The Saga of Tankbane the Flash

[Sylvanicus]

(X-Posting this from official PS2 forums and my outfit's website. Thought this would actually be the most appropriate place to post it. While it isn't STRICTLY in-character fanfic, I think it still more or less counts.)

It was the fall of '12 if memory serves. A Friday I believe... ah yes. I forgot. The cryptic code tattooed in a crude manner on my arm is the date. 10/5/12 is reads, a small inscription below it adding, "ow why am I doing this". Where this code came from and how it ended up inked in to the pallid and sallow flesh of my miniscule left bicep, I shall never know. Judging by how it's upside down, I believe it's safe to assume I may have done it myself.

It had been four days since I had last slept. "Sleep is boring," I remember whispering to myself in hushed, seductive tones. "Don't sleep." In hindsight, that was probably about when things began to go poorly. What occurred during my fevered madness of those days, I'm not quite sure. I have a parking ticket from Las Vegas, about eight hundred miles away, and for a Volkswagen Golf GTI. I drive a Honda Civic.

Ah but yes. The tale of tales. It was the fourth day and I was, mercifully, at home. I was crouched on my leather executive office chair like a gargoyle, headset on crooked, and manic grin on my face. I had built an elaborate system, a Rube Goldberg machine if you will, to bring freshly brewed coffee from the coffee pot in the kitchen to my mouth.

OK fine it was just forty nine bendy straws taped together, but it was still a stroke of engineering genius. As I sat there, perched unsteadily on my constantly spinning chair, I began my own private daeda waeg (proto-gothic for 'Corpse Road').

The Vanu had taken most of Indar, and the Terrans held few territories. My beloved New Conglomerate was pushing the horrid purple-green tentacled spacebeasts back. I had been mindlessly slaughtering for hours without count, inventing brilliant new tactics such as the tank-knife maneuver and the punch-rocket gambit. Still, it was too much.

Their tanks came in droves, in hordes, in packs and herds. They crawled over the earth like scarabs after the victim of an ancient Pharaoh's curse. They were a pestilence, a blight upon the landscape, a deathless and uncountable legion. They were like a plague of purple and green locusts that shot massive explody things.

Alone at Crimson Bluff I stood. My comrades had retreated before the tide o' tanks. The cowards! The fools! And yet, as the enemy closed in around me, I too knew my doom. It was upon me. There are no words to describe the sensation of knowing the hour, minute, and manner of your death. I looked to my watch to see the time and thought of smashing it, stopping it so it might be given to my only son.

It was then, as a plasma round exploded right overhead that I realized two things with sad finality: I had no watch and I had no son.

"Bugger." I muttered under my breath. I popped my head out of the rocks I had been hiding in and took a shot at the nearest tank. "PING!" went my bullet. Apparently those "super explosive boom kill 'em all anti-tank sniper bullets" that flying ***** had sold me didn't work as intended. The world undulated and buzzed for a minute, reality fading in and out, interspersed with some wretched nightmare that I was in fact just some sad writer perched on a chair at ten in the morning having somewhere along the lines misplaced his pants.

"No," I growled, "I am a soldier of the New Conglomerate!" It was now time for my last stand. What glory I would win for myself was known only to the gods themselves. Looking up to the sky, I inhaled. The clouds shimmered with aircraft passing through them.

"Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, or why we died. All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important! Valor pleases you, Crom... so grant me one request. Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then to HELL with you!" I bellowed, firing my pistol in the air for emphasis.

Then it began. Jumping out from the rocks, I ran. Explosions and shots thundered and ricocheted around me. A stray bullet hit my shoulder and I gritted my teeth through the pain. Below me was a short cliff and a flash terminal. I hit my cloak and jumped.

I landed hard, my shoulder pulsating with agony. Knowing full well that any second the enemy would come crashing down upon me, I began to hack the terminal. The telltale staccato of gunfire could be heard all around, but I kept my composure. Finally, it turned blue.

Selecting the flash from the screen, I climbed aboard my quickly materializing steed. I kicked it in to gear and immediately spun out, stalling the engine. Uh oh. This wasn't an automatic. Er...

"Righty tighty lefty loosey... wait no..." I muttered, eventually getting it to go. As I bumped, jarred, and sped down the hill I cycled up the gears, finally reaching fifth. I looked down at the minimalist dashboard and furrowed my brow. There were a lot of buttons.

I tried a few. The lights came on, went off, the horn honked once, and then the radio turned on playing a rousing and very loud rendition of "La Cucaracha". None of these were cruise control. I glanced up. There was a tree. Hauling on the handlebars I leaned in to the turn, narrowly zipping by the foliage.

The tires spun and scraped over the rocky terrain as I breathed a sigh of relief. Giving up on the cruise control I pulled out my trusty magshot and open fired. The dashboard lights flickered and spat, the horn beeped once, twice, then made a horrid shrieking sound, and finally the throttle got stuck.

