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Post by Defectron on Mar 28, 2006 19:18:53 GMT -5
Part 1: Homeostasis & Transistasis
Right after Tjad had teleported to mission 5 from his fight with Harry.
Not to far from where he had been standing the air began to shimmer and Indra appeared decloaking. He had spotted Tjad and Brandon following them here and watched their fight with Harry. He had thought about killing them then and there but Brandon hadn't had his suit. It would be a waste of his abilities to kill someone with no chance at all of fighting back. He turned and looked at Brandons dead body, he was about to walk away when he heard a voice in his head. It was the voice of a little boy.
"Indra!"
"Lord Shiva?"
"You were about to kill some of those hunters you met earlier."
"Yes, but it would seem I had some bad timing, one of them didn't have his suit and was killed by another man. The other appears to have been called away to a new mission."
"That one hunter who just died, there's still time to make use of him. I want you to make him into a deathwalker. We may be able to get some information about the hunters from him."
"Very well then." Indra walked over to Brandons body and opened his mouth, not just his canines, but all his teeth grew into long blade like fangs as he bit down on Brandon. Indra and others like him had many enemies including the normal vampires and others, but the only group they knew very little about were the gantzers.
Another figure decloaked nearby Indra "Aww that's too bad, I was hoping to have some fun here too!" like Indra he seemed to be of Indian descent but his hair was died bright red. He also wore some wrap around sunglasses even though it was night.
"Hanumon, these hunters are my prey, I won't permit you to interefere with me. If you do, I'll make sure you regret it." Indra said glaring at the other man.
"Oh, how scary!" Hanumon said with a smile vanishing. Indra hated his little brother, if they weren't related he probably would have killed him a long time ago.
Several hours later
Brandon didn't know what had happened, but he felt very strange, in some way he didn't feel like he was himself anymore, almost like he had joined with part of another person. His body felt strange too, it felt much stronger then before. He opened his eyes, he was seemingly alone in some strange dark place. His appearance had also changed, his hair was now bleach white and his eyes were colored yellow.
"How interesting..." he heard someone say.
"Where am I?" Brandon didn't sound very concerned it was simply a question.
"I'm suprised you can still ask that. Most people who become Death Walkers completely lose any will or identity of their own and simply become puppets, mere shells that can be controlled. But your different, you must be very strong willed to be able to retain your identity after the transformation. You should be proud, very few have been able to accomplish that in the past. As for where you are, this is Lord Shivas castle, and I am Indra the one who saved you, and your new master!"
"Indra..." that name, that was the name of the man Tjad had mentioned before, the one that said he would kill them all at the end of the last mission. Brandon immediatly began to go for his gun but his hand was suddenly paralyzed.
"Like I said, your mine now. You may have succeeded in keeping your identity, but even you can't raise your hand against the one who made you a deathwalker." Brandon just looked at Indra with a blank expression on his face. Even if he had been able to move he didn't seem to have his weapons with him anymore.
"A deathwalker is what we call humans that weve infected. Lord Shiva is the only one among us who can reproduce purebreds like myself, but all of us can create slaves. I suppose you must be wondering why I did that to you. You afterall are among those that I promised to kill." Brandon just looked at Indra with a blank expression.
"Were you always this quite and annoying when you were human?" Brandon just looked at him. Indra glared at Brandon with his red eyes and then continued "I turned you into a deathwalker to get more information about your group. Shiva and his six children, we were never supposed to exist. As such we have alot of enemies. People who want to kill us for the crime of living and breathing. Among are enemies there's one group that we have very little knowledge of, the one you used to belong to. I turned you in hopes that you knew something we didn't. Unfortunatly, while I probed your unconcious mind it became apparent that you know almost nothing that we don't. It was a wasted effort on my part. But you are a curious person, somone who had the streingth to retain their identity. Your an interesting person so I think I'll keep you around. I won't kill you simply because you exist."
"Where is this place?" Brandon said breaking his silence
"I told you, this is Shivas palace, it's a bit different from anywhere that you may have been to." Brandon walked over to a small window and peered out of it. Outside as far as he could see there were strange shimmering lights like an aurora.
