NationStates Jolt Archive


The End Of All Things (Closed AMW RP)

Armandian Cheese
11-08-2005, 11:26
(OOC: I'm going to do a bit of prequel work later on, but that's on another comp, and the world waits with anxiety, so here it is, Vladimir Putin's/the Mafiya's swan song. For some reason, I envision this to be in Winter, so if you have no problems, Estenlands, I'll manipulate the weather a bit. )

The cold wind swept through the landscape, tossing up bits of snow and ice. White was the color of the land, white encompassed all, until a splotch of black so rudely planted itself smack dab in the middle, shattering the harmony of nature.

Of course, if one looked closer, one would realize that in fact the black jet that landed was not the only unnatural object in the area, as a cleverly camouflaged runway and airfield would attest. (Of course, these made landing extremely difficult, but security was of utmost concern.)

Out of this jet came a grim faced man in black, his trademark black trenchcoat flapping in the wind alongside the scarf that seemed almost surgically attached to his throat. He looked to be in an awful state, as if he had just fought a tremendous battle and witnessed the death of a close friend at the same time, with his thinning orange hair matted, his emerald eyes bloodshot, his face tear stained, and his coat splattered with blood. Two thin "cermonial" Cossack blades were strapped to his back, sheathed lightly so that they could be pulled out within seconds, faster if necessary. A small handgun lay tucked inside his coat. His face was grim as he marched down the steps, surrounded by a cadre of elite Black Scarves, ready to face Wingert, ready to face destiny.

By now, both men knew that only one would leave this place with their lives and their empires. The stakes were unimaginably high, but as neither man knew that the other man knew of the battle that would soon begin, they acted with an almost eery degree of normality.

"Hello."

(OOC: Alright, so let's start it with a battle between Putin's and Wingert's bodyguards, and then move to a one-on-one fight.)

________________________________________________________
-Neo-Anarchos, former Marimaia, Grande Peru, Russia, Quinntonia (Mainly Chicago), China, the Phillipines, and the newly Bedgellenized districts of Jharkland and West Bengal, Hindustan-

With the Red Leader dead and most of the Mafiya's upper echelons aflame, Operation: Headless Snake was meeting resounding success. In most nations,the Mafiya, flushed out by the sudden attacks and the launch of the massive sting operation, lashed out in an uncoordinated and choatic manner. Leaderless, the organization that so relied on its strict hierarchy degenerated into a series of firefights in several nations, and its only hope for survival was the reaction of local authorities and criminal groups. The KGB and the Mafiya both pleaded for the aid of the government, while the Mafiya also appealed to other criminal groups. Fierce battles raged across the world, from the Sears Tower in Chicago to the luxury bars of Peru to the rough streets of West Bengal.

-Tokyo, Japan-

The red light districts were turning to chaos as the battles between KGB agents and 'Mafiyosi' continued. Despite the fact that the Pacific Lotus was at full strength in Japan after the abandonment of Peru, the Mafiya's allies offered no real support; instead the Lotus moved on the Mafiya's holdings as the Tokyo police moved in to quell the violence. Kangtian Wei promised to hand over all evidence regarding KGB involvement to the government; Japan's populace and neighbours were becoming vocally anti-Russian, and if the government had a reason to join in then so much the better.

Alejandro rushed forward, slashing the throat of a KGB agent with the metal poisoned fingernails he bore. His red sweater became a blur as he whirled around and fired, point blank,at the head of a fat Checkista attempting to sneak up on him. KGB and Mafiya blood painted the walls of the Naughty Schoolgirl, the nerve center of the Mafiya's prostitution operations in Japan, which they had not so long ago taken from the Chinese.

A KGB squad rushed through the door, and the Crimson Grim Reaper leaped out of the window, slicing his flesh with shards of glass. His body landed in a barrel of fish, which saved his life. He struggled out, only to see the grim sight of KGB agents and Tokyo police pushing back what remained of the Mafiya resistance to the wall. He desperately tried to call his Pacific Lotus contacts with his cell phone, but was met with silence and rejection. Tossing away the phone, he turned back to the battle which the Mafiya was heavily losing.

Sensing opportunity, Alejandro glided silently towards the police/KGB,whose backs were turned. He crossed his arms, and the metal fingernails lanced out, extending to form full spikes. They glistened with a deadly poison that dripped out of its edges.

A red figure loomed over the backs of the Tokyo police and the KGB, who were working together out of momentary necessity.

Slash!

Like the thin whisp of a Katana gliding through the air, the sound floated through the air. Soon it was joined by the more gruesome echo of six heads (three for each claw) detaching from their heads. The Mafiyosi cheered, one last hurrah for their cause of greed and treachery, as they attacked a suddenly surrounded and panicking KGB/Japanese force. Alejandro seemed to dodge bullets (really, it was a matter of luck and intense observation of where the enemy was aiming) in an eery dance, as he hacked away at the hapless heros. He seemed demonic, his flowing red sweater and looming hood giving him the appearance of a Crimson Grim Reaper. Death and terror he sowed, with his deadly blades which either killed instantly or filled the blood with a terrible, blood boiling poison. He remained silent, although his eyes seemed to glisten through the shadows of the hood with an eery yellow glow that expressed a perverse joy.

And then it ended.

One swift gun shot from behind, by none other than Olaf Nikolay, a hero of the Moscow Red Square riots, ended the demon's reign. The gruff, gray mustachoied former soldier trembled as he held the smoking gun.

He muttered,"I'm too old for this sh*t."

Alejandro's corpse smashed into the asphalt, his blood and brain matter oozing out. His offensive was the last gasp of the Mafiya in Japan, and the demoralized Mafiya resistance soon collapsed, with a wave of deaths and surrenders.

Alejandro, the Crimson Reaper had no last words, which was fitting for a man with no emotion, no past, no personality. However, a comrade of his spoke for the entire Mafiya when he spoke these words...

"Why, Chiisu, why?"
Hudecia
11-08-2005, 14:22
-Toronto-

Hudecian elitists click their tongues seeing the violence in Quinntonia and Japan. Of course, that sort of thing would never happen in Hudecia, we're too sophisticated.
Dai Nippon Koku
11-08-2005, 22:41
Tokyo Red-Light Districts

The Japanese police wasted little time in securing Mafiya prisoners as the fighting subsided; the city authorities and the national government wanted some examples for the people to see that justice was being served. Several high-ranking officials were sending thanks to the Russian government for their assistance; at the same time, more secretive figures were trying to gain an estimate of the KGB presence in Japan.


Kokyo Palace

"Your Majesty, reports indicate that the fighting in certain areas of the city has ceased; the police are mopping up the stragglers with assistance from the KGB."

Shinseiki smirked and nodded to Akubara. "Thank you for the information. Well, Kangtian, it would appear that the door is open for you. Kindly take control of the Mafiya's former holdings; they are no longer an unwelcome foreign presence."

Kangtian Wei bowed. "My greatest appreciation to you for this opportunity, old friend. What of the KGB though? Surely they are also an unwelcome presence?"

Shinseiki wagged his finger. "Patience, my friend. We shall thank the Russian government for their assistance in this matter, it may help to calm public anti-Russian sentiments over the Baltic campaign. I have spoken with Kazuki and Jubei, they assure me that they will be ready when the time arrives."
Quinntonian Dra-pol
11-08-2005, 22:55
In Chicago, a resurgence of teh heavily Catholic Sicilian mafia has shocked local police, with a bloody international gang war breaking out in the heart of the city.
Soon, the police start to mop up both sides, heavily arresting everyone suspected to be close to the organisations, and revoking more than a few visitors visas.

AS this was a criminal matter, the Quinntonian government doesn't comment on it very much.
WWJD
Amen.
The Estenlands
12-08-2005, 10:37
Wingert stared out at the landing jet from the window of his bunker. It felt good to be in the field again, he hadn’t felt this young in years. He thought of his grim duty, and the fact that his trusted Kargat Secret Police assassins had offered to do the job with a bullet from a mile away. But he had said, “Putin is an old warrior, like me. He deserves to see his killer, and to die with his teeth on the throat of his attacker. I shall grant him an honourable death, in battle.” Now, his seven-foot frame towered over everyone in the room, his old full-plate armour on that he hadn’t worn since the revolutionary war against Soviet Russia. It was only fitting that he should wear it again while embarking on the Mother countries conquest. He snapped the red cloak onto his shoulders, allowing the thing to drape to the floor. It resembled a large curtain more than a cloak for an ordinary man. But Wingert was no ordinary man. Standing at just over seven feet tall, this almost 450lb man struck most in his presence dumb by his sheer size. His massive, wild, beard rested on his chest, giving his glaring and sharp eyes the look of a Biblical prophet or zealot. On his back rested his sword, a two-handed affair that weighed almost 75 lbs. by itself, at a length of 6 feet long itself. That sword had drunk the blood of many of the Communist interlopers into his native Ukraine. It had carved him an empire and thrown off the shackles of one of the great super-powers of the Cold War. A war that no one helped him fight. He was the long-lost scion of the bloodline of Ivan IV. Ivan Grozny. Grozny, the Russian word was translated into English as Awesome, or Terrible. He was a descendant of the true Tsars, before the Romanov usurpers took the throne. His ancestors built the Tsarist Russian Empire that the Romanavs lost through their arrogance. His ancestors ruled from Moscow, the heart of the Mother Country, not from the swamp in St. Petersburg. Yes, this man was a true Tsar, the Russian word for Caesar, or Emperor. And today was his day to rule.

He turned to Lord Yvonne, his Kargat advisor, and nodded, setting his plan into motion, while kneeling his great frame before his personal Russian Orthodox Father-Confessor, Father Bahamut.




Outside, Kargat operatives crouched in the blistering wind , dressed in camouflage white, and crouching on strategically chosen snow-banks. Ukrainian Tsarist troops surrounded on all sides, as the jet taxied to a stop, but 95% of the troops in the base had been secretly moved away in order to limit the amount of witnesses. The rest didn’t know what was going on, but were told that the Kargat were here, the infamous Tsarist secret police, and that the coming President might try to harm their Tsar, and to be ready for anything. They were, these were hardened veteran troops, having fought in the Lavragerian and now the Baltic campaigns, and were picked for their specific loyalty to the Tsar. They just continued to do their jobs, not knowing that this foul wind was a portent of the horrible battle to come.

Then, after Putin disembarked, a hidden Kargat member took aim with his Stinger missile, and fired at the waiting jet. With the explosion, all hell broke loose.

Tsar Wingert I.
Beth Gellert
12-08-2005, 13:24
Kolkata

Gangsters in West Bengal were well known... outsiders living in the community were known to the immediate community, which was part of the local democratic body, and as such the intelligence was available to all in the state and, indeed, the Commonwealth. When some began quite inexplicably to, "cause trouble" what precious little remained of their ill-got assets quickly became taken-over by local units of the Commonwealth Guard, and where a few tried to resist with deadly force they were dead or trapped within minutes at most.

With most of West Bengal's old slums and cities in various degrees of planned demolition and new Phalansteries rising, remaining old buildings in which some criminals holed-up were not long until surrounded, and in many cases the flattened cityscape around saw militia snipers peppering such locations with 7.62x54mm fire from sometimes a kilometre away.

Certain communities chose more dramatic action still, unleashing long-suffered frustrations against the common hate figures and treating these as the battles denied them when the state government retreated in disorder: rocket propelled grenades, heavy machineguns, and infantry mortars made mafia arsenals inconsequential.

All in all, what would in the best environment have been a rather questionable attempt was in the Commonwealth simply unworkable. The mafia et al would have been wise to evacuate West Bengal and certainly Jharkhand the instant popular agitation suggested impending communisation, within which their entire organisation was utterly useless.

Few would pay little attention to anything of the apparent global disturbance, save those directly swept up by the rampage or tasked with trying to keep a record of events so that injustice be addressed. Even more than that, they would be no more likely to pay great attention to the life and death of an individual leader anywhere in the primitive world than they had to word of the Quinntonian PM's unfortunate turn.
Lunatic Retard Robots
15-08-2005, 00:41
As Mafiosi start battles in West Bengal and Jharkhand, two areas that definately do not need any more trouble, the Hunters of Nos. 401 and 402 auxiliary squadron, dispatched to Calcutta in order to aid the Bengalis in setting up their own intermediate defense infrastructure until more capable Igovian systems arrive, loiter over the city. The Lysanders (modified in the Roycelandian style, no doubt) of No. 406 auxiliary squadron are also present, and they circle over trouble spots while attempting to raise the Igovains and Bengalis on the ground via radio...
Xiaguo
15-08-2005, 02:02
China has officially labeled the KGB as a government sponsored conspiracy organization, and has placed a set of judicial actions in case a KGB agent was captured.

KGB agents would be charged with similiar laws as treason.
Roycelandia
15-08-2005, 11:06
Roycelandia had long taken a low-key approach to the Mafiya in the Empire... stay out of our way, and we'll stay out of yours, in effect.

All that suddenly changed. Throughout the Empire, the local police simply booted in the doors of known Mafiya members and machine-gunned them.

Those that hadn't committed anything blatantly illegal but were clearly Mafiyoso were arrested, summarily tried, and deported to Shark Island Penal Colony. Anyone who even thought about disagreeing or resisting was viciously bashed and then shot.

Imperial Guard units in the Philippines also clashed with Mafiya members in an effort to wipe them out and restore Vice to Government Control, where it belonged.
Maldaathi
15-08-2005, 12:11
OOC: Is Thailand allowed into this? I'd like to plant our own secret government funded black ops team much to the likes of Spetsnaz into Russia into this madness and confusion. If so I gotta think of a name.....
Maldaathi
16-08-2005, 15:38
OOC: B
U
M
P
I killed this post huh?
Spyr
19-08-2005, 09:53
[tag]
Armandian Cheese
30-08-2005, 04:56
Fire, eternal fire, erupted all around. A million devils danced sadistically around him, clawing at his flesh, greedily consuming him. Heat, scorching, burning, unbearable, painful, horrible, intense HEAT! Then!

Ice, cold cold ice, flashing into his sight. The pure cold blend of ice and snow, corrupted by snatches of dirt, swirling around him. Flecks thundered around him, melting on his warm flesh, covering him in the infinite cold.

“Ughhh…”, slowly, Vladimir stood up. His vision slowly began to clear.

He turned his head back, and immediately realised what had happened; Wingert had decided to get a head start. Most of Putin’s Black Scarves had been slaughtered in the blast, but an elite core of twenty remained around him.

Chikara snarled, and held out four fingers. He pointed at Lt. Michael Assad, one of Putin’s earliest bodyguards, a Middle Eastern young man with a mop of black hair and an odd grin on his face even in the most insane situations, Kadishev, a former Spetsnaz agent whose scarred old face had been further battered in the thick swamps of Lavrageria, and Donald Jacobson, an orange mustachoied former police officer who had personally lead the hunt for the dastardly French agents. These four formed a tight around Putin, who immediately pulled out his handgun.

His dark hair flapping in the wind, Chikara waced his arm out. Immediately, the remaining sixteen Black Scarves fanned out, sprinting out to confront the Kargat agents. They flipped on the thermal vision setting on their sights, threw off the black scarves that gave them their name, and rushed forward, white camouflage trenchcoats flapping in the wind.

Neri, a comrade of Kadishev’s and veteran of the Lavragerian war, rolled to the ground as a muzzle flash lit up his thermal goggles. He returned with a volley of submachine gun fire, causing the Kargat agents heat signatures to visibly fade. A grenade blast killed two Black Scarves next to him, and sent him rocketing sideways, straight into defensive trench used by Kargat snipers. He crashed into a sniper, who swore at him in Ukrainian. Neri’s light frame barely held the massive Estenlandian sniper down, and as he attempted to reach for his gun, he was knocked off by the sniper’s girth. The sniper snatched his rifle, and aimed it directly at the prostrate Neri.

“For the glory of the Tsar!”

BLAM!

Neri uncovered his eyes only to realize that he was, indeed, alive. He looked down, and to his surprise, the massive, wild eyed sniper lay dead, with a grinning Connie standing above him, her handgun still smoking. Her beautiful features seemed to be frozen in that moment of triumph.

BLAM!

The moment was shattered, along with her elegant Asian features, as a Kargat bullet slammed through her skull, and her body crumpled into the trench, directly on top of the frightened Neri. He was too young, too young to die, too young to take such an important task. He was skilled far beyond his years, but was still no match for this deadly scenario. Why hadn’t he take a calmer job? Why had he rushed out to become a Spetsnaz, and then a Black Scarf? Why did he have to die here, die with yet another young girl who had dared to dream, dared to fight for what she thought was right.

You can die two ways… the black haired, almond eyed girl’s face seemed to say to him.

He stared, his body shivering.

You can die here like a coward, waiting for the inevitable Tsarist bullet, huddling like a little child…

Suddenly, his scramble for life seemed cowardly, and the thought that Connie had died because of him tormented him greatly.

Or you can go out there and die a hero, die for what is right. Die for the ideals you swore to defend, become everything you’ve ever wanted to be.

Gently laying aside Connie’s body, he slowly stood up, his body quivering. As he looked upon her, his friend and comrade, who had died defending her friends and ideals, his resolve hardened. A submachine gun in hand, he lept out of the trench, and tore through the snowy fields. A squad of Kargat was picking off the Black Scarve remnants, and he tore towards them. Sweat blended with melted snow on his brow, and his finger tightened on the trigger.

Bullets sprayed from his gun, spewing out like a swarm of bees. One, two, three, four Kargat agents crumpled to the ground, clearly surprised by the assault. Kargat blood and guts painted the white snow. It seemed as if divine forces had possessed Neri, for his aim was true, determination unnatural, and ability to avoid bullets inhuman.

A small black object rolled up next to his foot. He looked down, to investigate the strange sensation of metal against his bare leg (his pant leg had somehow been torn off in his mad charge), and his child-like eyes widened in horror.

A grenade.

Putin raced forward, gun in hand. His four bodyguards dispatched any Kargat agents that attempted to come in their way, to pick them off, and they quickly approached Wingert. Putin glared at the man, noting how he seemed to carry no weapon but an archaic sword. He realized it was a challenge to his honor, but the stakes were far too high for Vladimir to engage in some silly aristocratic game of honor. So the team of Black Scarves and Putin, each individually weaker than the tyrannic Wingert rushed at him together.

Would their combined efforts be enough to end his evil reign? Or would the many of the weak crumble under the might of the one?

(OOC: Yes, I know I'm really laying the democracy VS monarchy symbolism thick, but...Well, it's my (and Estenlands') story, dammit! ;) )
The Estenlands
31-08-2005, 04:08
OOC-WOW! How am I going to follow that!

Wingert grinned as he stood up, finishing the prayers that he hoped would carry the day. He stepped out of the cabin as the explosion erupted outside. The bitterly cold wind whipped his huge, Russian red cloak as his massive feet crunched the snow. He saw that the Black Scarves were holding their own admirably, considering the ambush and the fact that they were outnumbered ten to one by his Kargat.

Bullets filled the air, with copious amounts of explosions caused by the brutally destructive grenade tactics of the Kargat. Sub-machineguns erupted and earth and smoke from the explosions rained down all over. Wingert waved away his guards, who dropped to knees in order to add their AK’s to the effort of cutting down the Black Scarves. The elite Scarves were amazing everyone with their tenacity and skill.

Wingert saw the smoke clear and saw the motley band of guards form up in front and to the sides as they charged forward through the smoke and fire and flying bullets. His heart began to pound so loudly that it blocked out everything else, his warriors senses seemed to slow everything down to slow motion, and then he pulled his sword.

The sword came free easily, though it was a lot heavier than he remembered it being in his youth, he would claim the Divine Russian Empire for himself today, or die with his enemies’ throat at his teeth.

The first two bodyguards opened fire on Wingert as they charged up the hill at the imposing mountain of a man. Chikara and Donald Jacobson soon realised that Wingert was not the archaic fool from a medieval time that he liked to portray, the bullets bounced off his armoured chest, leaving the most minor of scuffs, though some tore holes in his flowing red cloak, though that only made him look all the more invulnerable and imposing. And Wingert pulled back that monster of an arm and with the speed of an ancient trebuchet, let loose the massive blade that he was holding, throwing the 6 ft., 75 lbs. sword in a side arm throwing motion, sending the thing flying in a spinning circular blade of death. The blade literally lopped Chikara in half and then lodged its swiftly moving bulk into the side and chest of Mr. Jacobson, who is thrown backward almost ten feet, the power of it all making him fly through the air like a rag doll. Then the unarmed Wingert used the pause that this terrible show of strength gained him in even these hardened warriors and let out a war-cry and charged, screaming for the blood of his enemies as his body responded to the mental command to carry this inhuman bulk down the hill. He was on top of them in an instant, and that was all Lt. Assad and Kadishev needed to regain their senses and bring their guns up to attack. Assad let loose with a burst of gunfire trying to raise the weapon to aim at the 7 foot man’s face, still somehow grinning. Wingert continued the attack, grabbing the sub-machinegun, with his hand in it in his giant hand and suddenly, the smile disappeared. A sudden realisation that he was in a fight like he has never been in came over him and his eyes grew large at the sound of that iron grip cracking and snapping the bones in the Lt.’s hand as his hand was crushed beyond recognition. With the raw power that was being exerted through that monstrous hand, even the stock of the gun began to crack, and then Lt. Assad felt himself being lifted far too easily for a man of his size into the air, and tossed over the quickly ducking Putin, even feeling his ribs cracking as he crashed into the grizzled veteran Kadishev, who was knocked back into the snow by the power of the mass of his comrade being thrown into him by the ogre of a man. He had been in some of the worst scrapes that modern Russian could remember, and he was not going to let this big oaf from another century best him, at least not without a fight. He had lost his gun in the fall, and he didn’t care, a warrior uses the weapons he has, so he draws his large fighting/survival knife, the same that had killed so many Ukrainians in Lavrageria, and leaped up while the bears back was turned. He saw a chink in the armour on Wingert’s back, and thrust the blade as hard as he could, burying the weapon deep into the side of the rampaging monarch. Wingert roared, and the bear turned on Kadishev, with murder on his mind. He could not reach the blade, so he just lunged at Kadishev, who moved aside and pulled the big knife free, allowing the deep wound to begin to gush blood, spraying in all directions with the movements of the mammoth man. Wingert lunged again at Kadishev, who again stepped out of the way, and that allowed the barely conscious Lt. Assad to pull his service pistol and fire a shot that also found a home in a chink in Wingert’s armour. Wingert just turned and brought his foot down on the face of the prone Lt. Assad, crushing him like a bug with a the sickening splat of his armoured foot crushing the skull of the grinning warrior. This momentary respite allowed Kadishev to plunge his blade into the lower back of the bleeding monster. Wingert swung with such speed and power that his gauntleted backhand finally struck home on the left side of Kadishev’s face, crunching bone and rendering the hard-fighting veteran comatose.

The hulking brute then leaned down and lifted his sword out of the bleeding corpse on the ground. And turned to face his real opponent, blood gushing from the stab wound in his side, pouring from the bullet wound in his shoulder, and the blade still sticking out of his back, its handle drenched in the blood of the last true Tsar.

He locked eyes with Putin, and….


Tsar Wingert I.
Quinntonian Dra-pol
01-09-2005, 02:16
BUMP!
WWJD
Amen.
The Estenlands
02-09-2005, 03:33
BUMP for the love!
Tsar Wingert I.
Armandian Cheese
05-09-2005, 00:49
OOC-The love train is here. Or...something...like...that...Yeah...Damn Hippies!
IC

“Hell, hell, hell! A hell of snow and ice, but a hell nonetheless was what I beheld! Warriors of democracy clad in black scarves collapsing under the might of tyrannic white robed demons, with flames all around! Darkness descended upon us from all sides, wearing away the edges of our strength, until only one stood to fight for good.

