i'll tell ya that. I very nearly shouted in shock.

I left the cart and moved towards the check post. I clutched the handgun that I had recently relieved my cool friend of, and swung open the door of the small room.

The source of the noise was the police scanner.
A police scanner that was locked to only receive transmissions from Police and Military band radio,
and which was now transmitting a faint voice.

'This is 2130 inbound on Highway E11. Area is clear so fa-*crackle* no sign of any *bzzzt* repeat, no sign of any-'

At this point the static was way too intense for me to understand. But the gist was clear.
Help was on its way

Due to countless LoopHoles, this story has been discontinued

Look out for other stories, however!