"This place exists outside the time and space you know of. Two hundred years ago Shiva found it, none of us know who built it or where it came from."
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Post by Defectron on Mar 30, 2006 18:13:17 GMT -5
Part 2: Dreamcatcher
Shortly after returning Shirow had become one of Harry's elite executives at Millenion. This had caused quite a stir, in the past Harry had only given this position to close freinds that he knew quite well such as Bob Poundmax, Bear Walkan, Ballad Bird Lee and Bunji Kugashira. The fact that he went and gave a complete outsider, the head of a rival organization no less a position like that was nothing short of outragious.
A little after another Millenion meeting. Harry went to his office and sat down sighing. As he thought it had caused him a bit of trouble bringing Shirow into the organization. But he had no choice, he'd been pushed into a corner. Regular methods of trying to kill the man wouldnt work, poison was still an option, but Shirow was very paranoid and never drank anything the servants brought to the meetings. He must have some sort of weakness, he just needed to find it. But he needed to be very careful, his life wasn't the only thing at stake.
"Remember Harry, if I even suspect your going to betray me, I'll not only kill you, I'll kill your wife and anyone else that ever meant anything to you." this is what he had told him when they had left the last hunt.
Harry heard a knock at the door, Bear Walkan came into his office. Bear was the oldest of his executives and the man who had trained Brandon to be a sweeper. Originally he had worked under Big Daddy the former boss of Millenion. He didn't approve of alot of the shady underhanded things Harry was doing with the organization but served him loyally nonetheless. The reason for this was that Harry had married his daughter Sherry and the two of them had lived happily together until now. If it meant protecting her, he would serve even the devil himself.
"Harry, I want to talk to you about something." Like Brandon , Bear was a somewhat quiet serious guy although he talked slightly more often then Brandon did, usually when he had something to say it was important.
"What is it Bear?" Harry asked already suspecting what he was going to say.
"That man Shirow Odai. Why did you make him an executive of Millenion?"
Harry sighed "He seemed like a pretty capable person, I thought he'd be a valuable addition to the team."
"I don't buy it. A mans eyes always tell the truth Harry, this is something I told you before. Right now your eyes are lying."
"Look Bear..."
"This isn't something you wanted to do is it?"
"No...but listen Bear, I have a very good reason for why I did that. I can't tell anyone what it is now, not even you. For your own good I don't want you to investigate Shirow. Your too valable for me to lose right now."
Bear was slightly puzzeled by Harry's behavior, somehow it seemed Shirow had forced him into a corner. He didn't imagine he would be that difficult to deal with but for some reason Harry did. Harry knew something about Shirow he didn't, was that man really that dangerous?
"Alright, but if he's a threat to this organization..."
"I know what your thinking, but it would be better if you left this to me, I'll think of something. If any of the others are thinking of investigating Shirow you should tell them the same thing."
"Very well then, I'll leave it to your judgement." Bear said walking out of the room.
This was a real mess, not just the situation with Shirow but those strange hunts and the fact that his old freind Brandon had come back only to die again. "Brandon, was I wrong..." he shoved that thought aside, he was harry McDowel, boss of Millenion, life, death, anything else, they were all his to give and take. And that was a lesson that Shirow would soon learn as well!
After going over several reports that were brought to his office Harry began to feel sleepy and dosed off. This was unusual for him to sleep on the job, if anything he was known for getting things done and this had never happened before.
"Harry McDowell..." he heard a boys voice say. Harry looked around, he wasn't in his office anymore. He was in the middle of a snow covered landscape. This had to be a dream , but he could even feel the cold.
"What the hell?" Harry said looking around shivering.
"You look confused, you must be wondering what's going on." he heard the same boys voice say. He turned to see a boy with dark skin, gold colored eyes and bleach white hair. He looked to be about 13 or 14, beside him was a girl with red eyes and a long braid who looked to be about three years younger then he was.
"Who are you?"