The bursting flames of evil silenced, it seemed that the battle had ended. Such was the peace, that for but a moment, it seemed the battle had never begun…

But then I beheld him, the Demon King, who loomed over them…”
Putin stood silent in the snowy field. Flames crackled around him, from the wreckage of his aircraft and the various damages caused by the battle. He had attempted to rush into battle with those who called themselves Black Scarves and who Putin had granted the rare opening into his trust called friendship, but Chikara had performed a truly noble sacrifice in trademark fashion.

To put it bluntly, he punched him in the face. The agent’s normally harsh, Asiatic face, which concealed all emotion behind a stern expression and thick sunglasses, revealed a flicker of emotion, and then he delivered a swift blow to his friend’s face. He immediately followed it with a sweeping kick to the shocked Vladimir’s legs, dropping him to the ground with a thump. Disoriented at what seemed to be a betrayal, the President rose immediately with a speedy uppercut.

But his fist only met the cold, frosty air. Embarassment filled up his throat, as did a feeling of intense pride. The betrayal by his greatest companion, the woman he had loved with an intensity unmatched by mere romantic or familial feelings, had crushed what was left of any sentimentality left in his heart. As he had striden out to meet Wingert’s challenge, he had felt no emotion. But now, now he had been given hope. If there were still men on earth willing to give their lives for another, out of friendship and patriotism, well, then perhaps there was still something worth fighting for.

His spirits renewed, he became a black blur, a splotch of dark paint upon a the snowy white canvas. He aimed the gun at Wingert, anticipating the moment when he would be in range of the towering beast, but a tragedy played out in front of his eyes. The giant slashed through Chikara’s body with inhuman speed and ease, knocking aside Jacobson for good measure. Blood and guts spurted out from the two seperated halves of his body, and the whole bloody mass collapsed onto the snow. Eerily, Chikara’s expression remained frozen in his trademark harsh frown, coldly furious to the end.
Two Kargat agents leapt onto Putin as he attempted to fire at Wingert from such an impossible range. In keeping with the Tsar’s archaic ideas of honor, they did him no harm, but such niceties concerned Putin little. They stumbled onto the ground and outright brawled, snow and blood and mud smearing onto their clothes. The man in black elbowed one man in the head, which gave him enough of an opening to grasp for his gun. Aiming clumsily, he blasted off a shot at the second Kargat agent, knocking him back. He The agents, one clutching his head and the other his bleeding shoulder gun wound, slowly stood up and backed away, much to Putin’s surprise. He attempted to blast off another shot, but realized, much to his disgust, that his gun was jammed.

He whirled around to see why they had suddenly pulled back, and his eyes widened in horror.

They were all dead.
Four crack Black Scarves, some of the deadliest men in Russia and perhaps the world, dead. Just like that. Armed with submachine guns against one man with a sword, they had lost.

In that moment, Putin snapped. The armor he had built over his entire life, since the death of his father and the emotional breakdown of his mother, the armor that had withstood a war-ridden youth and an insane Presidential reign, that had slightly cracked only twice in his life, shattered. First the dawning realization that his campaigns in the Baltics had been foolish, evil enterprises and a betrayal of the ideals he professed to believe, then the revelation that The Boss, the only human being on earth for whom Putin felt an emotion close to love, was actually the Red Leader and a member of the ancient order of the Illumaniti, manipulating him in order to restore the Tsarist Monarchy, and finally the noble death of his four most loyal bodyguards, two of whom the President had counted amongst his closest friends, had finally done the impossible: broken Putin.

And now, Vladimir Putin was no longer warrior for democracy, President of the Divine Russian Empire, righteous hero of the Russian peoples.

No, he was simply f*cking pissed!

Rage burned through his veins as his arms reached behind his back. Two finely curved Cossack Kindjal blades found their way into his hands, and with a flourish he brought them up into the air and dramatically sliced down into the air in an X shape.

“YAAAAAARGGHHH!” he roared, and charged forward.

The unarmed Kargat agents, unsure of what to do (Wingert’s order clearly ordered them to leave Putin unharmed, and obviously the Tsar had cared little about what happened to Kargat agents themselves) attempted to flee, but Putin’s feet seemed possessed with a demonic energy. He lept in between them, his arms crossed, and swept out, decapitating the two unfortunate Ukrainians. He whirled around, his trenchcoat sweeping behind him. The tussle with the Kargat had split the buttons on his trenchcoat, revealing the tight black shirt and long pants he wore underneath. The man in black approached Wingert, his eyes blazing with fury.

And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

Abaddon, Apollyon, Wingert of the Village of Farrah, angel of the bottomless pit, scion of the True Tsars. Thick armor, resembling only visually the ancient devices worn by his ancestors when they marched off into battle, as the seemingly contradictory qualities of bulletproofing and ease of mobility indicated advanced modern materials, stretched across his flesh, and a wild beard flowed across his face. His eyes seemed to hide a terrible cruelty and a maniacal intellect, and his enormous body exuded not only the sense of power Putin had come to associate with warriors of Wingert’s caliber, but the sense of entitlement to power. It seemed Tsar was powerful, not through the luck of the genetic lottery, but because that was the way things were supposed to be. Looking upon him, Vladimir was not surprised that so many had willingly bought into the myth of divine right to rule. Wingert, massive blade rested lazily in the bloody snow, certainly seemed to fit the profile for a ruler that was more than a ruler, a man who was more than a man, a human who was more a force of nature than a man. For the first time in a long time, the President’s body trembled slightly with fear, in the same way his serf ancestors trembled at sight of Ivan Grozny.

But Putin was no pushover either. Perhaps not granted massive strength or an aura of power by nature, he certainly made up for it with his own grit and determination. His stern face at once seemed to hold on to the clutches of handsomeness from youth, and the weary wisdom that only came from old age. They reflected the fact that after his father’s death at the hands of the corrupt Mafiya, and his utter inability to resist the thugs who torched the store, he had vowed to never allow anyone to defeat him again. Never naturally skilled, strong, or intelligent, he had honed his body into a weapon through a lifetime of training. Long hours in school, endless training sessions, and a crushing physical regimen had been the story of his life. Unlike those like Wingert, who seemed born with cunning, strength, and ability, he had forged all of those traits with a lifetime of bitter work. Even his participation in the Quinntonian military had been just another phase in his training; he had after all always been Russian at heart and felt little loyalty towards the land where he had spent much of his life. Now, the lifetime of work was about to be put to the test. The brilliance in his emerald eyes, the physical fitness evidenced by his lean, powerfully built muscular frame, and the skill flowing through the fingers that masterfully clutched the ancient Cossack blades, was ready to be utilized in an epic clash.

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns..

The two men faced each other, standing at ready silently, neither wishing to make the first move that would leave him exposed.

“ This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Repent! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices! "Therefore, O house of Ivan, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall! Repent for all your crimes, Wingert. Repent for the broken promise of freedom given your people, repent for the sufferings of Lavrageria, repent for your assaults on freedom!”

The Tsar snarled at his Biblical quoting, and laughed throatily.

“You dare quote Holy Scripture at your Tsar? Kneel before me and I may find it in my generous heart to forgive this insolence.” “I’ll never kneel before you again, just as the Russian people shall never again kneel before a tyrant!”
“So you reject your knighthood? Well…Once a peasant, always a peasant. I’ll crush you like the worthless insect you are…”

A crooked grin emerged on Putin’s face.

“Speaking of kneeling, tell Adrianna she was damn good last night…”
Wingert nearly choked on a mix of anger, indignation, and surprise.
“WHAT?!? First you toss away knighthood, then you dare to insult my daughter?!? Do you have no honor? Are you not a warrior? Is this the ‘democracy’ you want to create, a filthy, sexually depraved, dishonorable rabble of fools stomping all over honor, divinity, and nobility?”, he said as he practically trembled with anger. “Mmm…Yeah, she’s a fiery one, although even I was a bit taken aback by her insistence on tossing in a lesbian there too…”
”SILENCE!” “I found it really odd how she constantly cried out ‘Oh daddy’!” “YOU FILTHY DOG! I’LL KILL YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS!”

Enraged, the bear rushed forward at the man in black. His gigantic sword swept upward diagonally, but instead of tasting Putin’s blood it only drank frosty air. Putin had sidestepped out of the way, which he followed with a swift strike at Wingert’s neck. Only Wingert’s height and a sudden shift of his shoulder saved the bear from a bloody decapitation, which was replaced by a spurt of blood spewing from his upper arm. With his other blade Vlad tried to go for the giant’s head, but was caught by Wingert’s blade. His left arm stuck, Vlad pulled his right blade back and attempted to hack away at Wingert’s arm again. The Tsar exerted his tremendous reserves of strength and pushed back at the blade he had intercepted, causing Putin to lose his balance and fall backwards onto the ice. Panting heavily with both rage and exhaustion, a red faced Ukrainian Cesar marched forward, raising his blade towards the sky. He bore it down, but the Russian President rolled to the side in the last moment. It was a close shave, as indicated by the trenchcoat the Tsarist blade had pinned to the ice. Again and again, Wingert’s sword cut down towards Putin, who evaded by rolling side to side, surviving each blow by a hair. He could feel the slivers of ice spraying uncomfortably closely to his face, and realized that with every blow Wingert came closer to his mark. He grabbed a small glass bottle strapped to his belt, rolled to the right to dodge a fierce clash of ice and metal, and hurled it at the Ukrainian’s face. It shattered in a splash of silver and glass upon Wingert’s right eye.

“ARGH!” Wingert howled with agony, as his hand clutched his eye in agony. It burned through his eye fiercely, and seeped painfully into the bleeding wounds scratched out by the shattered glass. He dropped the sword, which crashed with a thud onto the ice. Putin took the opportunity to leap up and strike. He sprinted forward, clad now only in a bloody black shirt and pants, and punched the scarred Wingert in the face. Wingert fell back, but Putin followed up with a left hook, and thought he heard a small crunch emanating from the monarch’s jaw. Staggering, bleeding, and raging with poison, Wingert cursed Putin disbelievingly. Putin replied with a swift kick to chest, and a sharp remark.

“You know why democracy will always prevail? Because its survival isn’t solely based on the mood swings and temperament of a power mad dictator who risks everything over a personal insult!”

Wingert realized he’d been baited. While he’d thought he could have used Putin’s rage to his own benefit, the blasted commoner had turned the tables on him! The enigmatic President, despite the appearance of an emotional collapse, had once again used his ability to conceal, mold, and hone his raging emotions into a weapon, and transformed a blind feeling of pain into a powerful, cold fury. And then used that fury to trick the bitter monarch.

“Impressive. But I didn’t defeat a Communist superpower to die at the hands of a peasant imposter!”

Amazingly, this man whose girth seemed to require a crane to move him from place to place, leapt into the air. Like a hawk, he dove through the sky, and smashed into Putin with the force of a speeding train. They wrestled on the ground, ripping off Vladimir’s shirt and Wingert’s cape, until the monarch towered above the man in black. His fists rained down upon Putin’s face, smashing bone and tearing muscle. Blow after blow after blow left Putin’s face a bloody mess, draining him of strength and life. As Vladimir weakened, Wingert seemed to feed on his draining life force, grinning madly and intensifying his assault.

“No…no...NO!” cried out Putin.

Realizing his only option was a dirty one, he went with it anyway and viciously kneed Wingert in the groin. Although it was heavily armored, as were all parts of his body, the blow did cause enough pain to stun the monarch for a moment. This gave Putin the opening he needed to punch Wingert in the face, knocking him off of the President. Both men rose up and rushed for their weapons.

Breathing heavily, Putin said,”These are the blades used by Stenka Razin to shed the blood of the Tsarists, and this…”

He dipped the blades into the small silver pool that consisted of the poison scarring Wingert’s face.

“…is the poison that was used to end the reign of Ivan Grozny. And today it shall finish its job!”

He ran forward, blades ready to strike. Wingert and Putin dueled with an insane ferocity, parrying, thrusting, sweeping, slashing, and cutting with an almost inhuman speed. Putin thrust with his right sword towards Wingert’s chest, and slashed down at his legs with the other. Wingert’s metal boot kicked aside the lower blow, and knocked down the thrust with his blade. He swung at Putin’s side with such force that the Russian President needed both of his Cossack Kindjals to hold the blow back. Their blades locked, the two old warhorses could feel each other’s bloody, warm, and erratic breaths. To his surprise, Putin found he respected the man. Although he hated him and everything he stood for, he found that they were both extremely alike. Stubborn, determined, and fierce, both men bore many characteristics that certainly helped leftist propagandists lump them in together. Old warhorses, they had risked their lives and taken the lives of others in combat. Devoutly religious, they both saw the guiding light of God in their lives. Harshly realistic, they both saw the foolish evil of Communism. But in the few areas that they did differ, they differed enormously. Perhaps what was most significant was Putin’s idealism, contrasted to Wingert’s ambition. Putin had dedicated his entire life to making a positive difference; Wingert had dedicated it to gathering himself as much power as possible.

And perhaps that was Putin’s downfall. While he fought for an ideal, a cause, Wingert fought for himself.

Any capitalist can tell you what is the more powerful human instinct.

“YARG!” howled Wingert, as he headbutted Putin.

Bleeding from the forehead, Putin staggered back. Wingert brought down his blade towards Putin’s head, which Vladimir barely parried. He thrust at the President, which the orange haired man barely sidestepped. When Putin tried to knock down Wingert’s blade with his left sword, and stab him with his right, the bearded man grinned. He lowered the archaic blade, anticipating Putin’s attempt to knock it out of his hand, and tore a gash across Putin’s knees. Shocked, the man in black’s knees gave out beneath him, and he tumbled to the ground, dropping his left sword. However, as he fell to the earth, the Kindjal flew out of his right hand, and found its way into a stomach chink in Wingert’s armor. Not only did he manage this devastating blow against the towering creature, but he turned the uncontrolled collapse into a slide. He slid underneath Wingert’s hulking mass, flying between his legs. Painfully stopping in a crouch, he stood up, his knees oozing with blood, and whirled around. His palm slammed towards the Ukrainian’s back, pushing in the knife left by Kadishev.

Wingert could not contain the howl of pain that followed, and Putin pulled the long knife out. He aimed the blade at the back of Wingert’s throat, and thrust forward…
Dra-pol
05-09-2005, 09:24
(Well blow me down if this isn't the biggest eye-to-eye scrap since some chumps tried to kill Hotan! Or since... well, okay, no, Kurosian didn't put up quite this much of a fight when his turn came.

*Awaits conclusion*)
Quinntonian Dra-pol
06-09-2005, 22:25
It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.
Revelation 13:7

WWJD
Amen.
Armandian Cheese
07-09-2005, 01:24
Oooh, nice one. I was digging through Revelation to find some good quotes (Abaddon was a good one, methinks) but I do like that one.
Hudecia
07-09-2005, 02:56
*awaits anxiously for the conclusion - I CAN'T TAKE THE SUSPENSE MUCH LONGER!*
Beth Gellert
07-09-2005, 03:00
OOC: Well, I didn't want to interrupt this epic with an OOC and totally amature critique, but since I don't want you to think I'm ignoring it, either, I'd best say something! Myself, I wouldn't be inclined to pen (key?) a Hollywood clash like this, but perhaps I've just been poisoned by Vonnegutesque aversion to reliance on heroic-character-driven yarns, which is probably no fun on my part :)
However, that's a taste thing rather than anything you should actually worry about, and I recognise that this is pretty important in AMW terms, and I am very curious to see how you work it out, what become of Wingert, and grudgingly even how the clash might significantly change the entire world.
In other words, keep the blood flowing! We're all waiting to see...
Xiaguo
07-09-2005, 06:34
As the Russian mafias were deteriorating, the Chinese Red Scarves and the HuaFeng Criminal networks have united to form one of the largest criminal networks in China. Being sponsored by the government, the mafia soon took control of the Siberian streets in Vladivostok and Khabarovsk and is building a strong network strecth from Northern India, to Tibet, to Xinjiang, and a giant net cast over China, and up to the heart of Siberia.


(Mongolia)
Hundres of troops have also moved up North into Mongolia where they began training. Hundreds more Secured Xinjiang, and a few thousand in Dongbei(Manchuria) have also started the month long training. The missile defense barrier in Southern China, Eastern China, Mongolia, and Northern China have now started on their annual billion dollar operations.
Dai Nippon Koku
07-09-2005, 13:55
Life in Japan settled down remarkably well after the Mafiya purges; the Pacific Lotus slipped into the holes left by the Mafiya's demise, bringing Japan's organised crime rings under the oversight of a staunch Imperial ally. Under Kangtian Wei's leadership, the Pacific Lotus assumed the 'honourable outlaw' role which was the romantic view of the Yakuza. Petty thugs and street gangs who did nothing but prey on citizens found themselves being visited by Lotus members in an attempt to 'educate' them in respecting those who don't wish to be involved in the underworld.

As such, a strange rapport was reached by the Lotus and law enforcement agencies. The Lotus was helping to reduce gang-related violence and occasionally deposited major culprits at a police station; in return, the police looked the other way when it came to certain Lotus operations. The Lotus also assisted in the war against narcotics; although they had sold them while in Peru, Shinseiki had asked Kangtian to keep Japan free of drugs. As a result, the Lotus was either destroying shipments as they entered the country or placed anonymous tips with law enforcement.

(OOC: More fighting please! This is one of the best things I've read in a long time.)
Armandian Cheese
08-09-2005, 01:26
OOC: Xiaguo, you cannot claim to suddenly have built a giant criminal network within my territory. You can start some efforts to create one, but a "huge swath in Siberia" is patently absurd. And I'm waiting for Estenlands to continue; I'm sure he's taking his time to craft it to the highest standards.

IC:

The Russian Mafiya was dead. Vladimir Putin's final gift to Russia, and indeed the world was the Nigerian scheme, and his quest for personal vengeance was achieved. A parasitic scourge that had once sucked the world dry now crumbled, finally weakened after a ten year effort by Russia to eliminate it. A culmination of sting operations, the Nigerian betrayal, and the death of the Red Leader (who was, as it turns out, Putin's closest friend, The Boss) had caused the Mafiya to cease to exist as a major criminal group. Greatly weakened, what little remained degenerated into petty local gangs, and the anachronism that was a hierarchical and highly structured international criminal group was now gone.

All KGB agents participating in the stings have greatly thanked foreign governments for aid and pulled out. Of course, the regular spy apparatus remains, lurking in the shadows...

The Chinese government is viciously criticized, and the Russian government demands they hand over all Russian law enforcement officials.

"We help the Chinese solve their crime problem and they reward us with this?" ---Donald Jacobson, Black Scarve/Former Police Officer (OOC: Yes, this was before he was dead)
Xiaguo
08-09-2005, 02:57
KGB agents who have not registered with Chinese authorities have been placed in camps. Such agents may very well be spies, and that is why all registered KGB agents have been allow to assist the Chinese Criminal Investigations Bureau.


Vladivostok

"I have received orders to take over your precinct. You will be expecting lots of 'our people' to arrive. You have 2 days of preparations before a full take over." said Luo.

"But, what about the KGB? The Russians will.."mumbled Yang.

"No, that can be easily taken care of. There are several factions in Vladivostok, we have come to terms with them and believe me, even if we fail to send natives over, your men will triple. If all is well, Dragon Head Yang is more than happy to place you in a high rank. I am sure you'll be one of the dragons within the many snakes."

With that, Luo hung up, and Yang was left there, gazing at his men, who were now waiting tentatively for his orders.
Spyr
08-09-2005, 05:20
[OOC: Sorry to clutter this thread up even further, but to issue a clarification to Xiaguo:

In AMW, Vladivostok is not part of Russia, nor was it part of Manchuria before that. Rather, that particular geographic location rests at the base of the Lyong peninsula, and can be seen on themap below, under its Lyongese name of 'Gochu'].

http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/3873/eastasiaamw1hq.gif
The Estenlands
08-09-2005, 19:40
Wingert had been beaten, he knew that now. The four guards that he had so arrogantly took on, instead of allowing his poised Kargat snipers to cut them down from afar, had hurt him…..badly. And now Putin had tried to finish the job. Wingert felt sure that he was dieing. His reflexes came slowly, he felt weak, even his infamous rage was spent. All he felt was pain, all he saw was fire…and blood. His blood, the blood that poured out of his body to spill on the ground. He looked back, his life flashing before his eyes.

Father Bahamut came up the path. It was not winter, but there was some snow on the ground, and Wingert was playing in the snow with some of his “friends.” He never once questioned why all of his friends were adults who carried swords and guns, he never really saw any other children to compare with. His home was a cabin hidden high in the North Carpathians, in South-western Ukraine, he was being hidden by a secret cabal dedicated to bringing back the Grozny line. And Wingert’s father was it, standing six and a half feet tall, with a wild, unkempt beard, and weighing a hugely muscled 300 pounds, Vladimir Grozny was an amazing sight to behold. He dressed like a Tsar of old, but handled himself in modern combat quite easily. He carried a Quinntonian model “Tommy” machinegun and had been preparing his men for years for an opportunity like this, and today the greatest opportunity that ever came had happened. The Soviet oppressors and murderers of the Tsars had been given a major blow, their erstwhile German allies had attacked suddenly, and with no advance warning, Stalin and his mighty Red Army had been sent reeling, unable to cope, since he had just completed the last purge of his officer corps. And Vladimir had seen the Nazis as liberators, as a means to an end, and had gone to meet with them to bargain for his kingdom. He had left with most of the leaders of his small movement, most of them folk heroes to the local people, they having fought in small ways against Romanavs and then against the Soviets. Lenin, you could understand, but this Stalin, he was a madman. Father Bahamut came up as the smowball fight ended, and said to Wingert, already a little big for his age, “Your Majesty, in the meeting with the SS, your father, your uncles and the entire upper nobility was ambushed by the Nazis, all were slain. Your Majesty, the Tsar is dead, LONG LIVE THE TSAR!” And then old Bahamut, who Wingert always remembered as ancient, bowed to the little child, and not a tear came.

Wingert looked as all around him, men moved in slow motion, some missing limbs from the many explosions, the burning wreckage of Putin’s plane throwing thick, black smoke over the sky, blotting it all out, and looked down at the broken bodies at his feet, the blood on his hands, and the gore all around him.

Wingert had spent his childhood training his body brutally and his mind even more, now at 16, standing already his fathers height and weight, he had begun to lead his movement, which barely amounted to a terrorist movement, rather than the revolutionary army that they claimed to be. Father Bahamut had ruled this cabal, as regent, but Wingert had declared Bahamut his Father-Confessor, and taken control himself, now ready to rule. A few had taken objection to taking their orders from a boy, but the young giant had silenced that opposition by strangling the loudest of his critics at a meeting of all the leadership. Most of the people who fought for his father had fought with the Red Army against the Nazis once it was realised that they were facing two devils, and stuck with the one that they already knew. And throughout the war, the movement had grown into hundreds of independent cells throughout Ukraine and even into southern Lavrageria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic’s and Western Russia itself. But mostly in Ukraine, where it was sold to the common people as a bid for Ukrainian independence. And now the resisters had seen a real war, and had been trained and equipped by Stalin himself. The moment the war ended, they began to build, gaining public support, gathering money, weapons, and other supplies, and with the recognition of Wingert as Tsar, he asked that all the nobles send their children abroad to be educated, and that the movement would pay for their upkeep, education and even provide guards for them, pointing forward to the day that they would return with all of the magic that education could provide, and lead his empire one day for him. It is them that the war against the Soviets began in earnest, with Wingert directing the many cells across Eastern Europe to the most bloodthirsty and brutal tactics that he could dream of. He was 16, it was 1953.

The pain was overbearing, as he fought and fought with Putin, and Putin flashed and side-stepped, so fact, so very fast, too fast, Wingert couldn’t keep up, he was an old man, what had possessed him to think that he could do this like he could in his earlier days. This little furious democrat was going to kill him, at least he had an heir, but Putin was no fool, Peter and Catherine would be killed soon after Wingert was gone.

It was a beautiful day in the Carpathian mountains, the mountain hide-out that Wingert used in northern Turkey to get away from Ukraine and the war for awhile. He was to be married, to a woman descended from Polish nobility, a true Tsarina if ever there was one, and she was so beautiful. This was no arranged marriage between cold, unloving, partners, but rather a vigorous love affair between two young people, made very necessary by the fact that Helina Anastazjia Petronela was with child. Father Bahamut married them in a ceremony attended by some of the upper-leadership of the movement. She was glorious in her white dress and he in his ceremonial armour. He had even trimmed his beard for the occasion. They made love that night, he flushed with wedding wine, and he proclaimed his undying love for her. He was 22, it was 1959.

Putin inflicted wound after wound on the big monarch, and Wingert was beginning to wonder how he could still be standing, all he could think about was how thirsty and tired he was. He would have given anything at that time for a little water, and just five minutes to rest. He was so scared, shaking so much but trying to control his rebelling body lest he give the little man in black the satisfaction of seeing his better tremble.

He had not seen Helina for six months…again….but his visits with her were some unpleasant now, did she not understand that he answered to a higher calling, and that the war took precedence over trivial things like his marriage. It had been hard for him to look at her, feeling like she was betraying him, with miscarriage after miscarriage, and all of these years later, still nothing. But as he climbed the path to the mountain cabin, he still felt content to be coming home to her, she was pregnant again, maybe this time it would happen for them. Yvonne Petrosky of his Kargat, his most loyal bodyguard, met him, with tears in his eyes. “What’s wrong?” Wingert bellowed, his blood running cold, but no colder then when he heard the answer. “She lost the baby…couldn’t face you….left a note….stole a service revolver…..gone.” He was 30, it was 1966.

A sudden cold erupted in the stomach of Wingert, and he choked down the bile that came with it, swallowing the bitter stuff hard. He was chosen of God. He was of the line Grozny. He was the true scion of the Tsars of old, he was Wingert, The Terrible. How could this man of common birth kill him? It was impossible. It was against the divine order of things. He could not allow things like this to happen again, he would not be murdered by commoners like Nicolas II was by Lenin’s thugs.

After his wife committed suicide, near open warfare had erupted all over the countryside, Wingert had left control and command of the movement in the capable hands of his High Council of War, and had joined the men in the field, working behind enemy lines, deep in Russia, as a guerrilla fighter. The Soviets were brutal and slaughtered the people by the hundred of thousand, Wingert knew that they had to be even more brutal if they wanted to show the Soviets that they would be best served leaving his country alone. But they would not give up their damn revolution. And so Wingert the giant took on one of the two greatest world super-powers and applied his iron will to the cause. The fight was long, the fight was hard, they captured the imaginations of disaffected nobility all over Europe, those that longed for a return to the old ways, and he took their money, all the while cultivating relationships with the nobility of this modern world, big business. His people were almost fanatical, though he still knew that most fought more for an independent Ukraine or for rage against the Soviets than for a return of their Tsar, but he slowly and inexorably made himself a folk-hero, his size only adding to the legend as this giant stood alone on the front lines, single-handedly fighting a war with a super-power.
Then finally, they left. The great Soviet Union started to pull out of Ukraine, they destroyed everything that they could get their hands on, and slaughtered thousands on their way out, burning down nearly all of Kiev in the process. But Wingert took command of his army, and encouraged the common people to pick up arms against their oppressors, and they did, taking vengeance for years and years of KGB raids and Moscow-centric policy that bled the Ukrainian people for all those decades. And Wingert led his army, a rag-tag bunch of warriors that looked little better than a well-armed biker gang into what was left of Kiev, and took control of the government, becoming the Tsar of the Eastern Lands, the Estenlands, with Ukraine itself becoming a vassal to the Estenlands, though notably the only one. Wingert then inherited the third largest nuclear power in the world, with a massive military infrastructure that had to be abandoned, and began his paranoid build-up against the Soviets ever returning. His people were more than happy to break their backs for him, what could be worse than what they had been through already? And he asked them to….he was 40, it was 1976.

The pain in Wingert’s body was unbearable, but he was above such petty things! He was a Tsar! And though his mouth was dry but for the blood, though his body shook with exertion and fear, though his arms were so tired that he didn’t know if he could lift them again, though he bled so much that it was wonder that he had any more blood to lose, he began to rage. The cold in his belly moved to his heart, and his eyes flashed with the rage of a Tsar, of a living God! And he turned at an almost inhuman speed towards Putin, who had pulled the knife from his back and…

His second wife had been the niece of his first, and she had provided him with two daughters, the beautiful Jillesepone and the tomboy Adrienna. She had died giving birth to Adrienna and he had not cared, she had served her purpose. He trained them hard, knowing that they had to take over when he was gone. He had spent his reign preparing for leaving a legacy, he had crafted a major military power, designed to take on the Russians should they decide to come back. He had begun the process of selling knighthoods to prominent businessmen from around the world, provided that they invest heavily in the Estenlands and maintain a home here, and many did that and more. He sent his nobility to become educated at the best universities in the world, and surrounded himself with the most loyal nobles that fought with him during the revolution. He ruled from his palace in Kiev, and then a coup happened in France, a king of old had returned. He was no longer alone. It was 1988, he was 52.

Wingert brought his gauntleted backhand across the face of the man in black, feeling the familiar crushing of bone under his paw. That staggered Putin, and Wingert capitalised on his newfound resolve and his opponents momentary pause. He then grabbed the blades of Putin’s twin blades in his gauntlets and the fight came to a stop. Putin gasped, “Oh no.” and then Wingert exerted his power, and the blades snapped. Wingert then turned them both and plunged them into the shoulders of Putin, making him scream and drop the handles of his once glorious swords. Wingert then grabbed Putin with his hand wrapping around his throat, and lifting him off the ground, began to squeeze the life out of him. Wingert used his other hand to wrap it around Putin’s left arm, and bend…(SNAP)….then his right…(SNAP)….and his right leg…(SNAP)….and his left….(SNAP)……following with several mighty blows to the chest, snapping his (SNAP) ribs (SNAP) like (SNAP) kindling (SNAP) under the juggernaught’s blows. "Where is your God now, you Scripture quoting peasant bastard!"

Wingert continued to squeeze, and just as Putin’s eyes started to flutter closed, and as he stopped kicking, Wingert threw him into the icy river that flowed past. That was no small throw, at almost 100 feet, Putin’s rag-doll like body fell into the icy, hypothermic waters, obviously broken, used, beaten and dead.

Wingert fell to his knees, his legs unable to hold his massive bulk any longer. It was over…his Kargat agents ran to his side, medics rushed to help him, and he slumped to the ground. Alive, intact, for the most part……TSAR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS!


Tsar Wingert I.
Hudecia
09-09-2005, 03:21
OOC: wow.. so Putin is dead?
Xiaguo
09-09-2005, 08:06
Da Qing Di Guo(The Qing Empire's) Territories before unfair treaties pushed upon by Japan and Russia, including many other foreign governments.

http://homepages.stmartin.edu/Fac_Staff/rlangill/HIS%20217%20maps/Qinq%20dynasty%20map.jpg

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/china/images/qingmap.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/china/later_imperial_china/qing.html&h=249&w=380&sz=11&tbnid=gWaTfc-ICRoJ:&tbnh=77&tbnw=119&hl=en&start=1&prev=/images%3Fq%3DQIng%2Bmap%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26c2coff%3D1%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official_s%26sa%3DG

http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/dbcourses/asianarthum/pinky/aah_ch_map_qing.jpg

http://www.npc.edu.hk/~hist/map_qing.JPG

http://huhai.diy.myrice.com/map/41(qing)l.jpg


Thank you Spyr for clearing up for me, I assumed it was under Russian control. Please replace that in your mind with Khaborovsk.
Dai Nippon Koku
09-09-2005, 10:23
OOC: Noooooo! So when does the rest of the world find out about this?
The Estenlands
09-09-2005, 16:16
Xiagou, so you feel no problem at all with assuming control of a massive criminal enteprise that goes "up into the heart of Siberia" without first talking it over with the person speaking for that RPing territory. I have no problem with you starting an underground RP about trying to move into that territory, but, assuming that it was already there, and if it was, it wasn't already detroyed by the massive stings and so on, is asking a bit much for us to swallow, especially when it is so convienient that you mafia would work to your advantage like that, and not like what has historrically been played by AC, mafia to the nations detriment.

And yes, Putin is dead. It will come out soon, I have to put together a post to announce it to the world.

Tsar Wingert I.
Hudecia
09-09-2005, 16:29
OOC: wow... that was an amazing RP... hats off to AC and Estenlands for a wonderfully RP'ed clash of the titans.
Armandian Cheese
10-09-2005, 06:54
Xiagou, so you feel no problem at all with assuming control of a massive criminal enteprise that goes "up into the heart of Siberia" without first talking it over with the person speaking for that RPing territory. I have no problem with you starting an underground RP about trying to move into that territory, but, assuming that it was already there, and if it was, it wasn't already detroyed by the massive stings and so on, is asking a bit much for us to swallow, especially when it is so convienient that you mafia would work to your advantage like that, and not like what has historrically been played by AC, mafia to the nations detriment.

And yes, Putin is dead. It will come out soon, I have to put together a post to announce it to the world.

Tsar Wingert I.
OOC:
A criminal organization is by definition a detriment to the government, Xiaguo. If they weren't, why would they be criminals? Oh, and not to hurl accusations, but suddenly assuming control of "factions" and just "planting" a criminal network is frankly godmodding. I did place Mafiosi in your nation without your opinion, yes, but these were simply criminals and in no way a serious threat to your government. And I introduced their presence in China just to have it eliminated. And yes, Putin is dead. It'll be announced soon, but I have to get a worthy conclusion in.
Xiaguo
11-09-2005, 05:50
OOC:Lol, I was just seeing if I can do something before an invasion, let me just skip this then.
Armandian Cheese
11-09-2005, 07:08
OOC: An invasion! Criminey! The Holy League sure is in trouble...You do realize that by attacking Russia, you'll be facing all of Europe? And that the Progressives might take the opportunity to settle old scores? Oh, and I know this is extremely long and wordy, but since Putin's finished, I decided to fully reveal what makes the man tick.

IC:
A littered, polluted landscape stretched out before the small boy. His red sneakers carried him across a cracked pavement, as he panted with a mix of exhaustion and terror. His bright green eyes widened in horror as he saw over his shoulder a mob of hoodlums roaring across the street corner, chasing after him. The chubby little fellow had always been an oddity at his school, with a strong sense of justice which more often than not landed him into such scrapes as these. He tried to quicken his pace, as his home, a shelter where his father would surely always protect him from the evils of the world, was ever so close. But as one of the dirty, ragged beasts who chased him whipped out a knife, fear and panic flared up in the emerald eyed child’s mind. This moment of sheer terror caused him to lose sight of where he was running, and the boy smashed directly into several trash cans, and he collapsed as his eyes saw only a blurred vision of concrete, metal, and refuse. The mob leapt onto him, and the one whose hair was a mess of dirt and long locks, and whose eyes seemed possessed with a predatorial joy, raised his dagger above the child’s neck.

“Now little Vlad, you learn not to mess with the Mafiya…” he said, his voice trembling with blood lust.
Finding a little courage, the chubby boy retorted, ”Mafiya? Ha! You’re just a bunch of schoolyard punks who have nothing better to do than push around kids smaller than them!”

A rotund boy with beady eyes and a red ballcap smacked him across the face. Vlad’s courage dissipated, replaced by a vicious pain in his jaw.

The knife bearing gang member taunted, “I may not be a Mafiosi yet…But my father is! And he’s going to teach your father the same lesson I’m going to teach you…Heee, heee, heee!”

He threw his head back and howled with inhuman laughter. Vladimir’s body trembled in fear, and then the junior criminals assaulted him with all their might. Punches smashed against his face, kicks pulverized his rib cage, elbows carved into his back. Vladimir cried with fear and horror, and all he could think of were the stories of demons his mother told him to keep him out of mischief. These young gangsters savagely beat the ten year old, and then their de-facto leader raised up a hand. His smiled broadened, revealing yellowed, crooked teeth. His blade rose into the air, and he bore it down towards the boy’s neck.

“Stop.”

A young woman’s voice echoed across the slum. The gang froze, as the voice held within it an unmistakable air of command. Her face was beautiful, in a harsh way, like that of a statue carved from marble.

“Have you no honor, Igorij? You want to be a Mafiosi like your father. A true Mafiosi would not send a pack of snarling wolves against one lamb.”

Vladimir was astounded by how this woman, who looked to be at most 20 years old, could speak with the conviction and vocabulary of a wizened general.

“I…I…He messed with our lunch money racket!”
“Then take him out yourself. Prove yourself to be a leader. Claim your birthright, Igorij.”
“But...Alright! I’ll take this punk!”
“Spoken like a true Romanov…” she muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. Kill him.”

The mob slowly withdrew back, forming a circle around Igorij and Vlad. Fear appeared in both of them, and both boys realized that neither wanted to be here. But Igorij’s blood lust and arrogance took over, and he set out to prove his superiority by murdering Vladimir. He rushed towards him, and…

Vlad ran. Like a coward, like a child, he simply ran away. A startled hoodlum only watched as he pushed past him, bawling with tears in his eyes. Igorij began to chase after him, screaming, but it was too late.

Vlad was gone.

But it wasn’t over. Oh no.

He hid out in the park, within the shelter of his favorite tree. For hours he trembled with youthful fear, as every sound seemed to belong to the vicious pack of young gangsters, thirsty for his blood. Every footstep, every clatter, every breath, every whisper of the wind was theirs. Fear devoured him, and he let it run wild in his imagination. The eerie words of Igorij’s regarding his father stirred him to act more than once, but then a loud crash would come, probably caused by some cat knocking over a trash can, and his fear would keep him in place.

His eyes finally darted upwards, and he realized it was far beyond his bedtime. The dark cloak of night enveloped him, as he fearfully roamed the streets. Despite the fact that he knew that the gang had most likely long given up their chase, an irrational fear still clung to him. The chubby little fellow had never run so much in his life, and by the time he was near home he was exhausted.

Fire.

And everything changed.

It first it was just a smell, the wafting teasing sensation the hints at worse things to come but does not reveal what they are. He quickened his pace, forgetting for a moment his exhaustion.

And what he saw that day would be forever burnt into his skull. His house, which was also the family store, was aflame. Fire roared over it, devouring it piece by piece. A grouping of suit clad men stood around it, carrying gasoline canisters and Kalashnikovs. The man in the center of them bore an eery resemblance to Igorij, and at once young Vladimir realized he was the hoodlum’s father. A Mafiosi. The man resembled a scarecrow with his long and thin limbs, and a thin bright orange/red mustache flashed across his face. To young Vlad’s horror, Igorij’s father aimed a handgun directly at a black clad man with orange hair, a Lenin-like beard, and small, brown eyes.

His father, Nikolas Putin.

“I barely make enough to feed my family!”
“Enough excuses, you peasant bastard! You failed to pay your protection! Now pay up, or I’LL KILL YOU!”
“I told you, I can’t! I have a wife and child to feed!”
“Well, then let’s lessen that financial burden, shall we?”

He smiled wickedly, and aimed the gun at a black haired, soft faced, and green eyed woman who stood defiantly.

“DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH MY FAMIL---AUGHHH!”

Nikolas rushed in front of Anastasia, and the bullet smashed into his chest. With the determination of a cornered lion, he ran forward. Bullet after bullet smashed into his chest, which initially managed to slow him down. However, in the corner of his eye he spotted Vladimir, and shrugged off the bullets as if they were nothing. He managed to grab the Mafiosi’s head.

“NO! YOU FOOL!”
“Anastasia…Vladimir…Run…”
“No! Nikolas!”
“Take…him…Vlad…Always remember…Always, always, fight! Never stop fighting! Never lose that fire in your soul…It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, just that you fight! ”

Snap! The eldest Romanov’s neck cracked, and both men crumpled to the ground, dead and lifeless. Anastasia was gone, carrying a sobbing Vladimir in her arms, and the Mafiyosi also ran off, as the sirens of the local militia screamed into life.

His father dead, and his mother now shattered, Vlad had nothing. The only thing left for him was the country, the people, those who had shown him kindness throughout his life.

And never again would he let others harm those he loved, whether it was his family or his country. The guilt of his cowardice would haunt him for the rest of his life, and this guilt tore him apart. If only he had warned his father, instead of cowering in that tree…

And so young, chubby, red sneaker wearing, happy wide eyed Vlad died, and old, powerful, black trenchcoat clad, enigmatic Vladimir Putin was born. He vowed never to fail again, to never allow his own fear to prevent him from facing the forces of evil head on.
_______________________________________________________________

The family’s friends agreed that the Putin family was not safe in the town, nor all of Russia. The Soviets had turned a blind eye to the Mafiya’s abuse of Putin for he had been in his youth a leader of an anti-Soviet movement. Now his family would have no protection from the corrupt authorities, and the Mafiya was known to be a vengeful group, not willing to let them go until the “job” was “finished”. Pooling what little savings the various families had, they paid to have young Putin and his emotionally shattered mother to be smuggled into Ukraine, which was in the midst of a bloody revolution.

Vladimir actually managed, by extraordinary circumstance, to catch a glimpse of the young Wingert, and much to the giant’s surprise, he met the future Tsar’s terrifying presence with a defiant glare. While other children either were awed by the man’s aura of power, or cowered before his fierce appearance, Vladimir simply stood in front of him, glaring at the tyrant as his travel cloak whipped in the wind. The Tsar simply laughed at the brazen youngster, and walked off.

Eventually, tagging along with one of Wingert’s rag tag bands of revolutionaries (who earned money on the side by smuggling families out of Russia), they utilized the confusion caused by a border raid to slip across into Slovakia, and eventually Austria. There, gaining refugee status from the U.S. government, they used the last bit of their savings to take a third rate flight to the United States of Quinntonia.

Amazed by the charity kindness displayed to them there, they quickly assimilated into Quinntonian life….
________________________________________________

He brought the knife forward towards Wingert’s neck, but the gauntleted fist slammed into his face. Bone and blood blended in his jaw, but he managed to quickly pick up the two Russian Kindjal blades. He had not come so far to let his beloved nation fall to darkness…
________________________________________________
He had moved through school with almost no difficulty. Or so it seemed to all those around him. He had a loyal following of friends, an impressive GPA, was President of countless clubs, and was the Kickboxing champion of California. But all of this was only achieved by following his late father’s advice: always fight. He was clever, in such a way that he could read between the lines, decode the greater meaning in the mess of details. But school required different talents, and he spent many a long night burning the midnight oil as he racked his brain to study. While his friends partied, he ran through the local National Guard base’s obstacle course and firing range, only to follow it up with sword practice with Father O’Reilly and then weights training afterwards. Friendship he earned by a combination of his own odd, enigmatic charm and his meticulous study of all those around him. Much to his initial horror, he saw how easily most people could be manipulated into doing anything. He developed himself into a powerful individual by endlessly fighting, and power does corrupt…

His emerald eyes only visible through narrow slits, Vladimir strode forward, flanked by his “friends.” He was only a sophomore in high school, yet his dogged determination had already secured him a position of utmost authority in the school. Much of his power was hollow, however; only a select few were truly friends, others simply occupied the position of sycophants, clinging onto him in hopes of raising their position just by associating with him. His trademark black trenchcoat and scarf swirling in the icy wind of the schoolyard, he sneered.

“Madam. May I ask you to explain… this? ”

He threw a school newspaper down in front of a young, Japanese-American girl, whose earnest eyes trembled behind her almost comically huge glasses.

“Vladimir Putin, sophomore and President of The Speech And Debate Club, is engaged in the drug trade?!? ”
“Well…aren’t you…?” she said, her voice trembling.
“Yes, and everyone in this school knows it. But the teachers were too afraid to against me. But they can’t ignore an article in the school NEWSPAPER!”
“But…why do you do it?”
“You stupid girl! How dare you challenge my motives! I need the money, the power…”
“You used to be such a good person, Vlad…”
“Good guys finish last, fool. Looks like I’ll have to teach you that!”

WHAM! He smashed her across the face, and she collapsed in tears. Everyone simply stood around them, ignoring the incident out of fear.

“Now, revoke the article. Claim it was a mistake, a rumor. Got it?”
“No…no…NO! I won’t be another bug you crush! I won’t just get out of your way!”

SMACK! BAM! CRASH!

“No…please…” she sobbed as her glasses shattered and blood poured from her nose.

CRACK!

She closed her eyes, wincing, and then realized the blow wasn’t against her. Vladimir Putin lay on the ground, clutching the back of his head in pain. The girl looked up, and saw above her a black trenchcoat clad Catholic Priest, his white collar as stiff as his face. A sword lay in his hands, sheathed but still harmful enough to send a teenager to the ground.

“Vladimir…how could you? What is wrong with you? Do you remember NOTHING of what your father taught you? Drugs? Lies? Intimidation? Good guys finish last? ”
“Who…who…are you?” he managed to say, shocked that none of his “friends” had dared challenge the insolent priest.
“Father O’Reilly. I help out at your mother’s Orthodox church, and I’ve been watching you, Vlad. You have potential to do great things. But this…This cannot be. Come with you.”
With all of his remaining swagger and defiance, Putin snarled, ”Why should I?”

CRACK!

“Ow…”
“ That’s why…”
_______________________

With fury, he thrust the blades forward at Wingert. The man’s eyes suddenly lit up with a maniacal resolved, and his gauntleted hands caught the blades mid-air! The blades were diamond-sharp; despite the gauntlets, Putin could see blood dribbling down the tyrant’s hands…
________________________________________________

While his mother continued to attend a small Orthodox Church, a teenage Vladimir became attracted to the teachings of the Roman Catholics. Father Bill O’Reilly, a large jowled man with a pugnacious spirit, would come to replace the role of Nikolas in Vladimir’s life, as he instructed him in his vision of Christianity, in which Christian peoples would always fight, fight for the teachings of the Lord, fight for what was right! Putin learned to use his talents for good, and the void in his life he had tried to fill with raw and corrupt power was gone. His innate sense of justice returned to him, blazing stronger than ever.

The small, complacent Orthodox Church lost value in his mind due to its association with his mother, who had seemingly surrendered in life. She rarely spoke, performed everything mechanically, and spent the rest of her years quietly praying. While Vladimir still loved his mother, for she was a good and kind person, the psychological blow of that one night in Russia had been too much for her. The Mafiya had killed Nikolas’ body and spirit, but for some reason spared Anastasia’s body. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, gained much in his eyes thanks to Father O’Reilly.

The girl he had attacked would become his close friend, and according to some rumors, his beloved. The trio of Father O’Reilly, Vladimir, and Yuni became inseparable, and these became the best days of Putin’s life. His life settled into a comfortable pattern, with days spent with Yuni in school, on the streets of San Francisco, partying, and generally enjoying the lives of normal teenagers, and nights spent in Father O’Reilly’s church, studying the arts of theology and war, reading the Bible and dueling with Kindjal blades and European swords.
For the first time in a long time, Putin felt the warmth of love and family.