"To my freinds, children and enemies, I'm known as Shiva. This is my youngest Daughter Maya." he said gesturing to the girl. "She's the one who allowed us to meet like this." the scenery suddenly changed to a scorching hot desert. "Maya, cut that out, it's distracting."
The little girl pouted and sat down next to a sand dune.
"I would have met you under regular cercumstances, but I wanted to ensure complete secrecy in our discussion and this was the only way to do it without anyone listening in on our conversation."
"What do you mean? With Millenions security system..."
"Is obsolete! The listening device isn't in the building, it's in your head! It monitors everything that you do, the only way we could talk completely private is if we did it in a dream. Were not actually in a desert, shis is a mental image Mayas imposing on your mind. Pretty realistic isn't it?"
"Get to the point, what are you people and what do you want from me?"
Shiva smiled
"I like how you get to the point. I've been watching you and your organization for awhile. Your a man with ambition"I'm Bloody Harry, I can give and take anything from anyone!" Shiva mimicked Harrys voice and then burst out laughing.
"You little..." Harry said burning with rage.
"Your a joke! Your being controlled by two people, that man Shirow and that black ball. How can you claim to give and take anything when you don't even have your own freedom?"
Harry Lost it and ran at Shiva but dozens of chains chot out of the sand snaring his body.
"Even slaves don't feel their chains when they fight huh?" Shiva said walking around him. "But I can free you, you can continue to climb the ladder until your the master of your own and everyone elses lives just as you've always dreampt of being. That is if you do two things for me."
"I don't need your help! I can get that power on my own!" Harry growled out, but his body began to sink intot he sand.
"Let me tell you another thing, this isn't a normal dream, if you sink into that sand you really will die. If you won't help me, what reason do I have to let you live? Your heart will stop once you go completly beneath the sand. You'll die and stay dead, or you can help me and we can both get what we want."
"Fine....what the hell do you want?" Harry stopped sinking
"I want to survive, not just me, but my kind as a species. As of now, I'm the only one of my kind capable of reproducing. And I can only create one child every century. As powerful as we are, if we can't reproduce, were doomed to extinction. We have no small number of enemies that wish us dead either. I was made to be a prototype for a superhuman that would be used by an alien species as a weapon. But I evolved beyond my original purpose and gained my own freedoim. But I havent been able to evolve beyond that failsafe on my own. I thought it would be a good idea to attack the problem from some other angles. Millenion controls several experimental genetics and nanotechnology development corporations. You have the resources to help me."
"So that's how it is eh? And you said you would help me gain my freedom if I help you."
"Yes, not just that, I'll also give you what you need to make Millenions power unrivaled! As downpayment for your services, you'll be receiving a gift tommarow. Remeber to speak of nothing that we talked about here with anyone. When you get my gift you should do your best to act suprised. Remember your always being watched, if the black ball suspects that you aim to betray it, you could die."
Harry woke up in a cold sweat, he was back in his office again.
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Post by Defectron on Apr 2, 2006 1:34:33 GMT -5
Part 3: Roadkill Cafe!
Somewhere in the Japanese countryside. It was the early morning, the sun was just begining to come up and dew was forming on the grass. A cry rang out shattering the peace of the morning. A huge hulking demonic looking beast held a deer in it's huge jaws full of multiple rows of fangs. The creature was huge, possibly 15 feet tall, its skin was jet black and it had three pairs of arms. On its head were several huge curving horns and it had two burning red eyes directly benath them. On the sides of its mouth were several appendages simialer to an insects curved mandibles. It began to rip off chunks of flesh from the dear eating it.
"Jeez, how can you eat that shit man!" Hanumon said materializing next to the beast.
"If much of its flesh is missing, it will be motivated to consume the flesh of others to replace that which it lost."
"Your turning that piece of roadkill into a Deathwalker?"
"Yes, Lord Shiva asked me to choose a suitable sample to deliver to Millenion."
"You couldve just bit a person,...me I don't bite nothing unless it's a fine foxy lady! But that don't explain why your eating it."
"Shiva wanted it to look like it was something unexpected, what could be more unexpected then a blood bath..."
"Ravana, your a weird guy, but I like the way you think!" Hanumon said patting the huge demonic creature on the back as it placed what was left of the deer on the ground.
Later
It started out as a typical day at the Millenion building, no one knew what was going to happen, how could they know? These were people who lived in a different world without the knowledge of the many mysterious things that took place around them right under the human races nose.
One of the old men who had served under Big Daddy and now under Harry walked up the steps of the building and intot he Lobby. He didn't like the way Harry did things, but there wasn't much he could do to stop him. It was then he heard a strange noise, it sounded like flesh being ripped apart. Curious he walked around the corner and witnessed a grizzly surrealistic sight. A deer with much of its flesh missing was bent over the dead body of a man who had his throat ripped out. The deers mouth was lined with rows of curving white fangs it was using to rips chunks of the mans flesh from his body. As the deer did so the large gaps in its own flesh were slowly being regenerated. It looked up and stared at the old man with its red eyes. It let out a piercing cry and its tail suddenly elongated into a huge boney multisegmented whip. It cracked it at the man with such speed that it took him several seconds for it to register that his head had just been removed from its shoulders. The last thing he saw was the deer standing over his face as his headless body collapsed to the ground spraying blood into the air.
Bunji Kugashira, one of the now five men who served as Harrys top executives happened to be in the area and ran to see what the commosion was. He was a tough looking guy who always wore sunglasses for some reason.
"What the hell?" he uttered out as he saw the bizzare animal. It turned towards him cracking its tail. Bunji had very quick reflexes and managed to dodge out of the way as it took out a chunk of the wall. Bunji pulled out both his guns and began firing on the deer blasting out chuinks of its flesh. The gunfire attracted more Millenion guards who quickly drew their weapons and began firing on the zombie deer. It let out a piercing cry slashing its tail weapon in a wide arc cutting apart several of the closests men. It tried to escape leaping over them, it began running straight towards Bunji. Bunji calmly pointed his gun at its head as it leapt at him and fired a bullet right between its eyes. Just like in those old zombie movies its brain seemed to be its weak point. The deer fell tot he ground twitching, even after all that it wasn't quite dead. Bunji shot it a couple more times. Not to much later Harry and Shirow both came down to see what had happened.
"What the fuck..." Shirow said in disgust.
Harry was confused at first but then he remembered the dream he had yesterday, this couldnt be the gift Shiva had talked about?
"Bunji, I want you and a few of the others to get this thing out of here and clean this up as soon as possible. I want it analyzed later by some of our top scientists." maybe the analysis would turn up some answers about what exactly it was they were dealing with.
"What the hell was that? You don't think it could ahve something to do with Gantz?" Shirow asked.
"It might...but I think we should find out what it is." Harry said frownign slightly.
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Post by Defectron on Apr 7, 2006 0:42:50 GMT -5
Part 4: Mowing the lawn
When Dan had came back to the hotel Dokuko had immediatly pounced on him in a scene reminiscent of a calvin & Hobbs comic strip hugging him. He had been knocked off his feet as she clung to him.
"Uhhh...I'm ok now so you can let go..." even with his suit on she was squeezing him a bit to hard, good thing he left it on or she mightve broken some ribs.
"What happened? When you left I felt alot of scary things...you were fighting something..."
"Yeah, like that time you first saw me , it wasn't as bad this time though." Dan sat down on the bad as she walked in after him. "Damn...it's been a long night, that cheap ass bastard wouldnt give me 100 pts either..."
"You want a more powerful weapon?"
"How..."
"Weve been bonded, I can sense what your thinking sometimes remember? You can do the same thing too."
"You want to know why I won't choose to go free? I see were not banded so closely you can tell everything about me."
"I can only sense strong emotions and feelings, specifics are more difficult to pick up."
"If I went free I would lose my memories, I don't believe in forgetting something this important. Most of the people in our world choose to turn a blind eye towards our problems. Why do you think humans are still dependent on oil, a finite resource? Most people who buy vehicles like SUV's do so because they want to feel powerful, they don't even consider that what their doing is causing problems. Many people don't even realise that oils a finite resource that'll one day run out. Those sorts of people who turn a blind eye towards the truth, I hate the most. No I won't run away, I'll stay and gather more and more powerful weapons until there's nothing left strong enough to oppose me."