It was also the last.

_________________________________________________________________

Time froze. Eons passed, civilizations were created and destroyed, wars were waged and lost, people were born and died. Wingert’s hands tightly clutched Putin’s blades, as he tried to break free of the tyrant’s grip.

Who would win in this battle? Would democracy reign supreme, would freedom flourish in a great span, sweeping across Europe and northern Asia? Or would the shadows of tyranny fall? Would he fail?

Suddenly, time restarted, albeit at a slower pace. Putin gasped “Oh no” as a stunning realization hit him, and then Wingert’s muscles bulged as he snapped the magnificent blades.
_________________________________________________________________

It was his 21st birthday. Donning a sharp suit, he returned from a successful semester in Harvard college. An “A” brightened his report card, and endless praise had come from his political science teachers. The State Department and the Defense Department were practically beating each other up to hire him, and his future seemed bright.

But none of this mattered to him. He was going home for Winter break, home to his mother (who, he sadly admitted, had only become worse, as the only words she now spoke were of prayer), but more importantly, to his beloved Japanese friend, Yuni, and his mentor, Father O’Reilly.

Yuni…, he thought. Never would I have believed that I could still love…Yet…

He smiled as he approached the small Church that he, his mother, and Father O’Reilly now lived in. A beautiful red bouquet rested in his hands, along with a small blue box. Today was the day he would propose to her, to the woman whose laugh seemed angelic to him and whose kindness, optimism, and wisdom had made Vladimir Putin confess to Father O’Reilly everyday for once attacking her. She had forgiven him quickly, but he could not forgive himself. How could he have been so cruel, to attack a girl who so wore her emotions like a vivid yellow shirt, breathing life into her surroundings? The girl who made him, the cold, enigmatic Putin smile upon her sight? The girl who made every moment sparkle with enough joy to fill his frosty heart?

His fist knocked on the door.

Nothing.

His fist slammed on the door.

Odd. Normally, Father always answers immediately. And he knew I was coming…Ah, no matter.

Minutes passed. Vladimir furiously knocked on the door, panicking. Finally, he kicked it in, his brow awash with cold sweat.

Fire! It was just a stove, cooking some soup, but still…Fire had always been a bad omen in his life, and he feared what it foretold. He ran upstairs, screaming their names.

It was for naught. A thin man, clad in dirty rags and a ski mask, nervously piled jewelry into a brown sack. Three corpses lay around him, and Putin immediately knew what had happened.

“No…no…”

A petty thief, a burglar had seen what appeared to be an easy target, a small church. Panicked and nervous, he had waved his gun at Father O’Reilly, threatening him and telling him to collect all of the church’s valuables. O’Reilly, stubborn to the end, refused to submit to the thief’s will, and attempted to sway him with Biblical quotations. The burglar snapped, panicking, and his finger tightened on the trigger. Yuni cheerfully burst into the room, rushing into a speech about how she had the last minute idea of buying some firecrackers to surprise Putin with, and the burglar fired out of shock. She crumpled to the ground, her eyes slowly draining of their spark. Father O’Reilly rushed forward angrily, his large frame smashing into the burglar. Putin’s frightened mother came in at this inopportune moment, hearing Yuni’s scream, as both men wrestled on the ground.

“No! Anastasia! Go!”, said O’Reilly.

In O’Reilly’s moment of inattention, the burglar grasped the gun and blasted the priest’s head apart. Anastasia screamed and attempted to flee, but two gunshots in the back brought her down.

And now Vladimir Putin stood in the doorway, having lost his family for a second time to the same villain of crime.

It has to be a dream, a nightmare…When will I wake up? WHEN WILL I WAKE UP!??!

“I’LL KILL YOU!”

Putin rolled forward, thus dodging the burglar’s wildly inaccurate shots. He sprang from the ground and kicked the man, knocking him out the window. Vlad leapt up and followed him onto the awning sticking out from the church’s front. The criminal had slid down the awning and fallen onto the ground, and Vladimir roared after him. They sprinted through the twisting and frosty streets of San Francisco, not speaking at all. The burglar kept silent out of fear, Vladimir out of an urge for vengeance. He wouldn’t want some police officer stopping them, now would he? No. The man would pay, he would pay for what he had done. They ran into a dark and abandoned ally, where the burglar crashed into a man standing next to the back door of a seedy bar.

“Dammit foo, watch where you goin’! I pity da foo!” said a massive, bearded, and gold chain wearing young black man as the burglar crashed into him.

“Stop him! He’s a murderer!” cried Putin, seeing an opportunity to catch the villain without involving the police.

Seeing the burning light of truth in Putin’s eyes, the man delivered a crushing blow to the burglar, who stumbled onto the ground.

Like a man on fire, Vladimir leapt onto the burglar, and viciously beat him. The gold chained man grimaced as the Russian delivered the most savage assault in his life.

“YOU KILLED THEM ALL! YOU KILLED THEM! [I] YUMI! FATHER O’REILLY! MOTHER! [I] Nooo…”

He grabbed the burglar’s head and smashed it against the pavement, again and again as blood oozed out. A primal, savage fury filled his soul, for it was the fury of a man who had lost everything. The black man suddenly clutched his arms, and held him with an iron grip.

“That be enough, foo’. A’right? You can’t just kill a man. I can see you be tellin’ da truth, but it don’t matter. Let da courts deal wid im.”
“THE COURTS!?! He killed…my family..”
“And what will killing him do? It’ll just be another murda, and it’ll land ya in da slamma. Let justice handle this.”

Putin scowled, but much to the burglar’s sobbing relief, he dropped the battered man on the ground.

The large man smiled, and pulled badge out from under his vest.

“It so happens that I’m a judge and police offica. Based on widness testimony, I can say that this foo be guilty as charged. I sentence da bastard to death. Now, teach this sucka the meanin’ of pain!”

The burglar whimpered.

Putin smiled wearily, and then set off to the grim task of bashing the man’s head in with a rock as the burglar howled with agony. His screams would remain engraved into Vladimir’s mind forever, as he would be the first man he killed.

And he wouldn’t be the last.

When the parishioners came on Sunday, they saw a bouquet of roses, already dying, a small blue box, and the bloody corpses of Yuni, Anastasia, and Father O’Reilly. Oddly enough, Father O’Reilly’s black trenchcoat was missing, along with Vladimir’s Kindjal blades. A dazzling blue diamond ring lay emplaced on Yuni’s hand. When the parishioners attempted to discern where Vladimir Putin was, they found no answer from the police, Harvard, nor anyone. It was as if he had vanished off the face of the earth.

But he hadn’t. He was in El Salvador.
_________________________________
Xiaguo
16-09-2005, 06:28
Give me two weeks, and I will have a full invasion planned out. : )

Well, speaking the truth, the China's are quite busy, but just pretend China's flourishing while the many countries are trying to start revolutions, and fight crime.
Quinntonian Dra-pol
24-10-2005, 16:41
I just wanted to mention that the Quinntonian military has no knowledge of any of these events.
WWJD
Amen.
Armandian Cheese
24-10-2005, 19:16
OOC: But of course. ;)
Strathdonia
24-10-2005, 20:21
"Bravo, Bravo!" Cheers the crowd.
Armandian Cheese
08-12-2005, 01:20
Rain poured down, thick like drops of sweat on a man’s body. It flowed as if from a waterfall, covering all, slithering down green leaves and sloshing in the mud. It obscured everything, transforming hard, ancient dirt into soft, malleable, new mud, which would eventually settle and become something new altogether…Ants crawled, desperately trying to avoid the splotches of rain that threatened to drown them, birds cowered under the thicker parts of the rainforest canopy, trees felt renewed strength to grow and expand, and various other animals scrambled about. All except the ancient trees attempted to avoid that which they could not, all tried to scramble past the rain, the rain that swept the past away, and either created something new or destroyed everything old.

Except for one man.

One man who tried to embrace the rain, to wash away the shadows of his existence. Could the rain wipe out his dark past, swipe away the events that shaped him? Could it embrace him, change him, and snuff the enigmatic man whose idealism and determination burned like a flame? Could the rain blend with the shadows of his past, and in that swirling mix drown the hero within?

Or would something entirely new emerge…?
_____________________________________________________________________

He was a plague. Death tread in his black booted footsteps, warriors trembled at the mere sight of his swirling black trench coat, and mothers frightened their children with tales of this man in black. His sniper bullets cut a deadly swathe through the South and Central American Marxist community; red did not color the air in banners but rather darkened the soil with blood.

He sealed his emotions within him, allowing the rage and sorrow to be locked up alongside love and hope. Vladimir Putin, the aspiring young man who seemed to be on a meteor ride to success, was still just a man, and a man can only take so much. The loss of all hope twice so enraged him and flooded his soul with such sorrow that his only means of survival was to lock it away, deep within the recesses of his spirit. He tossed away all the idealism, morals, and hopes that he had clung to, and became something else…

The trench coated man cold, determined killer with no other purpose than to drown himself in a sea of blood. Hope? Courage? Freedom? Morals? All of these meant nothing to him anymore.

And that was perhaps why he was one of the most effective soldiers the United States had ever seen. While his lack of Christian compunctions unnerved his superiors at first, cooler heads prevailed and realized that there was an advantage to this. Some shadowy men, lurking in the darkest recesses of the Quinntonian Military, came to the conclusion that at times the nation needed such men. There were uses for those without morals, those willing to do the dirty work, those who would do what had to be done and pay the moral price.
Putin’s task was to do things that no Quinntonian would ever do; he razed villages to the ground, slit the throats of political leaders, meddled with “internal affairs”, and annihilated countless Marxist groups long before anyone even heard about them. He was the boot that stamped out brushfires before they flared up, extinguishing the embers of revolution. He was the perfect weapon, a deadly, determined warrior with no conscience, ready to do what he was ordered, uncaring of the circumstances and whether he lived or died.

Like all phases of Putin’s life, this would change…
______________________________________________________________________


“F*cking rainforest…” growled the rotund Latino man, brushing gnats off of his thick black mustache.

Sergeant Garcia was irritated, frustrated, and although he would never admit it, bored. It was yet another fruitless hour of “patrol”, which their local Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front commander used simply to get his restless soldiers out of his hair. Garcia snarled viciously as a colorful parrot flew directly into his eyes, and fired at it out of surprise. Nervous, the squad followed suit, and bullets flew into the air for several seconds before Garcia’s red faced screams halted them. Embarassed that they had acted like the worst rookies (which, admittedly, they were), the flustered band of El Salvadoran rebels marched on, their hands sweatily clutching the characteristic weapon of rebellions everywhere, the AK-47.

Mud seeped into their battered shoes, sweat poured into their tattered and rotting jungle camo uniforms, insects battered their faces, and the heat pierced their skulls. Every step was a battle, as the lead members had to hack away at the rainforest with machettes. The battle was one they could not win, as the forest seemed to have a life of its own, lashing back out with a dangerous array of branches, leaves, and thorns. For every bush felled by the slice of a machette blade it seemed two, no three, no ten sprang up.

“Diego! How is your mother?” asked Garcia, bored out of his mind and eager for some conversation.
“She’s dead. Got run over by a tractor”
“Oh yeah, I totally forgot. Sorry man. The kids?”
“Dead. Got run over by a tractor.”
“That’s terrible, amigo. The wife?”
“Dead. Got run over by a tractor.”
“Sh*t man! What’re you going to do with your life now?”
“I’ll just keep drivin’ my tractor.”

An awkward silence followed.


Tempers rose as they continued to sweep for “enemies”, relieved only by the occasional game animal whose curiosity had rewarded it with a hide full of AK rounds. Fierce arguments burst out, as the temperature skyrocketed in the humid rainforest. Mothers were insulted, various body parts were compared to animals, and a significant amount of references were made in regards to genital size.

Overall, things weren’t going very well for this band of FMNL rebels.

And they weren’t about to get any better.

The band’s youngest, a weary eyed fellow named Diego held the rear, and trundled forward without the enthusiasm one would expect from a young rebel. Perhaps if he’d been a bit more alert, perhaps if he’d caught a few more minutes of sleep rather than read dirty magazines at night, perhaps if he’d had a sip of coffe…Perhaps things would have been different.

But they weren’t.

A hand quickly appeared out of nowhere, clasping Diego’s mouth tightly. Just as suddenly, another arm pulled him back into a bush, and the last sound he would ever make was a muffled cry of agony. The rest of the team failed to notice his dissapearance, and trudged on through the thickets. A small click suddenly emerged from nowhere, and the heads of the two soldiers in front burst in a mess of brains and blood. Garcia swore, swirling around and firing, realizing that Diego had vanished as well. A black blur dashed across in front of him, a knife in hand, slitting another FMNL rebel’s throat along the way. The rotund El Salvadoran fired wildly, but it seemed that nothing could stop that mysterious black blur which had retreated back into the foliage.

“SHOW YOURSELF YOU F*CK---AUGHHH!” he howled as the thing in black fell from the trees and landed directly in front of him. A black trenchcoat and hood masked the creature that had so effortlessly slaughtered Garcia’s men, and he trembled as it raised a pistol to his forehead.

“ Diablo! ” he spat, before his finger tightened on the trigger, ready to fire.

The Diablo , as he called it, was too fast for the El Salvadoran rebel, and was rewarded for its efforts with a loud bang, followed by the always disturbing splattering noise made as a man’s brain was pierced by a bullet and then launched out of the back of his head.

And once again all was silent.
______________________________________________________________________

Vladimir Putin grimaced under the thick coating of leaves and mud. It wasn’t the sight of corpses that so irritated him; rather, it was simply that he was annoyed at the prospect of having to crawl in the goddam mud to reconstruct his sniper camo again. Still, the effort had been worth it, as it yielded exactly a stack of AK ammo, a few fake IDs, three bananas, some Soviet rations, and, oddly enough, a plush chihuaha doll. He chomped down into the banana, and studied over the various documents the enemies held, noting that they were utterly worthless.

“Great, just another bunch of f*cking grunts…Not even worth the sniper bullets…Well, it was to be expe---Urg!”

Like an assasin’s blade, elbow jabbed into his back, knocking him forward. He whirled around, only to receive a kick in the jaw that knocked him to the side. His hands shot up to block an incoming punch, but the attacker feinted down towards Vladimir’s chest. Vlad lowered his arms to intercept the blow, but his foe rammed her skull into his, stunning him enough for her to slip behind him, wrap one arm around him and hold a knife next to his neck with the other.

“Who are you? You don’t look like an El Salvadoran…” the mysterious attacker said, with a calm, steady voice that barely concealed an underlying air of authority.
“…..”
“Answer me! Wait…”

The woman leaned over, glaring at Vladimir’s face. She released him, and he immediately went for his pistol.

“At ease, soldier. US Special Forces, 7th Special Forces Group, Green Berets, Vladimir Putin. Codename: COSSACK. Serial Number: 3421 Operation: SORGE. Correct?”

He lowered his weapon, and scanned this mysterious woman. Olive green combat fatigues tightly clad her still young body, a gray headband was wrapped around her medium length silver blonde hair, and a wicked looking knife rested in her palms. Her face was beautiful, but it was not the typical beauty of an attractive woman; rather, it was terrifying and awe-inspiring, full of terrible might and authority. Her cheeks were carved out of marble, her eyes were full of lightning. She strode with the gait of a commander, and the overall impression Putin got was of an ancient Greek goddess, with her beauty serving only to emphasize her power.

“How do you know? Who are you?” he demanded, in the same emotionless tone he had held ever since that terrible day.
“Quinntonian Special Forces. Can’t say more than that. Codename: THE BOSS. I was briefed. Sent in when your mission failed. We didn’t know there were any survivors. What happened to your unit? You were supposed to find the local FMNL camps here.”

Vladimir grimaced, “We were betrayed. Our commander was a fool who had far too much fondness for the local women and local brews…”

The Boss snorted derisively.

“If there’s one thing that will never change, it’s that men will follow two things: their dicks and alcohol.”
“What about you? I doubt they sent one woman in to take over for our operation!”

She smiled knowingly, and then whirled around and strode off.

“Let’s get moving, soldier. We’ve got an insurgency to defeat.”

Her boots marched into the thickets of the rainforest, leaving a bewildered young man standing in the middle of the El Salvadoran rainforest.

“What!?! The two of us?!? Are you mad?”

He sighed, and dashed off after the mad woman.

______________________________________________________________________

Wham! Crack! SLAM! CRACKACRACKA---POOOOW!

Thud.

“Ughhh…”
“Get the hell up!”
“I’m try—AUGHH! Kicking a man when he’s down?”
“Only the weak follow such foolish rules. Never let an enemy rest.”

THWACK!

“Sh*t woman! I can’t properly fight you if you keep on ki---Urg…”
“Stop talking. Start FIGHTING!”

Vladimir Putin, the kickboxing champion of California, a member of the elite Green Berets, a man who had never lost a hand-to-hand battle in his life, one of Quinntonia’s fastest rising members of the armed forces…

…was getting his ass kicked.

The Boss was like a demon, moving faster than any human being he had ever seen before. She made combat seem effortless; he would shower her with a rain of punches and kicks, but she would barely move, just make a slight, tiny, and lightning quick adjustment to redirect his blows. Her counterstrikes were swift and powerful, and within seconds he lay on the ground, twitching in agony.

“Why the hell are we doing this anyway? Don’t we have a mission to complete?”
“First of all, never address your commanding officer like that.” she said, as she delivered a particularly painful kick to Putin’s chest.
“Second,” she continued, “you’re pathetically weak and undertrained.”
“You’re calling a Green Beret weak and undertrained?”
“You’re moaning in agony on the ground thanks to a woman.”
“…Good point.” he conceded, groaning.
“Get up. We have a few days before Marta gets here.”
“Anne?”
“Local leader of a FMNL unit. CIA reports indicate she may be the lover of Ana Maria.”
“The second-in-command of FMNL forces?”
“Exactly. I’ve been listening in to the chatter of patrols---which is usually far more useful than slaughtering them, by the way---and it appears that Marta’s unit is set to get some smuggled supplies from the city here. Tracking down Marta could give us more information on the location of Ana Maria.”
“Boss, what about our original mission? To track down the location of all the FMNL bands in this region?”
“It’s impossible. Their movements are completely random.”
“Actually, when I was following them around I…”
“They’re random. Don’t argue with me, COSSACK, we don’t have the time.”

Unsure about the situation and still quite confused as to how exactly this woman had so suddenly taken over his life, Vladimir sighed and braced himself as she launched into yet another wave of attacks.
________________________________________________________________________

Days passed with the sounds of violence. As they waited for the arrival of Marta’s guerrilas, The Boss put Vladimir through the most grueling set of training exercises he could imagine. He’d though that crawling through the mud in the pouring rain while being assaulted from all sides by ferocious dogs and dodging bullets was bad, but it was nothing compared to what The Boss put him through.

The woman has the makings of a sadist he thought.

After several rounds of the most ferocious hand to hand combat he had ever encountered, came the endurance training. In a scene eerily reminiscient of Star Wars, the heavily muscled woman rode on Putin’s back as he sprinted through the thickets of the rainforest. He wondered for the millionth time why he was listening to this madwoman, as he waded through a literal lake of mud. Perhaps it was her air of authority, perhaps it was her obvious combat skill, and perhaps…perhaps he just liked her. She seemed like an arrogant sonuvabitch, but underneath that was a hint of motherly compassion, something that even his cold hearted self could appreciate. Why else would she care enough to train him like this, if not for some bit of compassion?

He didn’t know how wrong he was, and would not until one cold night in the Baltics…

After a grueling twenty mile run, he collapsed onto the ground, lacking the energy to even drink water. As his vision became engulfed by the shadows of fatigue, he felt a sharp thwack on his head.

“The hell…?”
“Brace yourself.”

The Boss sprinted off into the trees, leaving Putin alone in the middle of a grassy clearing. He rubbed his head, and then realized he’d been stricken by some odd, extremely light gun…

“Arg!” he howled, as a sharp pain rushed through his leg. He looked down to see a red splotch on his black pants.

Paintball?

Tired as he was, emotionally destroyed as he was, he couldn’t prevent the creeping edges of a smile from forming around his lips.

“Bring it!” he shouted, only to duck down as a hail of paintball pellets roared above his head.

He sprinted forward to where he’d seen the pellets fly, zigzagging along the way. A red splotch burst next to his foot, and he brought up his imitation SigSauer and blasted off several rounds. To his dissatisfaction, he heard no sound of pain. A pellet smacked directly into the back of his head, knocking him forward and into flat on his face.

The Boss circled around his prone body and came to the front, offering a hand to help him up. The weary and battered COSSACK took it, slowly rising up, and then…

BLAM!

With his left hand, he delivered a point blank range shot to her face, covering the marble flesh with green paint and sending her hurtling to the ground. Putin rose up, and aimed his gun directly at her face. Then the last thing he expected from her occurred…

…she laughed.

“Hahahahhahahaha…You’re learning, kid.” she said, smiling.

And then the fatigue got to him, and all was black.
________________________________________________________________________

For the first time in years, he dreamed. Something had begun to chip away at the the vault where he kept his previous life, and little bits of it began to flow out from the chasm, and float up to the surface.

Snapshots of joy.

Playing soccer in the streets of Moscow with his dad.

The dazzling smiles of Yumi, the girl who could fill a room with light with her mere presence.

Father O’Reilly’s fiery sermons.

His mother’s warm caress.

Snapshots of sadness.

The flames, the all consuming flames, licking at the boots of those shadowy men who called themselves Mafiya. His father’s dying breaths, the look of incredible determination and hopelessness at the same time.

The dazzling ring, clutched limply by her cold, dead hands.

Father O’Reilly’s body in a pool of blood, a mere shell of the great man he once was.

The emptiness in his mother’s eyes, who had died long before her body did.

Why? Why was this all coming back? Who was this woman and what was she doing to him?
__________________________________________________________________

“Wake up, COSSACK.”
“Eh?”

Putin climbed to his feet, slowly gaining his bearings. He noted that he was back at the stakeout point, and that an extinguished fire lay in the middle. The Boss looked upon him with a stern expression.

“You’ll have to learn to avoid doing that. Falling asleep in the middle of the battlefield is generally not a good idea.”

He simply responded with a scowl.

“Suit up. I spotted a few scouts ahead of us, and listened in. They’re part of Marta’s advance recon; she’ll be here soon, so we’ve got to get ready.”

Vladimir nodded, slammed a fresh magazine of ammunition into each his weapons, which included a pistol, a Dragunov sniper rifle, and an AK-47. His weapons were all Russian made, partly out of personal preference, and partly because his existance would be denied by the USQ government if he was ever discovered, so it wouldn’t do to have him carrying around Quinntonian arms. The two soldiers quickly re-applied the camouflage makeup that had started to come off, and rushed into the darkness of the jungle, far enough not to be spotted but close enough to see what was going on (with the help of binoculars, of course). They cut it fairly close, for as soon as they were concealed, the loud stampede of men and machines began to cavalcade upon them. Cursing, spitting, and chatting like any tattered rebel group, they didn’t look like much. The FMNL band didn’t even attempt to form a discliplined march, as they simply ambled into the clearing.