"But what about Gantz? ? One of the things you value most is freedom, this last month you went wild because society no longer had any way of controlling your actions. But it does, no matter how much power you gain, you'll always be it's slave."
"That's true....but right now there's nothing I can do about that. Someday, maybe I'll find a way to go free on my own terms." Dokuko lay down next to him.
"Even you don't believe what you just said."
"No, things usually don't work out that smoothly."
"Why does it want you to kill for it?"
"Who knows, maybe those things we killed weere threats to this world. They all seemed pretty dangerous."
"You suspect something else though, you don't need to try to hide it from me."
"Humans don't need a good reason to kill each other, or other things that arent human. In the 1940's Jews were slaughtered in the millions because of who they were, more recently riots have broken out in the middle east because of a cartoon. Humans need even less reason to kill non human life forms. If a life form inconveniences humans in any sort of way they'll kill it without mercy or the least bit of thought. If a cockroach is in a persons house it'll be killed simply because it was in their house. If a tree is in an area that humans want to use for something it'll die because it happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most humans don't think much of the other life forms we share the planet with. In the past humans have tried to justify the cruelty their fellow life forms endure by saying that God only gave souls to humans and threfore things that werent human couldnt suffer. Even the philosopher Descartes once kicked a preganant dog in the stomach killing it to prove this point. Back before I came to Gantz one of my chores was mowing the lawn. Most people don't pay attention but lots of things live in the grass. I probably chopped up hundreds of spiders and insects . Sometimes I'd feel sorry for the things that lived in the grass,but nonetheless I chopped them up without mercy because mowing the grass was my task. Now my task has changed to exterminating the things that the black ball asks me to kill. I wonder if it has a good reason to be sending us after them. Or if I'm just mowing the grass on a much larger scale, removing things from the human world just because someone thinks they don't belong.... The aliens I fought all seemed dangerous. But according to one of the others, not all of the aliens theyre sent to kill are like that."
"If that's true, you don't think it might try to kill me..." Dokuko asked looking worried, probably because that very thought had been what he was thinking about and she knew it.
Dan had been thinking about it for awhile, that man Constantine they had fought earlier had used a simialer weapon to the X-guns. Could he be connected with Gantz in some way?
"It's conceivable."
"B-but what'll we do if that happens?" Dokuko asked looking worried.
"I won't let them kill you. Anyone who tries to , will get treated the same way as the lawn I used to mow." that sounded cool but Dan wasn't as confident as he made himself sound. As of now two people, Tjad and Shirow possessed weapons he had no access to. If he had to go against them in the next mission he'd be in trouble. Hopefully he was wrong about gantz, hopefully there was a good reason why for these hunts and a benign alien like Dokuko wouldnt be made a target. But somehow he had a feeling this wouldnt be the case in the end.
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Post by Defectron on Apr 20, 2006 15:50:02 GMT -5
Part 5: Failure
Brandons head spun as he was teleported fromt he strange place where he was being kept. It took awhile but Indra seemed to think it was ok to let him out now.
"Remember, I don't care what you do while your out as long as you don't attempt to take revenge on Harry McDowel again. When I have a need for you , I'll summon you to my side once more." was the last thing Indra had said to him before letting him out. Brandon was a little curious why they were so interested in Harry. He had been a little suprised to find out his former freind had survived Tjads attack only to become a gantzer like he had used to be. Maybe Indra was trying to use him for information, but there seemed to be a second reason why they were taking such an interest in him. Something he had discovered int he weeks since he was revived was that Indra could read his mind. But he couldn't do the same to him, if he could he could find out what he and the others were up to.
Elsewhere
Harry had arrived at his expensive looking home. He lived here with his wife Sherry, the daughter of Bear Walkan, his oldest and most trusted leutenant. So far things were going pretty smoothly with the strange mutated dear that had suddenly appeared in Millenions lobby and run amuck. When examining it's body it was found that it's blood was full of what seemed to be strange nanomachines of unknown origin. Even after being so badly damaged they were still trying to repair it's body. He suspected this was what Shiva had been talking about. If Millenion could take control of this technology and apply it to humans, they could make super soldiers, each one with the power of a tank hidden inside. If they could manufacture hundreds or perhaps even thousands of these , Millnions power would be undesputed, no one, not even the government would be able to challenge them. They had experimented on a number of animals introducing the nanomachines into the bloodstream of several dogs, cats, rodents and other creatures. Each time the animal specimen was changed and made into something stronger. But it was still too soon for human testing, many of the mechanisms behind the nanites operations were still a mystery. But still Harry was amazed that their scientists had managed to discern as much of the mechanics of this new technology that they had in such a short time.
"He's here, from the looks of it, he's alone too, yeah this'll be a piece of cake." a blond woman said as she watched Harry through a sniper scope.
"We shouldn't get to cocky though. Bloody Harry isn't an opponent that should be underestimated." someone on the other end of her reciever said.
Harry walked inside and sat down on his bed, it had been a pretty long day.
"Oh Harry Darling, how was work today?" Harry heard his wife say as she spotted him.
Harry was about to reply as he stood up when he heard the window shatter and something hit him in the back hard! "What the..." he sputtered out as he fell other, he was wearing his gantz suit under his clothes so the bullet hadn't done any damage.
"Harry!" Sherry shouted in concern running to his side.
"Got him!" Electra said into her receiver.
"Good, then we should..."
"What the? He's still alive, he just got up!"
"Fuck! I'll move in and take him out before it's too late!" Asuka said into her receiver.
Harry looked out the window, someone had just shot at him! "Quick, Sherry!" he took her hand in the other room and then pressed a button under the table.
Asuka hurried through Harry's house holding her gun at the ready, he was nearby, normally after this sort of blunder they would leave , but they were getting paid alot for this job and couldn't afford to fail. She spotted Harry and his wife running through the midsection of the hall way and was about to shoot when she heard some footsteps coming up behind her, Harrys private security team had already been called in. Four men fired on her as she kicked over a table and began firing on them. All four of them fell under her fire but more of them were coming, she was running out of ammo. Asuka took out several small throwing knives and hurled them into the eyes of tweo more men causing them to fall. Another man pulled out a machine gun and let loose a spray of bullets at her, she got down to avoid the fire but several bullets clipped her even as she hid behind the furniture.
"Electra! AaaGGHHh..."
Electra heard her partners voice in the receiver as it went to static.
"Asuka!" Electra jumped out of where she had been hiding, from the sound of it Asuka was in trouble, she knew if she wanted to make it out of here alive she should just leave her but couldn't bring herself to do it. She holstered her sniper rifle and took out two uzi's.
Inside the house
"Damn bitch..." one of Harrys secruity guards said nursing a wound on his arm. Asuka lay on the ground in a pool of blood dead having fallen to the superior numbers of her attackers. Before the man even had time to turn around he and his comrades were mowed down under Elkectras uzi fire. The last of Harrys guards fell dead.
Harry frowned at this, he knew he needed better security with all his enemies, maybe he should get some of Bear walkans Overkills for the job, they were alot better then these guys were. In the end he'd have to take care of this himself.
"Asuka!" Electra ran over to her partners side. She was dead!
"That's not to bad, you two are pretty good, it's a shame about your partner, but your still alive, what do you say you work for me from now on. I could always use some good talen ont her team, and I promise you'll get paid alot more then what your previous employer was offering." Harry said from behind her.
"Go to hell!" Electra shouted turing around and firing her uzi, but oddly Harry wasn't there as the bullets seemed to rip through empty space.
"Well if that's your answer, I guess there's nothing more to say." Harry said materializing next to her and firing his X-gun right in her face. Electras head exploded spraying him with blood. Harry took out his phone and dialed a number "This is Harry, I've got a bit of a situation over here and need a clean up crew." right as he was saying this though he began to dematerialize. It was time to start again.
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