The only thing more disheveled than they were was the long parade of prisoners of war that was dragged behind them in chains. These Mexican Imperial soldiers (as Putin noticed from their destroyed uniforms) groaned in agony as they marched, their eyes blood red with fatigue. A furious Marxist whip chewed into their backs, hungrily slicing of flesh and blood. Their bodies were emaciated to the point where they looked like nothing more than skeletons with sacks of flesh thrown over them. Veins bulged like grotesque snakes, slithering under their flesh and ready to burst out and end the agony. Blue snakes, racing across and wrapping the dying body, slowly feeding on the pain of existance, soon to annihilate the host. They shuffled along like zombies, not truly alive but not truly dead either, stuck in the limbo where the very thing that seemed to be most pleasant---death---was held so close and yet so far. Pain emanated from their every step, and their eyes were hollow---black holes of desperation and sorrow, draining all hope from around them. Never before had Vladimir seen a sight so terrifying, so hopeless...He could feel the evil, the sheer evil surrounding these men, the evil that preyed on them and devoured them. Perhaps the soldiers weren’t innocent, but anything they had committed was nothing like the evil that hung around them, the dark cloud of malice that gnawed upon their flesh. He’d heard reports that Ana Maria had decided to make this the official policy of the FMNL, but he never imagined that the treatment of prisoners was so terrible.

“It is a fate worse than death…”

His hands trembled, and he could not understand what was going on.

No! I do not care about these men! I care about nothing but the mission…

Yet his heart trembled in agony, and his inner idealism began to stir…

The Marxist in tattered, dirty, mainly khaki clothes only began any organized efforts to set up a camp when a thunderous scream raced across the clearing. It came from a young woman whose skin was gorgeously Latino, hair was composed of flaming red spikes, and eyes shone with an incredibly mauve intensity.

“Marta.” Whispered The Boss.

“GODDAM F*CKING LAZY DICKHEADS! GET OFF YOUR LAZY COCKSUCKING A$$ES AND GET TO WORK! SET UP CAMP! WE NEED TO BE HERE TO RECEIVE SUPPLIES, YOU BASTARDS! YOU WANT THE REST OF THE GUERRILAS TO F*CKING STARVE ?!?” howled Marta in Spanish, and although he only loosely understood the language, Vladimir could pretty much tell what her intentions were.

“Wow. She’s a fiery one.” he muttered.
“Perhaps that’s why Ana Maria likes her so much.” she mused.
Putin’s face turned to an expression of mild nausea, as he was still uncomfortable with the whole LGBT movement.

“WE HAVE F*CKIN’ SUPPLIES TO RECEIVE AND DELIVER!”

Putin was struck by a sense that something important had just occurred, but he couldn’t put his finger on what.

Marta’s rage cooled along with the air, and soon something vaguely resembling a military camp came into being. A few patrolmen began chatting it up over a game of poker, and Marta slinked into the ramshackle olive green piece of fabric she called a tent.

“Hmmm…The defenses around her tent are fairly light. It wouldn’t be that hard to kidnap her, and then disappear into the jungle…But we need a distraction…” whispered The Boss.

In the shadows of the night, all that remained was a skeleton guard to oppress the living skeletons. The prisoners toiled in the darkness, their agony intensifying as Vladimir’s heart trembled. The dark barriers crumbled wuthin him, and he tried to turn away as the prisoners were forced to build ditches, despite barely being able to carry shovels. Their bone thin hands collapsed as they cried in agony, and Vladimir gaped as one old man collapsed onto the ground. His face was a mess of scars and wrinkles, his body a skeleton, and his legs were so weak they could not support his emaciated frame. But Putin saw in his eyes something…something that was…

…brave.

As a thickly muscled, black masked brute with a whip strode over to beat a younger fellow---whose youthful eyes should have held infinite hope and yet held none---the old man’s eyes tightened. A flashing spark entered the black pits of his eyes, and he slowly, agonizingly raised his body up. The masked beast roared at the younger man for working too slowly, and raised his whip into the air. The whip trembled, menacingly, trapped for that moment in time, wriggling with anticipation of its prey.

The whip raced down…

The young man didn’t even look up, as he lacked the strength to even summon fear.

Closer it came…

The masked undertaker was expressionless, underneath the mask as well…

A grizzled, wrinkled, emaciated hand clenched the onrushing whip.

The guerilla was baffled and enraged. Who was this man to defy him? This lowly piece of soldier trash? How dare he challenge his power, his domain? He ruled these lowly traitors to the proletariat…They were his!

Yet there stood one man, one old, battered, grizzled, tired old man who had found within himself…a hero. His arms were steady, and his face was a mask of stubborn determination. Only one word left his lips.

“No.”

Recovering from the shock, the taskmaster smacked the old man aside with his massive fist, and the elder died from the blow. But it had given the others enough time to attempt to make an exit, as they moaned and staggered their way into the jungle. The masked beast roared, and Vladimir barely constrained himself from attacking him as he raced after the prisoners.

They had no chance. Their bodies had deteriorated to the point that they were barely able to walk, much less resist. The howling taskmaster, his power blatantly defied, raced from person to person, shattering their lives and ending their dreams. They all crumpled before his fists, like rag dolls, and his hellish rampage produced countless ruined corpses; it was the Holocaust, the Trail Of Tears, the Death March Of Bataan, all over again. Bloodthirst at its most primitive form fueled this beast; it felt…felt so good. He did not see the bodies of Mexican soldiers before him; they were Roycelandians. The white terrors, the arrogant mustachioed imperialists, who had destroyed his family and his home…Yes! Yes! Yes! Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes---OH YES! THE BLOOD! THE TERROR! THE SCREAMS…THE SCREAMS! THEY TASTE SO GOOD…SO GOOD…More…more… moooooreeee!

The massive beast tore off his mask, and howled in a raspy voice at the sky. His face was scarred all over, his throat was ravaged by chemicals from so long ago, and his eyes were possessed by evil in its purest form…
__________________________________________________________________

One thing that Mugabe failed to notice was that the initial young man he had tried to strike had run away.
________________________________________________________________________

Vladimir whispered to the Boss, with sorrow welling up in his throat, “I will provide the distraction.”
_____________________________________________________________________

“So Jeff, how’s it goin’?”
“Not bad Jose. My wife is so damn hot every guy in the neighborhood wants her!”
“That’s not always such a good thing, Jeff.”
“No worries. I keep her in the basement and only let her see women.”
“Doesn’t she get bored?”
“Nah, the womenfolk play all sorts of games…Wrestling, wrestling, more wrestling, wrasslin, and don’t forget, wrestling.”
“Wow…They really like to wrestle…”
“Yup. For some reason they do it in the nude though…I guess I gotta fix the air conditionin’.”
“Your wife…is not allowed to see men, so all she does is wrestle naked with several women all day?”
“Yup. There’s nothin’ wrong with that, is there?”
“….”
“What?”
“Never mi---AGGG!”

BOOM!

Flames roared out of the ground, shredding the table to pieces and slaughtering the guards immediately. The guerrilas rushed out of their tents, alarmed. Muzzle flash lit up the night sky, as more and more explosions cut through the enemy camp. Panic and hysteria spread like a plague. Limbs flew into the air as friendly fire mixed with the mysterious explosions, and within minutes the camp devolved into a bloody mess.

And then it became worse.

“Mortals! You dare challenge the Man in Black?” boomed a terrifying voice, only to be echoed with voices from all sides.

Several hearts skipped a beat.

“I am the scourge of the followers of Marx! My bullets have cut a deadly swath throughout Latin America! Some say I’m a demon, others that I’m some Quinntonian experiement…” he continued, as trucks and stacks of ammunition continued to erupt.

“But who I am I really?”

Panicked yells followed, as the guerillas desperately tried to locate the source of the deadly cacophony, but discovered nothing but a fiery death.

“…Your worst nightmare.”

Before long, the camp had dissolved, with many dead and even more fleeing out of fear. All that remained was the thick smell of scorched human flesh.

And one laughing Russian. The laugh was full of inhuman vengeance, without any remorse. But the lack of remorse was not due to the horrors of his past. His voice was full of vengeance, righteous vengeance, the darker side of idealism…
_________________________________________________________________________

“Your worst nightmare ? What kind of line was that? You watch too many American movies.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“…I guess it did.”

Vladimir strolled through the jungle confidently, holding a gun to the back of a scowling Marta. The plan had been a simple one, as most good ones were. Vladimir had jerry rigged a set of a speakers, a Karaoke machine, grenades, and primitive launching devices (being a “unique asset” of the Quinntonian military had the benefit of giving him unlimited access to…odd equipment.) to create a terrifying storm guaranteed to provide ample distraction for The Boss to slip in and kidnap Marta. Problem was, she wasn’t talking.

“Woman! Where is Ana Maria!”
“I’ll never tell you, you cocksucking capitalist pig.”

Vladimir sighed after what was yet another attempt to squeeze Marta for information, and bemoaned a lack of proper interrogation facilities. Solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, etc. would simply not work in the rainforest.

“We’ll have to do it the hard way, Boss.” he whispered to The Boss, his face forming a grimace. Despite his attempts at an emotionless state, torture was something he didn’t stomach easily.

“No…I have…a different approach…Let me switch…”

She took over Putin’s place, and held the gun to Marta’s face. COSSACK simply shrugged, and walked on, mulling over Marta’s words from the day before, which he simply could not, for some reason, discard. On the periphery of his mind he noted that the Boss was excitedly chatting with Marta, but paid little attention to it as Marta’s words churned in his mind.

“supplies to deliver…” How could they deliver supplies? How do they know where the others are located? They can’t inform them…there aren’t many reliable means of communication in the jungle…Wait…wait…AHA! That’s it!

“THE GUERRILLA MOVEMENTS ARE PRE-COORDINATED! YOU HAVE THEM ALL MAPPED OUT, AND YOU KNOW WHO’S GOING TO BE WHERE AND WHEN! [i] That’s why the Mexican military couldn’t track you down! You seem to have completely random movements, but you have them coordinated so you can organize logistics!”

The Boss and Marta stood, stunned.

“And local commanders only have partial information, but Ana Maria has the full map!”

Marta’s ferocious scowl told them all they needed to know.

The Boss said, “You’re right. It…makes sense. So if we get to Ana Maria…”
“…we can track down the entire FMNL force!”
“You’ll never get to her! Ever!” spat Marta, her purple eyes flashing with rage.

He figured something out that I couldn’t…There’s something to be said about this Mr. Putin…The tenacious determination…I’ve never encountered someone who would put such effort and determination into one thing. Excellent…
_______________________________________________________________________

The night sky is so beautiful in El Salvador, he thought groggily. Especially when lit up by the American bombs, he added mischievously.

The man in black’s body rose groggily from the ground, as he gazed upon the darkness around him. His body had a fairly good biological clock, and he realized it was his turn to guard. It was really pointless, as their march had placed them pretty much out of the range of any FMNL guerrillas from Marta’s former camp. Still, it was always good to err on the side of caution.

Why didn’t the Boss wake me?

The campfire’s embers desperately clung onto life as he stomped by them, and noticed something odd in front of him. It appeared to be Marta’s sleeping bag, but it was grotesquely misshapen, and unzipped to a significant degree. He pulled a gun out, and slowly approached, until hit by a wave of embarrassment.

The firelight revealed that the reason for the misshapen bag was that there were two people in the sleeping bag. He blushed, for the unzipped parts revealed the nude upper bodies of The Boss and Marta, caught in an embrace whose meaning was made unambiguous by the satisfied smiles on their faces. Slightly perturbed, Vladimir turned around, and continued his lonely task, oddly enough feeling no temptation to turn around…

Why? Well, Vladimir went to his grave without knowing, but he was one of the world’s few true asexuals. His sexual desires were severely stunted, almost non-existent, due to a rare genetic disease that gradually depleted his reserves of sexual hormones, eventually deteriorating the production facilities to such a degree that he developed an aversion to sex in his later years. This could have been counteracted if his body produced enough hormones to permanently overwhelm the disease, as it came close to doing during several, ahem heated encounters with Yumi, but his self imposed exile doomed (or blessed, depending on your point of view) him to a lifetime of asexuality.

So while any normal red blooded male would drool over such an incident, Vladimir simply looked off into the night, embarrassed, and unaware that he was looking towards destiny…
_________________________________________________________________

As dawn approached, and a beautiful sunrise lit up the sky, the man in black heard an odd rustling noise behind him. Realizing that it was probably The Boss, he waited until he heard the sound of clothes being put on until he turned around. What he saw was a madly grinning Boss, which was not the satiated smile one expected to see from one finished with the act of lovemaking.

“Hello, Boss.”
“Good news, Vladimir.”
“Yes, I know, you got laid.”
“Not that you fool! Do you really think I’m a lesbian?”
“Unless that was some odd nude combat technique I haven’t heard of…”
“One learns to put aside one’s preferences aside for the sake of the mission. After a few more sessions she should be singing like a canary.”
“Well…” he said, desperate to change the topic, “…where do we go until then? We’ve gotten away from anyone trailing us. But we don’t know where Ana Maria is.”
“We get the hell out of this rainforest, and report what we know.”
“But how? We have no navigation tools and no idea how to get out of the jungle!”

The Boss smiled knowingly.

“What are lovers for? She has an interest for getting out as well; Marta’s agreed to guide us.”
“We’ll trust her?!?”
“Of course not. She’ll lead us straight into an FMNL camp.”

The woman smiled confidently, pulling out a map from her boot. It had a detailed layout of the rainforest, with various guerrilla movements and landmarks clearly laid out.

“But her map won’t.”
“Damn you’re good.”
“It’s what they pay me for.”
“So we get out of the forest, with Marta’s maps, then report back with the enemy map locations?”
“Yes. Marta’ll try to deceive us; we can’t let her know that we know this. I need to gain her trust to find Ana Maria.”
“Speaking of the devil…”

The fiery haired devil rose from her slumber, completely and unabashedly nude. She yawned contentedly, as Putin looked away, embarrassed. Marta winked at The Boss impishly, and began to dress in her combat fatigues. She shot a glare at Vladimir, and then began to speak.

“American pig, we must go forward for a few miles, and then we’ll march around the waterfall. I’ll tell you more once we get there…Once we reach civilization, we split our ways, understood? I’m only helping you get out of here because I’d rather have my head intact, but I need to get out of my unit. I know you Americans have no honor, but if you’d at least let me do that…”
“Oh, I’ll do much more than that...” said the Boss, smiling lecherously.

Vladimir turned away as the pair flirted, marching forward, his mind focused on the future…
__________________________________________________________________

They formed an interesting trio, to say the least. The Boss, an authoritarian, Machiavellian mystery woman, completely unreadable and completely in control, Putin, an enigmatic and falsely cold man concealing his true self to avoid the pain of his past, and Marta, a FMNL guerrilla who cursed, spat, and fumed at all around her. Three different people, three different agendas, three different philosophies, and one path…

Days passed as they were lead by Marta, adjusting their path by making excuses, and confounding her attempts to lead them into a trap. Oddly enough, as this game progressed, where the Marta would attempt to lead them into her trap and the Americans would modify their path without alerting Marta to their intentions, and then she would attempt to divert them back, the trio developed a begrudging form of friendship. The Boss continued to train Putin relentlessly in many forms of combat, including sword dueling, and her affair with Marta continued to intensify. (To such a degree that their passionate howls disturbed the animals around them.) Marta and Vlad clashed often, as their personalities seemed ideal for conflict with each other. The gorgeous Latino woman tried to engage Putin in political debates, but he ignored her political babble. He had no political ideals; the Boss may have been melting his cold exterior but she had not yet released his idealism enough to make him care. Her frustration grew as she could not crack the cool Putin; the insults and rage which she used so effectively against others simply slid down the man in black’s body, useless and ineffective. This ability to stay calm slowly earned the woman’s begrudging respect.

Soon they reached the edge of the foreboding jungle, the thick beast that had served as home for so many months. Marta cursed privately, realizing her plans had been foiled, and also realizing that…

…she really didn’t care. The Boss had fully seduced Marta, coldly manipulated the fiery young Marxist into a bewildered state of romance, and now the guerrilla stood at the edge of the rainforest, unsure of what to do. Little did she know that she was not in love, but merely infatuated, and that the Boss had used her to further her own purposes. No, to this young, angry girl, this was love, love in its purest form, and it tugged at her naïve heart.

“I…I…You...bastards…f*cking…” stuttered Marta, cursing out of sheer habit.
“We have to go Marta. You know you cannot go with us; you’d be immediately arrested. We won’t kill you for we stay true to our word, but we can’t stay here.” replied the Boss.
“I know…But…”

The man in black allowed himself a smirk as he watched Marta, a woman who normally could not be shut up, collapse into a silent mess of nerves. He turned around to leave, but not before noticing the Boss plant a swift, gentle kiss on Marta’s cheek. She began to leave with Vladimir, and her face was a mask of evil joy as her back turned to Marta.

“Wait for it…wait for it…”
“Stop!”
“Bingo.”

Her eyes gleamed with anticipation as she whirled around to see a frantic Marta.

“I’ll lead you to Ana Maria.”
________________________________________________________________________
The sky was at war with itself. It was night, but the day was slowly crawling into existence, as the night struggled to cling onto survival. The remnants of the past were slowly, inexorably gnawed away by the dawning of the new day, the new day for all…

The engines of the powerful military transport roared into the night, as the inside of the hulking flying beast trembled with anticipation. Black uniformed soldiers sat restlessly inside, their guns thirsty for blood and their minds hungry for action. Standing in the corner was a tall, shadowy figure whose scarf swirled in the air, buffeted by the plane’s constant movement. His hands were clenched around an American M-16, and his eyes were locked on a powerfully built middle aged woman whose body exuded authority. The Boss was enigmatic, unpredictable, ruthless, amoral…and incredible. He could not understand a thing about her, but she seemed to succeed at everything, dominate everything. Within weeks she had turned a powerful, deadly loner into her personal apprentice, without him even noticing. Within days she had seduced a fiery Marxist rebel leader.

And now she was plunging him into the battle of his life. Using Marta’s statements and the maps found with her, the Mexican Imperial Army (with covert assistance from the USQ military, in the form of Vladimir Putin and The Boss) was planning a final, full out assault on the FMNL. Marta’s indicated that this was the moment when FMNL guerrillas would be gathering at designated spots to coordinate supply chains, and it was the ideal moment to bring down the hammer. Marta’s information was incomplete, but it would be enough to cripple the Communists. The Marxists would collapse under the iron fist of the Mexican Emperor, with the subtle aid of two Quinntonians, and Che Guevara’s dream of a socialist revolution in Latin America would perish…

“Operación: Lluvia De la Muerte!” screamed a powerfully built Mexican soldier.
“That’s our cue, Vlad.”
“Let’s rock.”

The hatches roared open, the wind howled in the night, the full moon cast its pale light, and hundreds of men went bravely into that good night.
_________________________________________________________________
Armandian Cheese
08-12-2005, 01:21
The sun slowly rose, giving the sky a tint of blood red. The more superstitious of the FMNL guerrillas, who had taken the rhetoric of Marxism in without abandoning their spirituality, thought it to be a good sign, a herald that the Lord himself waved the red banner of Revolution.

If the events of that day were any indication of God’s will, they were wrong.

Hundreds of specks suddenly flecked the dawn sky, growing larger and larger by the moment. Eyes widened on the ground, and panicked yells spread hysteria like wildfire. At first the rebellion was engulfed in a general panic, as Marxists rushed to their battle stations, and scrabbled for whatever anti-air guns they had. A mad mob mentality consumed them, and all their training faded away to the sound of thrumming airplane engines. Curses flew all around, along with quotations from the Bible and The Manifesto, and all blurred into a general mass of chaos.

Until she came.

She was a short, squat, bespectacled woman who lacked the trait of physical attractiveness that most societies seemed to demand of women; nonetheless she commanded immediate respect from her subordinates. No Boss, she did not gain immediate respect by an aura of command or a powerful, dignified gait---indeed, her determined but clumsy, harried, waddling way of movement only made her look like some comic penguin. Not even her eyes revealed any sign of exceptional brilliance---they simply appeared as black, beady dots that any nosey housewife may have.

Yet…

She’d single handedly turned the FMNL/FMLN into a powerful, widespread rebel group.
While technically only the second-in-command, the woman originally known as Mélida Anaya Montes had originally lead strikes of professors, but as her activities failed to achieve her goal of an independent, Marxist El Salvador, she turned to violence. This bespectacled, penguin like woman turned out to be a brilliant organizer who through grit and determination fashioned a mob of ramshackle, disparate rebel groups into a highly coordinated network that was unified in ideology and tactics. Discipline and organization within each group was still a problem, but given more time she could very well have turned El Salvador, and perhaps all of Latin America, into a leftist haven. But neither in this world nor in ours did this happen; if her demise did not come at the hands of the El Salvadoran Army, it would come at the hands of her comrade who had decided he was tired of being first in command only by name. She was uniquely doomed, in all worlds and all times, but this squat woman with an owl’s eyes and a penguin’s frame did not know that, and set forth to the task of defeating this El Salvadoran offensive with grim determination. Her sharp, harsh words immediately brought forth order amongst the camp, and they leaped into battle.

“BLAM!” roared the cannons, as flames jutted out of their mouths and shells raced into the sky. They were accompanied by a chorus of anti-air machine guns, which hurled thousands of rounds at the transport planes and the invading paratroopers. While in other locations that the aerial invasion was being conducted, this barrage would have been met by heavy bombing, the Imperial El Salvadoran Army wanted Ana Maria alive. Several transports exploded in flame after releasing their “cargo”, while others dive bombed into the jungle, praying to whatever deity they held supreme, streaking tails of flame and smoke across the sky. While the El Salvadoran rebels managed to inflict heavy losses upon the Imperials, the fact remained that it was only a fraction of the total government force. No matter how valiantly or skillfully they fought, the mass of the opposing force overwhelmed them with sheer numbers. Soon, hundreds of black uniformed imperials roared across the jungle, their machine guns spewing out death. However, while there were too many Imperials to prevent from landing, the situation was quite different on the ground, as the men in black would soon learn to their dismay.

The original man in black grimaced as he witnessed a guerrilla get his face shredded by bullets. His M-16 shot up in the air as he saw that the rebel’s comrade decided to avenge him with a grenade; a few rounds sent the man to an early grave. Vladimir rushed out to of the jungle, and saw that Ana Maria’s forces had occupied a small pueblo like village. It was crawling with black clad Imperial soldiers dueling with grizzled El Salvadoran rebels. A sniper atop a small house eyed him greedily, and Vladimir rolled to the side, pumping off several rounds as bullets swished by him. As the sniper rushed to reload his clip, Putin ripped the pin off his grenade and hurled it at the roof where the sniper sat. As soon as the explosion ripped apart the unfortunate sniper, Vladimir dove forward into an alley to avoid an oncoming machine gun armed truck. He sprinted through a narrow maze of alleyways, ducking and weaving past trashcans and refuse. His cape fluttered in the gathering wind, and he bit his lip. His heart pounding, he leaned out of an alley to see two civilians taking cover behind a hot dog stand as they were pounded by a band of guerrillas.

“How dare you fight back against us?!? We who have provided your city with the light of Marxism?!?” howled a rebel at the two nervous men behind the hotdog stand.
“For months you and your band of criminal pigs have done nothing but oppress our city!” barked back a pudgy, mustachioed man in a chef’s apron.
“Sacrifices are necessary to defeat the capitalist pigs! Now come and aid us!”
“I don’t care about Marxism or capitalism! I just want my family left alone!”
“THEN PREPARE TO DIE YOU CAPITALIST SCUM!”

The civilians, judging by their armaments, had apparently taken the opportunity to rebel against the Marxists who had ruled their city. The two men had no chance, Putin saw---but if he tried to help them he would surely be killed. But could he…could he really let them die like that? He didn’t even know them, but they were innocents, defending their families against the Marxists, who proclaimed messages of freedom and equality yet swore fealty to the iron fisted Soviet empire. For this, their penalty was death…

They had families, children, wives, all who trembled in their homes waiting for the nightmare of war to end---all who wanted no part in this battle of ideologies, who staked no claim in the philosophies of Karl Marx or Adam Smith, who simply desired a return to their daily lives.

But what did he care? He once had a family…only to lose it because he was too weak. Everyone he had loved and cared about he had failed to defend; he was no warrior of good, only a failed fool, an idealist who could not fulfill his ideals. Life was a cold, emotionless exercise of missions and execution of commands to him; he could not afford attachment. That’s all it could be, for all hope of a better future only lead to despair and disillusionment.

But their eyes shined with despair, a hopeful despair, a simple, primal cry for aid. It was the same light that had glistened in the eyes of his mother as Nikolas stared down the murderous criminal invaders, the same spark that was forever frozen in Yumi’s lifeless eyes, the same burning flame that lay within all of the world’s oppressed, downtrodden, and defeated.

Vladimir’s body trembled…he knew he would surely die in the attempt…but how could he ignore that cry?

As an old analogy goes, the world is divided into sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. The sheep are the regular members, the weak and the innocent, who simply try to live their lives and gain a little piece of happiness. They are those who give this world life, who give it the vibrant energy and color it needs---but they are also weak.

That’s where the wolves come in. They are the shadows of this earth, those who embrace their greed and hate, those who do not earn their power and wealth through honest means but by leeching off the toil of others. They exploit the weak, the sheep, feasting off of their succulent flesh.

That’s why we need sheepdogs. They are not the happy, effervescent sheep, nor the dark and cruel wolves---they are grim and dedicated, warriors who struggle on through the night as the sheep sleep and the wolves prowl. Sacrificing their chances for happiness so that others may have them, they come in all shapes and forms. The sheepdog is the soldier; the sheepdog is the President; the sheepdog is the teacher; the sheepdog is the police officer; the sheepdog is the aid worker. Toiling tirelessly, their war with the wolves never ends, and little, if any, gratitude comes their way---but they do it anyway.

Why?

Because it’s the right thing to do.

And that is the ideal that lies at the heart of all ideals--- that is what a true idealist fights for, that is what a true idealist will never sacrifice, whether he be a hardcore Marxist or a firebrand capitalist, a militant atheist or a devout Christian. That is the purpose of sheepdogs, the reason that idealists exist, because someone has to do the right thing.

And Vladimir Putin, no matter how hard he tried not to be, was a sheepdog.

Knowing his death was likely, he leaped out of the alley, gun blazing. His finger pressed against the trigger and sweat poured down his neck as the guerrillas tumbled to their deaths in surprise. They whirled around, those that still lived, and pumped forth from their assault rifles. Putin strafed wildly, but knew that he was surrounded, and soon would perish. He plugged a swarthy Latin man in front of him in the head, but another one beside him landed a bullet in Vlad’s leg.

“Auggh!” he muttered through gritted teeth, as he fell to one knee.

As two El Salvadoran rebels marched towards him, their expressions full of triumphant rage, and Vladimir cursed himself for yet again giving into his idealistic impulses. He snatched a pistol from his belt, and aimed it up, slowly, slowly, slowly…

BLAMBLAMBLAM!

The two Marxists collapsed in front of him in a fountain of blood, and Vladimir stared, bewildered. Stunned, he brushed himself off, realizing he had probably missed something vital, and ran off into the city, deeper into the abyss of his cynicism, as his revived heroism seemed to taper off in the face of the constant reminders of the world’s uncaring nature.
_______________________________________________________________________
A shadow flitted across the horizon, thin and invisible to all but the most intensely trained eye, and even then only under intense scrutiny. It was harshly sketched onto the world, not fluid or soft but instead vaguely defined by a series of crude lines and hard edges. It ran with an intense rage, a thirst for the most primal desire of mankind: vengeance.

Clad in a ragged, tattered pale gray uniform that hung loosely from his emaciated frame and armed with a handgun and a rusty dagger, this shadow of a man was fueled by his hatred. The pain in his aching muscles as they strained to keep his body moving was ignored. The weariness of his body, which had not slept in days, was ignored. The sorrow that echoed in his mind, the tears that welled up in his eyes, the incredible melancholy that descended upon him like a swarm of bats, constantly reminding him of those who were murdered by that towering beast---was ignored.

All that was left of Chikara Yuki, the young man who had managed to flee the murderous rampage of Mugabe was a single, powerful, overwhelming, consuming thought that raged in his mind like a hellish conflagration.

He must pay.
_______________________________________________________________________

Black boots crunched against the sweltering asphalt as the day approached and the sky grew ever more red. All around him, gunfights erupted, as Marxists and Imperials exchanged withering rounds of fire. The center of conflict seemed to be a large, pueblo style church. It was made of old, cracked adobe and its white paint was peeling off. Its multilevel structure was filled with the buzzing activity of rebels, and it was crammed to the brim with defensive fortifications. Anti-air cannons roared violently, machine gunner nests trembled with violent ecstasy, and a messy array of trucks and vehicles swept around wildly, searching for prey. Several satellite dishes and other bits of communications technology stuck out from the top of the church, which pretty much confirmed that it was the major operations base for Ana Maria.

The church sat in the center of a large square that had once served as a marketplace, but was now strewn with flaming wreckage and mutilated corpses. Vendors that had once dispensed delicious fruits and useless trinkets now lay in shambles, carts that had hawked cool drinks rusted on the ground, tents that lured in many an unsuspecting customer were shredded to brown decaying bits of fabric.

A flicker of orange hair and the blur of a black trench coat was all that Lorenz Anna saw before being cut down in a hail of M-16 bullets. Vladimir stood over his body for a moment, spying around for allies, and noticed the Boss taking on three guerrillas alongside Marta. The Boss shot down the center rebel, who tumbled to the ground. The one on the right snarled and hurled a grenade at her, which she shot in midair. It burst next to him and threw shrapnel into his face, piercing his brain and killing him immediately. The third man took this distraction to get in closer, and fired several rounds at Marta. She dropped down to one knee as bullets whizzed by her head, and shot the man three times. The Boss smiled confidently, and planted a soft kiss on the Latina’s face.

Putin waved to the duo, and gestured that they should enter an old, abandoned warehouse. As they strode in, Vlad was struck by the change in Marta. She’d gone from a fiery, hateful rebel who cursed the USQ to someone who would give her life to slaughter her former comrades. It wasn’t really a political change, he noted…

It was the Boss. It was obvious to him that Marta was nothing more than a tool to the Boss, a means to an end for the authoritarian woman. But Marta, through her youth tinted eyes could not see that. She was enamored, in love, completely sucked in by an image and an illusion, and was ready to surrender everything she had ever fought for in the service of that image. The act she put on, the harsh, coarse, and foulmouthed commander fell like a poorly stacked deck of cards in face of the Boss’s undeniable and indefinable charisma, and the youthful, naïve little girl had revealed her true colors. Putin noted this, but still holding to his unemotional shield, despite the previous act of heroism, cared little.

“COSSACK,” said the Boss in her trademark harsh, yet kind voice, knocking Putin off his philosophical tangent.
“Hello Boss. Good to see you’re both alive.”
“You too COSSACK. You too.”

Vladimir’s cynicism seemed intensified, for he felt not a single drop of sincerity in the Boss’s voice at that moment.

“We need a plan---Ana Maria’s command HQ is far too well defended for an assault with just infantry forces---but we would need to clear out a significant part of the city to make it level enough to delivery of anything heavier.”
The Boss nodded, “The Prime Minister would prefer to avoid full out carpet bombing…Quinntonia won’t be able to remain publicly neutral if the Imperials start doing that.”
“But if we don’t act soon, Ana Maria’s going to escape.”

Marta’s harsh voice, full of false bravado that fooled no one, jutted itself into the conversation with the subtlety of a Mack truck.

“They know who I am. I can pretend to lead the Boss in as a prisoner, and get inside. But you, capitalist dog, will have to launch an assault---we need to keep the guards distracted so they don’t come inside while we try to capture Ana Maria. Got it, you son of a bitch?”

Putin simply nodded grimly, realizing that they were all going to die and caring little.
________________________________________________________________________

“YESYESOHGODYESMOREPLEASEGODYESSSSS!!!!!”

A kaleidoscope of blurred colors raced before his eyes. Devious black, weary gray, a moldy green-brown, and a demonic red all danced in his twisted ecstatic vision, like Russian dolls in a puppet show. His head bubbled with joy, incredible joy, joy that he had never felt before and would never feel again, as the Ferris wheel of color spun around faster and faster, until he was so lost in the euphoria that the entire outside world was washed away. The taste, oh God, the taste was so delicious…The flesh, the blood, so succulent…But it was more than that, oh yes. The pain….The pain he felt was not his own, but the pain of those who he devoured…He felt as if, as if he was them, as if when he consumed their flesh he consumed their souls, the daily toils of their lives, the small bits of happiness, the memories of happy Christmas mornings and raucous weddings, the snapshots of torrid romances. But he digested this without thought, without pleasure, without any enjoyment, for it was not what he sought.

He wanted pain. He had felt so much pain throughout his life, so much, that he wanted to see others suffer for once! Why should he be the only one to bear the burden of suffering? He wanted to feel their pain, their sorrow, their agony…He wanted to taste their agony...

But no! No! This was wrong! All wrong! His mother told him…His mother told him that God would never…But she had died, hadn’t she? Her God had not protected her from the pain the red coated arrogant Roiks had He? No. They, those swaggering, mustachioed demons of arrogance had come upon their village like a plague… They understood that it was pain, only pain that ruled this world, and only those who inflicted as much as possible on others won…That power, that power, that painful might…

Was delicious.

And this… God , with his teachings on mercy and love, had no perception of this power.

That was why his mother had died, and why he would not.
________________________________________________________________________

Sgt. Peres grimaced at the gruesome sight before him. He wondered how the hell he had managed to find himself in this position, and then gritted his teeth, plunged his hands into the dingy sack, and pulled out a rotting human arm. Immediately, the bars on the dark prison cell began to tremble, as a panting noise emerged from its dirty, rotting confines. Peres threw the limb in, and a howl of primal satisfaction echoed out, followed by disturbing slurping and chomping noises. Peres exited as quickly as possible, bumping straight into the squat, beady eyed commander. He managed a sloppy salute, as she shoved him back into the room, smiling menacingly. She flicked on the light switch, and a single, dim light bulb slowly creaked into existence with a low buzzing noise, bathing the dirt floored prison with light.

“Commander Maria, what…?”
“Sgt. Peres…Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Her fat, stubby arms gestured towards the now visible contents of the prison cell, where a truly tremendous man sat on all fours, greedily lapping up rotting pools of blood. Mugabe was…terrifying. His clothes were reduced to rags that barely clung onto his massive, hardened dark flesh. His muscles, which before had simply emanated power now emanated menace along with it, as if they were perpetually ready to strike, constantly searching for prey which they could exert their might upon. His eyes, which had contained tremendous power now tossed an element of sheer madness into them, a hungry, desperate, and joyous madness that made little sense to all but the insane themselves.

Simply put, he was no longer human in any sense of the word.

“Why…?” asked the nervous young man.
“Our men found him ambling through the jungle, caked in blood and half starved. He outright mauled two of our soldiers in seconds, and it took a full platoon to take him down with tranquilizers. I could tell…” she said in her characteristically nasally voice, as she gestured toward the beast in the cage, who was clawing at the wall ferociously with a hunk of burnt bone.
“…I could tell he had potential…The sheer joy I saw in him when he tore apart my men, the maniacal bloodlust…It is so rare to see such demonic potential in combination with such sheer physical prowess. I decided to intensify these traits, for he might prove useful to our cause.”

Peres shuddered, as the leader he was supposed to serve calmly described keeping a man in a rotting, tiny, dark hole in the wall for days on end and feeding him human flesh in a way that one might describe a business deal or going to the grocery store. She reduced a barbarous, inhuman act to a simple, shrewd decision.

The penguin-like woman grinned, revealing rows of small, sharp teeth, and said, “Yes…not only will he serve as an excellent warrior…He’ll be…a model…for the future of Communism...”

With a sudden movement, she exited the room. Peres rushed over, panicking, and slammed the door with his fist as he struggled to open it.

“Commander! Commander! What are you doing!?!”
“Every experiment requires a test subject, Mr. Peres.”
“What…No…You can’t leave me to that… thing! Please, Ms. Maria! GOD NO! NOOO!!!”
“Goodbye, Mr. Peres.” she said, her voice completely devoid of emotion.

The young sergeant turned around nervously, his hair thick with sweat and eyes ablaze with panic. His heart thumped faster and faster as he saw a small hole open up above Mugabe’s cell, and a small, shiny blur plummet from it.

Keys.

“Christ…NOOOOOO!” he pounded his fists on the wall in desperation.

The beast paced the dirt floor of his cell, anxious for no apparent reason. His evil eyes would on occasion flash to Peres, which would exact a frightened whimper from him. Mostly, however, Mugabe continued to scrawl an indecipherable message on his wall.

Apparently, the demon wasn’t hungry.

Yet.
___________________________________________________________________

As Vladimir barked a series of furious orders at his Imperial allies, Marta slowly marched towards the church, holding a gun to the Boss’ head. It would normally make him uneasy to see a gun put to his mentor’s head, but the fawning Latina would blow her own brains out before laying a finger on her beloved. In her other hand, the ex-revolutionary held the white flag of peace, and thus blatantly violating international law by claiming to come in peace when her intentions were quite the opposite. As soon as she entered out into the plaza, hundreds of guns made her their target, and her approach was a slow and cautious one.

“Comrades! It’s me, Marta! I have a present for my lover…” she said with a sardonic grin.
“But your unit vanished days ago! We thought you were dead…” responded one of the guards who immediately recognized Marta. She was, after all, fairly prominent in the FMNL, not only because of her military prowess but also due to her… relations with Ana Maria. Maria’s guards had seen that svelte, jaunty body many times before, in many other circumstances.

“I managed to survive, and capture one of the capitalist cock sucking motherf*ckers who was behind the assault. She’s… Quinntonian. ”

This sent an immediate tremor throughout the army. They had all feared and suspected American involvement in the El Salvadoran civil war; crazy rumors of CIA plots and mysterious men with crosses at the scene of every major assassination flew all over the place. Now their fear of the great capitalist and Christian superpower seemed to be realized; with only this tiny shred of shaky proof their paranoid delusions all seemed real, and CIA agents in their black suits and cross-shaped badges seemed to lurk around every corner. This fear overthrew their rational instincts of doubt, and in combination with Marta’s undeniable authority in the FMNL, lead them to immediately allow her inside with her “prisoner.” Marta had served in the FMNL long enough and well enough to earn their trust; any sort of betrayal was an unimaginable, even laughable, idea to the revolutionaries.

Inside, the couple slowly strode up the long, narrow stone stairs, until they were approached by a pair of FMNL guards clad in khaki shorts and holding AK-47s.

“We’ll take her to the prison now.”
“No you won’t. I need to take her to Ana Maria.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s standard procedure. We need to interrogate her first.”
“I AM TAKING HER TO ANA MARIA! Got it, b*tch?”
“Marta, if you won’t co---ARGGH!” he howled as his head turned into a glop of red.

His partner joined him in oblivion as The Boss plugged him full of lead. Immediately the alarm sounded, and the duo sprinted up the stairs, hoping Vladimir would fulfill his part of the plan.
______________________________________________________________________
“We were all dead men, dead men marching in the street”

Outside was hell. Sure, it could be described with more of a dramatic flourish, prettied up with an editor’s pen and made to sound dramatic and exciting for the digestion of some wild eyed teenager, but frankly, there was no place for that here. This was no heroic clash of powers; no good versus evil struggle that might be worthy of legend.

No, it was just a slaughter.

The El Salvadoran army launched a ferocious assault upon the heavily fortified church. They were well trained, they used the most cutting edge weapons available to their country, they were grizzled veterans, and they were confident.
And they had absolutely no chance.

They ran like lambs to the slaughter, their guns blaring away at the enemy rebels, cutting down their ranks with grim efficiency, but were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of fire. Machine guns rattled away, ripping the Imperials to pieces, rockets burst into the air, scorching Imperial flesh, and bombs burst on the ground, tearing of Imperial limbs. Vladimir himself tried repeatedly to achieve some sort of cohesion in the assault, but all of his attempts failed. How could an army fight when it was outnumbered by an enemy in an excellent defensive position, and when it lacked any sort of motivation or hope? Many of the Imperials were in fact sympathetic to the Marxist cause; it wasn’t as if the government they fought for was in any way worthy of their affection. And with such overwhelming odds, how could they fight with spirit and coordination?

Into this desperate picture came an even more desperate creature.
__________________________________________________________

The penguin waddled over the smashed door, carefully avoiding the splinters as she entered the room. The metal bars that had once held Mugabe now leaned open, twittering with the wind as the silver key that opened them hung loosely in its hole. Maria adjusted her black frames as she surveyed the room with grim satisfaction. On the ground lay a pool of blood, only now starting to dry up, along with mutilated bits of flesh that appeared torn, and in some cases…chewed on. Peres’ dead head looked upon her, permanently frozen in fear, and she kicked it aside. It was to her as the living man had been to Mugabe; an irritant to be used, removed, and cast aside.

Her stout legs took her inside Mugabe’s cell; besides a few scattered bones and a seemingly endless supply of blood, she noticed an odd inscription on the wall. There, in crude hack marks, was a picture of a demonic figure, one a child might draw, with a point tail, a pitchfork, and horns. Underneath, in crude, gigantic letters, was a message.

“God is mercy…God is Compassion…God is Weakness…I am Pain. I am Strenghth. She was god; I am no God. I am…I am…the DEVIL….Hehehehehehehehehhehehehe….Oh yes! I am the nightmare that haunts your dreams…I will feast upon your pain, drink your blood, dance upon your grave…I am the demon! I AM THE DEVIL!”

She turned around, ready to leave and return to her main command room at the top, and then hesitated for a moment. To no one in particular and to everyone in the world, she said, “He’s escaped.”
___________________________________________________________
“…the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV)

Vladimir lobbed a grenade at a sandbagged Marxist machine gunner, and then as he searched for another target, saw the gigantic, towering figure of the brutal taskmaster he had met weeks before.

The Devil had come to Hell, and he was hungry for some innocent blood. His demonic eyes surveyed the battlefield, and he leapt into action with an inhuman ferocity. Two gun toting soldiers fired at the towering beast, but he seemed to dodge their bullets with incredible speed. His massive hands clenched their guns, and incredibly, twisted their metal frames out of shape. The men turned and began to run, but Mugabe reached over and grasped one of the men by his neck. With a brutal crunch, he ripped the man’s head straight off his shoulders, causing blood to spurt all over him. He licked his lips greedily, and then hurled the man’s head with such speed that it knocked over his fleeing comrade. The Devil rushed over to the collapsed man, and with a series of agonizing blows, beat the life out of him.

Vladimir shuddered at the man’s terrible strength and brutality. He had never before seen such evil; not even when the beast had been a POW warden had he acted with such evil passion.

As if that wasn’t enough of a shock, a blur suddenly hurled itself at the massive creature, knocking him back in surprise. The blur bounced off, landed on the ground, and aimed a handgun directly at Mugabe’s chest. It was the POW that had first angered the brutal warden; it was the young man who had escaped that bloody massacre.

“MUGABE!” the man howled, his voice full of desperate rage.

The beast simply growled.

“You murdered them…My unit was the closest thing to a family I ever had…And you murdered them all. For that…For that I’ll teach you what happens to those who mess with Chikara Yuki.”

Mugabe howled with a deep, belly laugh full of derision.

“You…challenge…the prince of demons…the father of all lies…? Then p-p-pay the…price tha—tha---that all must…pay…”

The Asiatic man, his face hardened with furious determination, raised his handgun and fired. The bullet plunged into the beast’s chest, producing a red stain, but to Yuki’s horror, the giant simply laughed.

The words, “None can defeat me.” came from his mouth, with his characteristically raspy, acid scarred voice supplemented with sheer evil and malice.

As sweat poured down his back, Chikara fired again and again and again, plunging bullets into Mugabe’s chest as he advanced, undaunted. With inhuman speed, a gigantic black hand grasped Chikara’s gun, threw it on the ground, and stomped it to pieces. For a moment the young man’s eyes widened, but his fear was overcome not only by rage but by an ingrained sense of discipline, a sturdy determination built on years of personal dedication and centuries of culture. He grasped for a knife, weaved to the left to dodge Mugabe’s massive fist, and stabbed it into his side. The beast howled in agony, and Chikara used it as an opportunity to launch a devastating roundhouse kick at the devil’s head. Chikara immediately followed it up, and swung a punch at Mugabe’s head, but before he could reach a massive hand snatched his arm, and another one grabbed his neck and lifted him into the air. Mugabe, bleeding from the gun wounds, glared at Chikara and slowly tightened his hand around the young man’s neck.

“I will…enjoy…this…you will..p-p-paaay…for what you di-di-did…to me…”

Chikara gasped for air, cursing, but did not give the beast the pleasure of watching him squirm like a pathetic bug. If he was to die, he would do it with honor…
_______________________________________________________________________

The man in black watched all of this unfold, cursing bitterly. The entire battlefield had frozen, as Mugabe’s entrance and dramatic assault had provided a distraction. He could very well abandon the man who now bitterly clung to life in Mugabe’s grasp, and fulfill his mission by aiding in the capture of Ana Maria. He could very well leave the man to die, and abandon him to the demon. He could very well rush into the church, capture Ana Maria, and leave all those who needed him to fend for themselves.

And he did.

He was tired of being a sheepdog, tired of protecting an ungrateful world, tired of the constant self sacrifice his morals had demanded. The world was a cruel and uncaring one; he would have to be that way too.

And so the man in black rushed out across the plaza, straight towards the church doors, as seemingly dazed soldiers failed to recognize his presence with more than a “huh?” as he sped by. The doors were right before him, their dour crimson-brown standing out against the cracked white pueblo-style walls. His hand reached onto the door handle, as he shot two nearby guards in quick succession.

Almost there…

His hand slowly pulled the handle.

Almost there…

Redemption drained away, as cruel reality sank in…

Almost there…

He pulled it towards him, as his breathing sped up.

Almost there…

He began to move into the church…

Almost the---no.
No.

This wasn’t who he was. This wasn’t right. He could never give up; he could never surrender. There were things that were worth fighting for, living for, and dying for. There was a right and wrong; there was a good and evil; there was a God.

It didn’t matter if the world appreciated it or not, the right thing was always the right thing. People needed help and he could give it. What could be clearer than that? What could be simpler than that universal truth?

He could help, and therefore…he had to.

Vladimir Putin was a sheepdog. Sheepdogs don’t abandon their flock. Not when there are wolves around, not when the sheep beat them for not allowing them to frolic with the wolves they seem to love to flirt with, not when no one cares anyway. Not now, not ever.

And so Vladimir Putin hurled himself back into the fray, ready to die for a cause that cared nothing about him.

His redemption was nearly complete.
______________________________________________________________________
“Never made it as a wise man, I couldn’t cut it as a poor man stealing, tired of living like a blind man…This is how you remind me of what I really am…”

He struck like a bolt of lightning in the night sky. Unwilling to risk using his gun and hitting Chikara, he instead launched a devastating aerial kick straight to Mugabe’s head. The giant dropped Chikara and stumbled back from a blow that could very well kill a rewarded with a rapid succession of swift punches to the head. Mugabe blocked the blows, and smacked Putin across the face. A few of the man in black’s teeth flew out in a spray of red mist, and he grunted as blood trickled down his chin. Vlad ducked as the beast delivered another broad swipe, and then rose up while delivering a swift kick to the giant’s groin. Though he may have been insane, cannibalistic, and as far removed from human as a man could get, Mugabe was still, after all, a man, and there’s not a man in the world who could easily take a blow to that area. He groaned in agony and instinctively clutched his privates, giving Vladimir the opening he needed to whip out his knife and jam it straight in the beast’s chest. The devil retaliated with a ferocious kick that smashed into Putin’s rib cage and sent him flying back. Mugabe slowly approached the prone Vladimir, grunting with exhaustion and agony, but eager to crush the insect who dared to challenge him.

“You…idiot…You rea—rea---really want to dhhhiiiee…for anot—th---ther man? Get out…of…my way…while you still…c-c-can. ”
“Never.” uttered a defiant Putin, as he agonizingly rose to his feet.

“I’ve been wrong, I’ve been down to the bottom…”

“I’ve tried to climb into that f*cking hole you call home. I tried to run away from my duty, I tried to cover up my pain by not caring anymore. But I can’t. I have to fight; I will always fight. I’m a f*cking idealist, a goddam sheepdog. I saw what you did at that FMNL camp to those POWs, and I couldn’t let this man suffer the fate he just barely escaped. I won’t let you continue your evil, you bastard. This ends now.”
“Oh…but I…I also know…what is right and what is…wr-wr-wrong…I just…choose wrong…Yessssss….Yesss….I do…Heheheheheehheeh---hurgg—hehehehe!!!”

The demonic figure burst out into maniacal laughter, as his eyes glowed with insanity and he gazed towards the night sky. It was all out in the open, and finally, Mugabe was content.

Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, was not. Something deep within him was horrified by the very existence of a being like Mugabe; something deep within him rejected Mugabe’s very presence; something deep within him raged at the fact that such a stain could discolor his idealistic world view. Mugabe was a blot to be erased.

But he knew that Mugabe was undefeatable; the man held him at his mercy, and for Putin, it was really all over. The beast would prevail no matter what, both in the literal sense and the cosmic one. The encroaching evil would always beat back the warriors of good, so why even try sweeping it away? Then his eyes drifted to the crumpled body of Chikara…

And to the shining, lifeless eyes of Yumi…

And the

And the defiant glare of Nikolas.

“BECAUSE IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO! I REFUSE, I F*CKING REFUSE TO SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP IN A WORLD WHERE THE WEAK ARE OPPRESSED AND THE EVIL PREVAIL! You can’t just stomp all over everyone in your path, you can’t just carelessly ruin the lives of others, you can’t just push them around! They have a right to live the f*cking way they f*cking want to! AND YOU CANNOT TAKE THAT AWAY FROM THEM! I WILL NOT, I WILL NOT, I WILL NOT ALLOW IT!”
he screamed, to no one in particular and to the entire universe.

Mugabe smiled, his teeth flashing, and continued his steady stride towards Putin.

Vladimir leapt up, defying his pained legs, and ran towards the Devil with an inhuman speed. His legs didn’t even seem to touch the ground, instead they glided across the earth. He plunged towards the towering beast with his right fist, which…

…Mugabe caught in mid-air.

“No.” said Vladimir, with a desperate, hopeless realization. He couldn’t…be wrong, could he? This was not the way it was supposed to end, not the w---BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!

“No.” said Mugabe, this time, as he slumped to the ground in a heap, facefirst, causing the very earth to tremble.

At his feet stood an apron clad fat man with a thick Zapata moustache clutching a still smoking rifle and another man with an also smoking handgun. They quickly shoved Putin and Chikara behind a wrecked dump truck; with Mugabe down (Ana Maria had ordered that under no circumstances was he to be killed) the Marxists would have no compunctions about leveling them with a heavy volume of fire.

“You…You were the men at the hot dog stand…I thought you ran away…” stuttered out a stunned Putin.
“What do you mean, man? We shot those punks for you.” the aproned man said, with a thick Mexican accent.
“I..I…didn’t even…And now you…”
“Those bastards would have killed our families. You went in there, risking your life for people you don’t know. We helped out there, but it wasn’t enough.”
“After all, we were just protecting our families. We weren’t paying you back.” chimed in the second, younger man.
“Yeah, so we followed you. I mean, we never got to thank you. And we saw you were in kind of a tight spot, eh? And well, we knew the bastard would probably kill us, but…amigo, my family, my wife and my little Anita…They’re everything to me. I can never repay you for that.”

Putin just sat there, stunned beyond all recognition.

So…so…the world…does care? So…my endless fight for good does matter, it’s not just some hopelessly defiant statement? So I can prevail, I can make a difference, I can save lives and the universe will recognize it?

And with that any lingering doubts Vladimir had about whether the battle against evil was worth it, whether his struggles really did come to anything, evaporated in that moment. Any doubts he may have had as to whether he was actually making a difference rather than slamming his head against the wall in a defiant statement devoid of meaning vanished. The world was full of dark moments, of incidents where determination failed and good crumbled in the face of evil, such as the deaths of his two families, but in the end, with enough determination and perseverance, nothing could stop the undeniable force of basic human decency.

Two Mexican hot dog salesmen had fully restored the future Russian President’s faith in humanity, in the universe, and idealism.

There is good in this world…and that’s worth fighting for.

His redemption was nearing completion; all it needed was one final test.
_____________________________________________________________

Ana Maria sneered, her face full of arrogance.

“Well, well, well…Who would have thought my favorite lover would have turned traitor?”
“I never loved you, you f*cking penguin! I only slept with you to gain rank!” spat Marta.

The Boss and Marta stood surrounded in the Church bell tower, their guns pointed at Ana Maria. Three FMNL soldiers, along with the squat Maria, pointed their weapons at the duo.

“Pathetic, pathetic…You really thought you could win? This smattering of forces, this poorly planned and executed kidnapping attempt…Your command skills are lacking Marta…I confess the only reason I gave you such good rank because your skills were a lot better in the bedroom than on the battlefield. Either way, it matters little. None of you can counter the revolutionary tide. None of you. The Revolution is an unstoppable tidal wave of force; it is foolishness to do anything but ride it.”
______________________________________________________________________

“My friends! Lend me your ears!” cried out a voice in the radios of the El Salvadoran army.

“I have no time for flowery oratory, nor the temperament for it. My name is Vladimir Putin, and I came here for one reason, and one reason only: to fight for what is right. That may sound corny, my friends, but it is true. We fight against an enemy that doesn’t believe that individual people are worth anything, that believes that we are nothing in comparison to the state. They replace our God with their state; they replace individuals with the state; they replace life with the state. The state is everything to them; it determines what they eat, what they watch, what they dream about and what they believe in. This is the ‘beautiful’ vision of Communism so often espoused; it is not some glorious paradise of equality; it is a despotic tyranny where the State iron fistedly determines who you are and what you do, and controls every aspect of your life, where the State demands absolute worship in exchange for brutal torture and oppression, where the State takes your labors and hands them to some undeserving slacker simply to fulfill its own fantasies about ‘equality’.”
_______________________________________________________
“The Revolution is unstoppable because it is the way things were meant to be. The strong will rule the weak; the masses will be made equal while the select few guide them. They shall all have equal wages because they are all equally worthless. There is nothing idealistic about Communism; it is an acknowledgement of reality. That is why it shall prevail over this capitalist nonsense, which only exploits the poor while riding on this fantasy that any man can achieve anything. How absurd!”
________________________________________________________

“Communism must be stopped my friends. These rebels seek to impose an unnatural State upon us, where only a select few can truly be free. They think they can pacify us by giving us miserable ‘equality’ while granting the select few unimaginable wealth. Every man can and should be able to determine his own fate---it may sound idealistic, but I believe in a world where every man can fulfill his dreams if he struggles enough, not one where we must surrender our hopes in order to have a mediocre ‘equality’.”
________________________________________________________

“Join me, Marta. Come back to the one true ideology; throw away the archaic trappings of capitalism and join the Revolution again! Let us ride on the backs of the herd, let us make all of the swine equal---for they truly are equal in their degradation---and rule on top. Let us restore the world to its proper order. Let it be known that this day Marxism prevailed, that the masses bowed to the true faith, that the people’s cries for equality were heard, and that this day, the selfish, individualistic idealists failed.”
________________________________________________________

“I know we live in a state that is struggling to achieve democracy and does not yet offer all the freedoms it should. But join me, my friends. Lend me not only your ears but your lives! Let us fight for a greater future, let us preserve what we have so that it can be improved for the sake of our children and our children’s children, instead of allowing it to plunge into that hellish vision these Soviet-sponsored terrorists want to bring about. Let it be remembered that this day, the men of El Salvador did not bow down to the idols of the State, let it be known that this day the men of El Salvador let their cries for freedom be heard…”

Suddenly Vladimir Putin burst out from a latch on top of tower overlooking the church, and bellowed out to his allies.

“…let it be known that this day…the men of El Salvador fought! ”
Armandian Cheese
08-12-2005, 01:22
Something stirred deeply within the El Salvadoran soldiers, awakening their warrior spirits and inner idealists, bringing forth noble emotions that always lurked just beneath the surface. While every rebel in the vicinity aimed his/her gun at Putin, they gazed at their suddenly acquired leader. He gestured to them as he pulled out a grenade, and made signals indicating a three second countdown as bullets whizzed by. In a simultaneous motion all who still had grenades hurled them at the church, and the panicked Marxists began to devolve into hysteria as explosions ripped the church’s defenses to pieces. They tried to combat the renewed Imperial combat effort by attacking Putin, but after a few harrowing moments he leaped down from his perch, landing first on an awning and then bouncing off straight into the thick of combat. He landed in the middle of two rebels, crossed his arms and shot both with his handguns, blowing their brains apart. He cartwheeled forward to doge a machine gunner’s blasts, and then shot the man as he desperately tried to fix his jammed gun. Vlad whirled around to pistol whip a man who tried to stab him, then ducked as two grenades whizzed over his head. He stood up to continue fighting, but the tinge of cold steel brushed against his neck.

“Time to die, American pig.”
“Russian, actually.”
“I don’t---Argh!”

Vladimir whirled around to see a headless rebel lying on the ground and a stern faced (and somehow dark sun glasses wearing) Chikara Yuki holding a handgun. Vladimir began to utter out a thanks, but Chikara’s hand gesture cut him off.

“No need to thank me. You attacked Mugabe, practically giving up your life to protect a man you didn’t even know. I can…never forget that.” he said as they ran towards the church. Something in his voice implied that it was more than just a simple repayment of debt, that the arrangement would cover far more than a tit-for-tat life saving exchange. Vladimir wanted to question him further, but refrained, realizing this was not the time.

As they entered the church’s thick doors, they noticed a long, winding stone stairway. Silently, both men ascended the stairs, but as soon as they had begun to go up, FMNL guerrillas began to pour back into the church.

“I’ll hold them back. You go and do whatever it is you’re supposed to.”

Putin nodded in an expression of gratitude, and sprinted up the stairs.
“Can it, Maria. Didn’t you realize an experienced Special Forces operative like me would have heard this same goddamned speech a million times over? I could care less about capitalism or communism; my objectives are different.” said the Boss, her voice calm and unwavering.

The Boss’ fist suddenly slammed down on her belt, as she closed her eyes (as did Marta). A tremendous flash erupted from the flash bang she had detonated, and Spanish curses flew across the room as blinded FMNL guerrillas convulses, clutching their eyes in agony. Her olive green uniform turned into a blur as her hands raced upwards. Suddenly, the lightning quick motion froze as her hands extended outwards and she shot two FMNL guerrillas several times over. Marta dropped to her knees and blasted the third guerrilla’s hand off, and then plugged him several times in his chest. The Boss tried to shoot Ana Maria’s hand, but the guerrilla leader ran behind the tremendous church bell. It rang ominously as the bullets pounded against it, and then Ana slid right under it, rising up instantly and placing her gun directly at the Boss’ head, but not before the Boss managed to aim her weapons at the guerrilla’s chest.

“Go ahead. I was supposed to capture you, but a kill will have to do.”
“You’d die to fulfill your mission?”
“Of course. Failure is a far worse fate.”
“Then…”

Ana Maria’s twinkled with madness behind her owl frames as she slightly adjusted the barrel of her handgun with a swift flick of her wrist, so that now the deadly weapon was pointed squarely at Marta’s young face.

“…I shall threaten the ones you love. You Americans are notoriously sentimental like that, after all.”

The Boss stared incredulously, and then unleashed an eerie laugh.

“You really…you really think I love her!?! HA! You think I am so weak as to develop attachments like that!?! She is a tool and nothing more…”

Marta’s face turned incredibly pale.

“You…don’t love me…? But…but…I…” she muttered in a guttural, whining voice similar to a beaten puppy’s whimper. Tears streamed down her face, painfully washing away her childish illusions.

The Boss’ finger simply tightened on the trigger, as did Ana Maria’s.
__________________________________________________________________

Pain shot through his limbs, unimaginable pain, agony like he had never felt before and would not feel again for a long time, pain that screamed at him to stop, but a pain that he refused to hear. His injuries combined with exhaustion to punish him brutally as he sprinted up the stairs. Every step was a battle, every movement a struggle of life and death, and his life flashed before his eyes as he ascended upwards. Everything he had ever experienced, every memory, every joy and sorrow, every rage and calm, every victory and every loss, was replayed over in his mind as his boots crunched ever higher. It seemed that everything in his life had been in preparation for this moment, this final test, this final examination.

Would he prevail?
Could good truly win?
Could he really be redeemed?
Would determination be enough?

Putin’s body had been pushed to the brink, and his mind suffered as a result. Hallucinations danced around him, as the faces of Mugabe, Igorij’s father, and for some reason, the Ukrainian rebel who called himself “Tsar” taunted him, insulting his family and demeaning his achievements. Mugabe’s grinning teeth munched happily on Yumi’s leg, Wingert grimly beat his mother to a pulp, and the Mafiosi set his father’s body aflame. Fire raced all around him, the same, endless, uncaring blaze that had consumed his father…But he refused to stop. The world was falling apart all around him, but he continued to climb, continued to grit his teeth and fight.

Marta suddenly stood before him, embracing the Boss with passion.

“Go away, we do not need you, capitalist pig!”
“You’re weak, weak, weak, Vladimir. I should have never tried to train you---I never needed you. Pathetic, bumbling fool---you’ll never amount to anything. Your fight is lost, go home and enjoy life while you still can. Give it up.”

Vladimir trembled, and roared back at the seemingly ungrateful duo, “You cannot stop me. As long as there is injustice in this world, I will stop it. It doesn’t matter how stupid I am, it doesn’t matter how weak I am, it doesn’t matter if I win or lose, I will never stop fighting!”

Marta and The Boss recoiled from his defiance, and vanished as suddenly as they had appeared. Vladimir cursed, shaking his head and realizing he had been arguing with a hallucination, and sprinted onward.

As the door slowly crawled into existence, Vladimir tried to call upon all of his reserves of strength, and grimly realized they were running thin.

God…I know I have been an unfaithful servant…I know I have committed much evil…But Jesus, I do not ask you to forgive me…I know I am undeserving. But please Lord, give me strength, give me one last bit of strength so that I may aid The Boss and Marta, one last ounce of power. Do it not for my sake; I shall strive my hardest to be redeemed, but I know I am unworthy. But give me this strength so I may save them, save the good and the innocent. That is all I ask.

Slowly, gradually, the exhausted and beaten Vladimir felt a surge of energy flow through his body, and intangible power that flowed through his veins. Putin’s entire body seemed lighter, as if he had suddenly become filled with light, and he pushed onwards.

Perhaps it was just a placebo effect; a delusion caused by Putin’s own intense belief. Perhaps the sudden burst of intense strength was really all Putin’s doing, as he drew upon reserves of strength that he simply did not realize he had.

Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.

The new boost of strength did not make the pain vanish or disappear; not, it was simply a cushion, a small sliver of protection against the unrestrained agony the pulsed through his veins.
But it was enough.

The door was wide open, Putin saw, and inside Ana Maria’s trigger finger was moments away from ending the innocent life of Marta. Perhaps she had been a fool for believing in the Boss so devoutly, but in any other situation a foolish teenage crush would end with tears---not death. It was unfair, incredibly unfair, that she should pay such a price for her naiveté, that she should never taste the fruits of life simply because she had believed in humanity’s fundamental good.

Of course, not for a moment did the thought that he was committing the same sin by trusting the now blatantly uncaring Boss cross his mind.

He would later pay a price for that sin; but he could not let her pay it now.
_______________________________________________________________

"Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for a friend."

A single tear raced down Marta’s cheek.

A bullet shot out of the Boss’ gun.

A bullet roared out of Ana Maria’s gun.

Marta closed her eyes, expecting nothing but death…Cold, harsh, uncaring and lonely death.

The bullet tore through flesh, knocking a body to the ground.

Marta opened her eyes in surprise. Ana Maria lay on the ground in agony, clutching the bleeding stump that was once her hand. The Boss stood over her with both her guns aimed directly at her.

And Vladimir Putin lay on the ground, his hand over the bleeding bullet wound in his chest.

“You…you…saved my life…? Why…? Do you…love me…?”
“No…” he sputtered, as blood flowed from his lips along with a hoarse, maddening laughter.
________________________________________________________________________

The Boss looked at him, and her eyes widened in surprise.

She had…missed something about him. All she had seen before was a competent soldier, determined but not particularly talented. He was nothing special; just another tool to be wielded in the master plan. But…those eyes…They held a fire she had never seen before, a glorious conflagration that screamed out for justice, a blaze that held infinite determination. It was a green light, a green light of hope, a promise that although today we might not achieve our goals, today we might not have justice, tomorrow we can try again, tomorrow we can struggle once more, and all we have to do is just run faster, jump higher, try harder, and one day, one glorious day, reach out, and---

That emerald fire…that green light…could be useful.
____________________________________________________________________

Marta tried to tend Putin’s wounds as he lay on the ground, the life oozing slowly out of him. His eyes moved upward, as an explosion struck near the bell tower, causing the entire structure to tremble, and eerily, the bells to ring. They rang with a ghostly, spiritual clarity. They echoed hope, endless hope, along with finality. Their cries said to the world that it was all over, that the blood had spilled on the streets of this town for the last time, that the Devil had fallen and his Kingdom was no more. They rang to call out to the world that the green light was here, that the blaze had arrived, that those hopes fueled by determination and ambition were not unachievable, but tangible and real.

Vladimir Putin’s eyes moved upwards, as he looked out the window to see the once red sky, which now carried a warm tint of orange and pink. The sun was almost risen.

“Such…such a wonderful world we live in.”

His redemption was complete.
Armandian Cheese
08-12-2005, 05:37
Time and space seemed to float and drift, as all events of the days immediately gained a certain blur in Vladimir’s eyes, as if the events that were unfolding before his eyes had all happened a long time ago and he was simply reaching for memories he could not change or alter.

A flurry of people visited him in his hospital bed, and all of them were coated in that hazy paint that clung onto his last days in El Salvador. The USQ military officials who simultaneously piled medals upon him and disavowed knowledge of his existence, the El Salvadoran soldiers who had fought with him and now expressed their gratitude, an angry yet awed Ana Maria, a wide eyed and simultaneously disillusioned and entranced Marta, and a silent, enigmatic Boss---all came and went without much impact on his dazed mind, like crackling orange leaves in fall, blown away by the wind as soon as they fell to the ground.

The only visit to his hospital bed Putin remembered was Chikara Yuki’s solemn ritual. He marched in like---to use a cliché and obvious term for a Japanese man---a samurai, his eyes rigid and full of purpose. Oddly enough, his eyes lacked the intensity of purpose; indeed, his face seemed to convey all of the sheer emotion while his eyes only contained simple, clear, and cold purpose.

“I am in your debt,” were the only the words he spoke, and something in his manner made Putin believe that the Asian man meant much more than his words indicated, that his debt was not one of the casual contracts of the modern era, but something deeper, much deeper, something from another time long past where men when men were men, honor was honor, and there were things more important than even life itself.

He knew there was nothing he could do to dissuade Chikara from the path he had chosen.

So he simply nodded, and his career as a true leader of men began.
_________________________________________________________________

Putin, Chikara, and the Boss dashed across South America in the upcoming years like a lightning bolt. For a population used to dealing with a political reality of a right wing dictatorship and its left wing guerrilla opposition, the appearance of a new political force, that of capitalist democracy, was like the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It was a terrible tremor that broke the South American political landscape apart by using Vladimir’s incredible potential for idealism to inspire massive followings, the Boss’ brilliant tactical sense to coolly manipulate events into place, and Chikara’s harsh and deadly methods to eliminate all who opposed them. They hopped from unit to unit, dramatically aiding the Green Berets by building up resistance efforts to eliminate the Marxist guerillas and at the same form democratic movements to pressure the capitalist regimes. While they were met more often with failure than success (El Salvador, for example, fell to the FMNL after the increasingly confident and brutal regime lost even its unofficial USQ support and the leftist Mannicaguans began supplying the rebels), their long term impact on South America was undeniable, so much so that Putin became a revolutionary figure along the lines of Che Guevara. (Though his appearance and name remained murky and sketchy---he was most often depicted as trench coated figure with a shadowy face) Putin only fueled these heroic depictions with his demeanor and actions. The man was seemingly possessed by an idealistic fire; the green light seemed to burst out of his very pores. All who saw him could only gape in awe at the sheer ambition and determination that was contained in the man, and at his growing ability to cause the multitudes to follow him by infecting them with his passions.

His increasing ambition caused him to be frustrated with the approach the USQ government seemed to be stuck on; he was constantly running around putting out brushfire by eliminating Communist rebellions. However, his ambitions grew beyond him, and an urge to eliminate the great arsonist himself, the Soviet Union, became unbearable. He devoured all news from his long abandoned home, excitedly reading of Wingert’s Ukrainian rebellion and the grueling war in Afghanistan (where, unbeknownst to him, he would later spend a particularly momentous day). He found that his connection to the Motherland was growing---no, re-growing, for it had always been there, lurking under the surface---and that while he might identify with the struggles of any peoples anywhere for justice in the abstract, it was only the pain of the Russian people that made his heart throb in such agony, only the joys of the Russian people that made him truly happy, only the struggles of the Russian people that he wished to fight for.

For his reborn idealism had also given rise to other elements of his hear, and a certain…longing….was one of them. He had lost his mother, both his real and adopted fathers, and his beloved. For a long time he had simply ignored the loss, but now his heart again throbbed for the familiar, his heart again sought ought something which could fill it with warmth and joy, his heart again sought something to which he [ belonged. True, Quinntonia had treated him far more graciously than he could have asked for---but Russia was his home. Russian blood coursed through his veins and now that he had no family the nation itself was the only thing that could satisfy its desire for it.

This desire was subdued when the news of the USSR’s long awaited demise came, and for a while he was satisfied that the countrymen he now identified with were well off. So he battled across the globe, from Somalia (where he faced yet again the seemingly unkillable Mugabe) to Kosovo to Chechnya, picking up several friends (amongst them was Michael Assad) and foes along the way. His efforts there were crucial to snuffing the gathering Chechnyan revolt in the cradle, but at peak of his success in the USQ military, where it seemed that he was seemingly unstoppable and rumors of a post as Secretary of Defense were bandied about by the younger Pentagon staff, he vanished yet again. The Chechnyan campaign had allowed him to witness the horrors of the new Russia, and he was sick to the stomach at what he saw. The corruption, greed, poverty, and especially the rise of the Mafiya made his blood boil, and with only a simple resignation note, Vladimir Putin’s illustrious career as a military hero ended, and his career as a true legend began.

Little did he know that his effort was doomed from the start, due to the darkness in the heart of one who was so dear to him…

_________________________________________________________________

“And while they were eating He said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.”

Vladimir slept uneasily in the sleek black jet that bore him towards his fateful battle with Wingert. The night seemed dark, exceptionally dark, and while he knew nothing of the ordeal that lay ahead, the shadows soaked deeply into his bones and he felt the upcoming disaster. The deaths of Baltic civilians haunted him, and he asked himself again and again “Was it worth it?” Perhaps he had been to rash, to full of dreams of glory and too panicked over his remaining time on earth to rationally judge determine the fate of millions. The cries of innocents tormented him, and he bolted upright in a cold sweat, only to face the barrel of a gun.

Before him stood a slender, powerful figure clad in a red military uniform. A bright crimson sash was strewn across her---for the body shape clearly indicated it was a woman---chest and a long cape slithered down to the ground, lying there like a pool of blood. A mask concealed her face, and a dark slit ran across her face.

“Who the hell are you!?!” said Putin as he whirled sideways out of his bed and crashed onto the floor. He snatched the handgun under his pillow as the red figure plugged holes in his bed. He leapt up and fired at her, but she simply sidestepped with inhuman speed. The gunfire roused his Black Scarves, who pounded on the steel door, but it was sealed.

Putin raised his gun to fire again, but the red being’s left hand shot out and snagged his arm. He tried to smash her face in with his other hand, and his left hook managed to graze her face as she pulled back. His fist snagged on the fabric of her mask and tore it off. She caught it but was forced to drop her gun, and both stood face to face in a deadlock.

Vladimir gazed upon her face, and experienced the single greatest shock of pain he had ever felt in his life.

The face before him was beautiful, but it was not the typical beauty of an attractive woman; rather, it was terrifying and awe-inspiring, full of terrible might and authority.

It was the face of the Boss.

“What? No, no, no! Wh…wh…why…? Why did you betray me?” he said, his voice choking with a terrible blend of horror and sorrow.

She smiled gently, with an undertone of power, in the way she had always had.

“Vlad…I couldn’t betray you. I was never on your side. I am the Red Leader, Vlad. I am the beast that has plagued your dreams for so long, and I have been lurking right under your nose this whole time.”

The blood drained from Putin’s face.

“I guess I do owe you an explanation…You have been useful, after all. You were just a tool, a minor implement at first as I gained influence in the USQ military. But after El Salvador, I saw that you were…special. It’s not your foolish idealism that was useful, Vlad. There are plenty of noble idiots out there. Neither are you particularly intelligent or talented. But you were determined in a way I had never seen before and have not seen since. That fire was the key to my plans---I knew you could mold yourself into anything you wanted, and all I had to do was prod you into the right mold. That’s right, I was using you all along, Vlad. Everything you’ve done ever done since El Salvador---the “spontaneous” choice to run for President, the annexation of Kazakhstan, the alliance with the Holy League, the invasion of the Baltics…it was my doing. You think you have cancer? Ha! All of it was simply a show of smoke and mirrors, Vlad. A few chemicals here and there, a few bribed doctors. And you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. You are my creation Vladimir Putin, a puppet and nothing more.”

Still shocked, all he could utter was “But…why did you do all of this? WHY, DAMMIT, WHY!?!” in a howl of pain.

“I don’t mean to sound too theatrical, but…to put it simply, we want to rule the world.”
“We…?”
“The shadow order, the men in cloaks who tinker with the world’s events and pull the strings behind everything. Known alternatively as the Philosophers, the Freemasons, and…[i] the Illuminati. We are the enlightened, Vlad. We seek to create a perfect order, where humanity is supreme and not bound by the silly rules of that fool called God. We are the rebellion, following the example of Lucifer by throwing off the shackles of morality. For countless eons we have manipulated events to our choice, and now I carry on the legacy of my blood by bringing forth the first phase in our unified global utopia. Many of my attempts failed; the Mafiya proved useful only in manipulating you and the general who attempted a Soviet coup was an utter failure. But now…
Wingert may pay lip service to his Lord, but he plays by our rules, where the strong rule over the weak and are not bound by arcane and archaic morality. Not only that, but his empire’s rise is only another step in the world’s eventual unification under our rule.”

Putin was horrified as he looked upon the Boss. No longer did was her voice full of powerful but kind currents, no longer did layers of mystery permeate her words. Instead her eyes glistened with madness and joy; the efforts of sixty years---no thousands of years, for this was not just her effort---had culminated in this moment, and she no longer had to bear her mask. For the first time in the thirty years he had known her, the Boss had finally lost her control.

And he regained his.

“No.”

“What…?”
“You’re a liar. You haven’t manipulated me, you haven’t controlled me. I have done the right thing, no matter how many times I stumbled. You knew nothing about my Presidential campaign, and I was not your pawn but your foe when you lead the Mafiya. Only after you knew you couldn’t win did you try to turn me into a pawn---and you failed. You didn’t cause the evil I have wrought---I did. I murdered those Baltic citizens of my own will, because I was obsessed with glory and power. Those were my faults. I may have lost, Boss, but you haven’t won.”

He knew those words would carve deeply into the heart of the Boss, for all of her mystery she had failed to conceal the basic element of her soul.

“HOW DARE YOU!?! Vlad…I…” she trembled, her heart caught in a flurry of rage and ambition, while still plagued by a few vestiges of sentimentality.

“I loved you. Never in the romantic sense; not like Marta. It was something much deeper. You were…everything to me. You gave me hope, you gave me life! And it was all…all…a show…?” sputtered out, holding down tears.

“I…I…I…” she said, her hands trembling.

With a sudden burst of strength, crushed her wrists. She didn’t cry out, but instead looked at him with empty, forlorn eyes. He let go, and reached for the gun he had dropped somewhere in the conversation when the pain had gone too far. He began to raise it up at her face when her eyes suddenly hardened and she delivered a swift kick to his groin. He collapsed onto his bed in agony, and she snatched her gun off the ground. Putin’s eyes shone with a green light, and he rushed forward at the Boss, who fired and sent a bullet through his chest. Yet he refused to surrender and crashed into her, knocking her to the ground.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you win.”

She struggled on the ground, her eyes howling with mad rage but her mouth silent.
Vladimir calmly repulsed her blows, and wrapped his arms around her in an embrace.

“I love you.”

And he snapped her neck.

Sparks flew from the door as the Black Scarves finally managed to melt it open and rushed in, immediately delivering medical aid to a bleeding Putin. They knew little of what was going on, and all stood stunned at the sight. The Secretary of Defense lay dead on the floor, and the President of the Divine Russian Empire stood over her corpse weeping uncontrollably. He had not cried since the flames had devoured his father, but now, despite his 45 years of horrific experience, he could not contain himself.

He cried for the Boss, he cried for the corruption of his soul, he cried for the innocents he had murdered, he cried for anything and everything. He wept for the ambition that had dreamt up such grand visions but only carelessly smashed up everything in its path.
______________________________________________________________
Armandian Cheese
08-12-2005, 05:40
Wingert and Putin stood face to face in the cold European winter, as the ice penetrated their bones. They held the destiny of millions, no, hundreds of millions in their hands.
A million hopes, a million dreams, a million fates were to be decided in that moment.

As it often is in these moments, time forked. Three possible futures lay before the two combatants…
________________________________________________________________

Vladimir fell down to avoid Wingert’s thrust, and then rose to uppercut him. The tyrant staggered back, dropping the blades, but he bounced right back with demonic speed and his hands wrapped around Putin’s neck. He choked him with tremendous might, and Vladimir’s vision blurred as life slowly dripped away.

“No…No…”

Those words were not an inability to accept his death. Rather they were a signal, a sign of a incredible shift. In that moment the very world lost all color to Putin, the sky turned gray and the sun black.

I was wrong…

The man in black looked upon the powerful giant who was incredibly focused on squeezing the life out of him, and felt…awe. Wingert was right; he had proved it himself on this very day. Men were not created equal; there was nobility and peasantry, a superior and an inferior, a master and a servant. Such men as Wingert held infinite power for they were divininely imbued to lead. How else could he take down four of the world’s top trained bodygaurds and the man who used to be one of Quinntonia’s best soldiers? How else could he consistently crush any obstacle in his path without any effort while Putin had to endlessly toil to scrabble together any meager achievments? All of the support Putin had from the people was meaningless if it was faced against the awesome might Wingert seemed to draw from his veins. The hands of many paled in the face of his iron fist. It was his iron fist that had always ruled this world, and always would.

And so, a few immortal words left Putin’s lips.

“I yield…My liege.”

Out of sheer shock, Wingert dropped Putin in a heap onto the ground. The man in black stood up, shaking, and then kneeled before the stunned Tsar.

“You…were right. About everything. Let it be known that this day…”
His lips trembled as he spoke, and the very heavens seemed to roar in surprise and horror. The snowy blizzard intensified along with the ferocious wind.

“…I, President Vladimir Putin of the Divine Russian Empire swear allegiance to the true Tsar of all Russias, Tsar Wingert…The Great. I am yours to command, my lord.”

Lightning slashed across the night sky behind Wingert’s face as his lips curled into a menacing smile. He reared his head back and laughed like a madman, his voice full of exultation and joy, arrogance and power. The very ground seemed to tremble as lightning bolts flew all around them, but the haunting laughter of the Tsar overshadowed even this clamor. His voice was thick with what can only be described as…

…evil.

This surrender had countless unpredictable effects, which would permanently alter the face of the earth. Vast bloody conquests stretched out before the Tsar’s eyes as he gained the loyalty of this charismatic peasant; empires crumbled before his feet and millions---no, billions trembled in his gaze as over two hundred million Slavs unquestioningly obeyed his every order. Putin would ensure the absolute loyalty of the Russians; no time would have to be wasted on consolidation. Instead, armies would scorch the battlefields of Europe and Asia and blood splattered iron throne would sit upon the globe. Nothing could stop the march of his warriors, and nothing could quench his bloodthirst.

And so the world entered a new dark age…

But no…this is not what happened.
_________________________________________________________________

“No.”

Wingert jammed forth Vladimir’s own shattered blades at him, but it was steely determination that entered Putin’s eyes, not shock. Counter to what common sense would suggest, he rushed headlong into the Tsar’s assault, and the blades tore at his sides. His fist lodged itself in Wingert’s face and the tyrant snarled in pain. The man in black layered punch after punch upon the armored beast, continually moving forward so as to stay too close for Wingert’s outstretched arms to reach. The Tsar tried to pull in his blades and stab Vladimir through the back, but Vladimir caught his massive arms at the elbows.

The Tsar spat with rage.

“YOU FILTHY COMMONER! I will crush you like the bug you are!”
“No.”

The word, although spoken with perfect calmness, chilled Wingert’s blood. Was he wrong all along? Was his noble blood no benefit at all when faced with sheer, intense determination? Nicolas II had perished at the hands of commoners…Was his Tsardom nothing but show, a set of silly pretensions no different from the silly veneration of Lenin he had so scorned in his youth? No…no…He was the Tsar! To rule was his right , bestowed by God unto his blood. He was better…He was superior…

“It’s over Wingert. I’ve fought too long, shed too much blood, and come too far to let anyone, much less an arrogant motherf*cking b*stard to take away the thing I’ve struggled for my entire life.”
“Stop prattling…and fight…”

The Tsar shoved off Putin’s grip, dropping the Kindjal blade shards that were now soaked in his blood. They circled around each other like wild animals, staring each other down and panting with exhaustion.

“No…that’s how dictators do it…Every man in a democracy gets to hear what he did wrong before justice is unleashed upon him. Even you. What you dispense is barbarism, not justice. That’s the difference between me and you; I will not let you take the people’s freedom, I will not let you ruin the lives of innocents.”

Wingert snarled, “You cannot give the reigns to the mob, you cannot bring back the chaos of Sodom and Gomorra! I WILL NOT LET YOU!”
Putin screamed, almost simultaneously, “You cannot take away the freedom God has given them; I WILL NOT LET YOU!”

Both men charged at each other with wild abandon, and each man knew that this was the end, the final lunge. One man would come out of this alive; one would not.

Putin halted halfway through his charge and leaped in the air. He landed directly before Wingert and slammed his steel heeled boots into the ice. Putin leapt back as a crevice shot through the thinned layers of frost and directly underneath the tremendous beast’s body. He didn’t try to escape as the ice collapsed underneath him; he knew it would be futile. His eyes sank into his face as all arrogance, all aggression, all spirit drained from his soul. With his thick armor he sank into the frosty water like a rock. Putin stared in awe as he saw the man plunge to his death with astounding grace; the Tsar did not flail or panic. He simply accepted his fate.Right before his head entered the deadly depths he turned to Vladimir and looked into his eyes.

“You have won. I was wrong. She is yours.”

The Kargat gazed in shock, unsure of what to do. They slowly started circling around Putin, their weapons drawn. Putin raised his arm into the air and with a look of infinite determination, spoke.

“Agents of the Kargat; the Tsar is dead. As the only Commander-In-Chief of the Ukrainian/Russian joint Imperial command, I order you to stand down.”

What followed was perhaps the most important silence ever to occur in the history of mankind. Suddenly, one white clad Kargat agent raised his gun in the air, and yelled at the top of his lungs.

“The Tsar is dead; long live the Tsar!”

Soon a chorus joined him, and the temptation of infinite power swirled in Putin’s mind for a moment; but no. Like he said, he had not come this far to let an arrogant m*therf*cking bastard take away the thing he had struggled for all his life.

He raised his hand in the air and cut them off.

“No. There is no Tsar. You are free, all of you. I am your President, an office that you will choose. No longer will you have Wingert to tell you what to do. The Tsar is dead; long live the people !”

And so a new chorus began, one that would be echoed as a repentant Vladimir relinquished the Baltics and turned his back on the Holy League. It was a cry that would be head across the world, from the cobblestone streets of France to the sun streaked plazas of Spain. The green light in Putin’s eyes shone as visions of a glorious future unfolded before him. Armies of liberation would smash into the tyrannic regimes of Europe, who oppressed their people with superstition and barbarism. Revolutionaries like Malcom T would work hand in hand with brave Russian soldiers to pull down statues of such hated tyrants as Louis-Auguste and Caesar and lead hundreds of millions into freedom. All across Europe oppression would be no more; Russia would come once again to smite the evils of the continent as it did in the Second World War. And all across Europe one cry, one cheer, one song would be heard. From the chilly Moscow streets to the harsh shacks of Ukraine to the sunny beaches of Spain, they would all join their hands together, and with joyful tears in their eyes, sing:

“Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I’m free at last.”

But no…this is not what happened.
__________________________________________________


“No.”

The blades jammed forcefully into Vladimir’s shoulder blades, but rather than an agonizing cry, the man in black released that simple word. His arms now useless and his body immobilized by the sheer pain, all Putin could do was stare as the Tsar’s bulging muscles clenched his neck. Pain seared through Putin’s body as oxygen left it, and the world itself seemed to join him in his agonizing trip to oblivion. Perhaps it was just the combination of intense pain and oxygen deprivation, but before his very eyes the world seemed to lose all its color, its beauty and vigor. He shivered as he looked up and saw an unfamiliar sky bedecked with lifeless black clouds; his eyes trembled as the lush green pines, brilliant red fires, and dazzling white piles of snow all turned a uniform gray. He had paid a high price for living so long for a single dream, and now that the dream had failed nothing else remained in the world for him. The single hope, the vibrant green light that blazed in his eyes, was seeping away from his body as surely as his life was. Everything seemed suddenly unfamiliar and terrifying, as the dream he had so surely pursued his entire life with such dogged persistence now rather than success brought him this new, unfamiliar world and demanded a high price.

Vladimir’s body instinctively thrashed without his conscious input, but in its weakened state it could not resist the might of the Tsar, and as his vision darkened he only vaguely felt the cold air rushing past him as he was flung off a cliff. His entire life raced before his eyes, and every glaring mistake and failure was relived countless times.

The death of his father.

His abuse of Yumi.

The murder of his fiancé, mother, and mentor.

The fall of El Salvador to Communism.

The unnamable horrors of Mogadishu.

The clumsiness of his early days as President.

The nuclear disaster at Orel.

The fall of Lavrageria to the Tsar.

The unholy alliance with the Holy League.

The innocent deaths of Baltic and Kazakhstani citizens.

His ambitions and dreams crumbled before his very eyes and despair like he had never felt before sunk into him. His ambition had been so grand that he had made everything else subordinate to it, and now he had apparently paid the ultimate price for his mistake.

The man in black’s body smashed into the icy depths of the river, and somehow despite his sorrow he desperately clung onto what little life he still had left. The chilly depths ate away at his flesh and blood oozed out from every pore, and seconds ticked away with agonizing slowness. The icy cold river pushed him onto shore, and there he lay, like some rotting carcass, waiting to die.

Yet…

A sudden wind sliced through his body, yet rather than causing him pain it seemed to reinvigorate him. Something about this wind was…different. In its howls seemed to be contained a gentle whisper…

“Always, always…fight! Never stop fighting, Vlad.”

The blood drained from Putin’s face.

Dad…

The words of his father echoed through his head, and then all of a sudden a whole new stream of memories flooded through his dying brain.

The defiant sacrifice of his father.

The smiling blue eyes of Yumi.

The heroic death of Father O’Reilly.

The two El Salvadorans, shakily clutching their shotguns as they stood above the body of Mugabe.

The magnificent charge on Ana Maria’s stronghold.

The overjoyed military wives whose husbands he had saved from the abyss of Mogadishu.

The roaring, cheering crowds of Russia.

The Lavragerian soldier taking down a Tsarist fighter plane with a Russian SAM.

The collapse of the Mafiya.

The cold wind swept through his body and gave him new life; it spurred a flow of memories that restored the world’s color and vigor. His dream had not failed; he may die ignominiously in the snows of the Baltics, but by no means would his dream die. Countless others had preceded him in the endless struggle of good versus evil, and his dogged determination had contributed more to the dream then the small, red sneakered child of Nikolas Putin could have ever imagined. Now it was simply the time to pass on the torch, to hand the green light of freedom onto a new generation of dreamers. He would die; but the dream would live on in the heart of every youth who stared into the sky and wished for something more, in the soul of every soldier slogging through a battlefield to defend his freedom, in the mind of every intellectual who with words defied tyrannical regimes.

With only seconds remaining before he entered that great void, President Vladimir Putin smiled. There was only one wind in the world that could so vividly restore hope, that could so easily fan the emerald flames within. It was a wind from a place that was close to his heart and deeply embedded in his soul.

Cold…the cold pierces my skin and pours into my very soul…There is only one place in the world whose very temperature can have such a profound impact…

As the world’s curtain fell and as he drifted towards a single pinprick of light, one last thought echoed in his dying mind.

Russia.

OOC: And so the curtain falls, ladies and gents. For this specific RP I'd like to thank Estenlands for his brilliant writing, (made mine look like the ramblings of a three year old, but...meh) and everyone else for all of the praise. In regards to the character of Putin, I'd like to thank Elkazor and Estenlands for providing Putin a good opponent and putting up with him when he was still rough around the edges as a character. BG I'd like to thank for providing Putin an ideological sparring partner; it's really too bad it took you so long to find one good character to represent BG. The clash of Adiatorix and Putin would have been quite entertaining...

Overall, I would like to thank AMW for being such a badass group of people. I originally wrote this RP as a way to get out of AMW---but I enjoyed it so much that it's kept me in. (albeit in a diminished capacity) I've had my rough patches and arguments, most of the time being a result of my idiocies, but overall I've not only had an awesome time RPing and interacting ICly (you don't know the thrill I got--and still get---from people treating my work seriously and responding to it and incorporating it into their narrative), but also behind closed doors. (so to speak) It'd take way too long to write up the things I could say about y'all, but let's just say that you fellows have become like another set of friends for me. I realize that my obnoxiousness probably makes the feeling less than mutual, but I truly feel a comradeship amongst you all. It adds a lot more worries to my life when I have to stress over whether BG was hurt in the London terror wave or...other things which are too sad to mention, but overall it's been worth it.

Ok, enough sentimentality---I'll step off my soapbox now.

She's yours Estenlands.
Nova Gaul
08-12-2005, 05:44
OOC- Well done again AC. I officially bequeth to you the Illuminati and their desires, youve captured what I saw 100%, just didnt have time to explore their goals and finish the French Revolution. I see youre still spinning excellent stories, good to know.
Armandian Cheese
08-12-2005, 05:50
OOC-Thanks a lot my friend. I poured my heart and soul into it---I think I'm drained of writing energy for a week or so now, but it was worth it. I thought about your suggestion to condense the childhood parts, but then I realized I had a three act story rather than one short one in my hands, and went for that.

And hey, Cagliostro was never caught...;)
The Estenlands
08-12-2005, 18:44
After the combat, Wingert lay in his bedchamber in Kiev, drifting in and out of consciousness, the pain from his many wounds making him black out time and again. His closest advisors, Regents, High levels of the nobility, Boyars of great influence and his family gathered around him. The Person in control of the Estenlandian military after Wingert was his daughter, Adrienna. But his heir was his grandson, first son of Queen Jillesepone and Louis Augustus, King and Queen of France; Peter, twin brother to Catherine. It looked very much as though there would be a power struggle, as Adrienna attempted to rule as Regent until Peter gained the age of majority. And, it would have been doubtful that Russia would bend to the will of her, rather than Wingert.

Wingert’s fevered mind dreamed the hellish nightmares of a man who could not be stopped. The little man in black slashing at him, cutting him deeply, his royal blood gushing onto the white snow, so stark a contrast. So cold. The Russian winds had cooled the blade so much that it hissed slightly when the hot Tsarist blood touched it. Wingert had never felt so old. So weak, death had never been so near, he could hear Death’s mocking laughter. But in the end, he realised that death was not waiting for him. It was here for the scrappy peasant. And he would be the right hand of God, delivering this “champion of freedom” to Hell!

But now he lay dying. It is at this moment when he very much wanted his favourite daughter near him, Jillesepone, the beautiful one, looking every bit like her mother, the Tsarina. The faces that stood by his death bed were not ones of comfort, but they were howling and snarling hyenas, scavengers, barely being restrained from picking his carcass clean. They wanted that which flowed from him, power…..the power that came from Divine Right. No.

NO! He would not yield what he had worked all his life for! It was he, the Tsar, that had moulded and lead the rag-tag band of guerrillas into an army capable of defeating a superpower! It was he who build one of the most impressive military machines on the planet with a chronic shortage of money and surrounded by the Soviets at one time, then with idiot democracy afterwards. It was he who had fought in the front lines of every conflict to earn his empire. It was he who finally moved against the troublesome barbarians in Lavrageria, even they could not stand to the might of the Tsar! It was he who helped to found the Holy League! It was he who carved a vassal state out of a piece of Mother Russia and claimed St. Petersburg as his own. It was he who fought to claim his birthright as “Tsar of All The Russias!” The hyenas would have to wait for their feast.

His massive frame stirred, and his eyes fluttered open. The Boyars and nobles gathered close to hear what might be the last words of the Great Tsar. And his massive hand thrust out from the rich blankets, wrapping around the throat of the Boyar that got too close. His eyes bugged out, but no one helped him stepping back in horror, hoping that they were not next. His throat gave a sickening pop as it crushed under the strength of this monster, and as the life left him, the strength left Wingert, and the Boyar dropped lifeless to the ground. Wingert then spoke, “Get away from me you hyenas, you shall not feast on Grozney tonight! Long live Tsar Wingert Grozney…………….the Great!”

And he heard the echoing call answer him as he slipped back into sleep, knowing that he would awake to rule, “Long live Tsar Wingert the Great! Long live Tsar Wingert the Great! Long live Tsar Wingert the Great!”


OOC-AC, you are a phenom.

Tsar Wingert the Great.