Free to steer and make good use of my final moments, I turned it round to face my assailants. Five magriders came at me in a V formation. I could only grin. With the throttle stuck on I sped straight towards them, laughing and singing to the music.

"La cucaracha, la cucaracha, ya no puede caminar..." I sang heartily as plasma was flung just over my head. I could see the lead tank clearly now. I could see its curves, the dirt caking the front, the various battle scars. This would be the thing that would take my life.

"Bring it." I whispered, dramatically. I braced myself. I closed my eyes. I waited. I cleared my throat. I scratched my armpit. OK what the hell. Opening my eyes I saw that I had narrowly missed, sped right past it and through the formation line. I began to laugh.

"Porque le falta, porque no tiene, las dos patitas de atrás." sang the radio. Before me, coming up fast, were several small ravines in a hillside. I hit them at full speed and was launched skyward. I heard another tank blast impact nearby and I could hear an unholy high pitched wail. It was me.

"EEEEEEEEEEE!" I shrieked, hitting the ground and bouncing, the rear wheels spending an unfortunate amount of time in the air. Then I saw it. Up ahead was a beautiful sight. Had I been a lesser man, I would have wept. Instead, now belching along to the mariachi tunes blaring from my vehicle, I shed a single manly tear of bacon.

Pouring down the hill were tanks beyond count. Above roared and screamed a swarm of reavers. All proudly displayed the blue and yellow heraldry of my people. Crom had heard my prayers. I yanked hard on the handlebars, spinning wildly. Gravel and pebbles sprayed up behind me as I performed rotation after rotation across the ground.

I pulled out of my mad tailspin just in time to position myself, facing back towards the enemy, just in front of the leading lightning.

"To war! To our glorious deaths! May men revere us and the gods fear us!" I cried.

"What the FUCK get out OF THE WAY!" replied a broken and digitally filtered voice from the lightning.

"Ho ho! No! First blood is mine!" I shouted back, speeding ahead of the charging armor column. The magriders as well had now turned about to face me. Narrowing my gaze I set my target. How I was going to kill a man in a tank with nothing but a now heavily damaged flash, I hadn't quite figured out.

"I'm a smart guy, I'll figure something out." I told myself. Then opportunity presented itself. Fearing my mighty charge, the lead magrider stopped short and pulled an abrupt turn, now fleeing before us. I laughed mightily, a throaty bellow erupting from my lips, intermingled with foetid spittle.

The poor fool could not outrun me. I was upon him in, as one might say, a "flash". Pelting along the dirt track I was grinning even as I impacted the rear of the vehicle. For a split second I could smell burnt ozone coming from the anti-grav bits under it.

Then I could smell blood. Fortunately, my face bore the brunt of the impact. To my surprise, I was knocked backwards, but my boots caught on the sides of the flash, pinning me on my back pressed against the rabid machine beneath me. Together the flash and I flew just beneath the body of the great machine.

Just as I cleared it, another tank presented itself. This time it was a lightning.

"Flaah hhoochera sha!" I blubbered, trying to sing with the music and spitting teeth. WABOOM! I hit the lightning and to my surprise, and also my horror, I drove over it. That's a lie. The flash, with me still limply connected to it and flapping about like a cape made of person, seemed to use the front of the thing as a ramp.

Narrowly missing its quickly swinging main gun, I flew off the top of it. No sooner had I cleared it than beneath me I felt heat and power, death and dismemberment. I glanced down, still sailing upwards, and saw the lightning engulfed in flames.

"Goo' jab buddee!" I slurred, trying to pat my trusty steed. I was interrupted, however, by the ground. The ground does that to me a lot. I made a sharp "erp" noise, swallowing some blood and somewhere between four and eight teeth.

I had entirely overshot the battle it seemed. I was now speeding down a steep hill to what looked like a relatively abandoned outpost below. I was aimed directly for the main building and as I tried to maneuver away from it I found my handlebars jammed. Uh oh.

"Well if it worked once..." I said, though it sounded like, "Ell ifsh ith worft wonsha..." Magshot out, I pointed it at the already smoking dash. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! And naturally, the flash stuttered to a smooth halt. Ahhh the wonders of thirtieth century technology.

As the flash stopped, I relieved myself of the burden of riding on it by being automatically launched forward off of the thing at forty five miles an hour. I sailed through the air, smiling to myself like an opium user, and hit the nearest wall.

I bounced off and landed on the ground hard. My body felt funny. I think I had somehow gotten a lot more bones. Still, I picked myself up and brushed myself off. I looked down, taking stock of myself. Eight fingers, four toes, hole in chest. Yep. Everything seemed to be in order.

"That wasn't so bad." I mused quietly, but it sounded like "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

I shrugged, and decided to have a look around. Back up on the hill I could hear the sounds of a tank battle raging, but I had lost interest. Stumbling inside the building, I took stock of my surroundings. It appeared to be some sort of vendor station. Stalls selling all manner of wares were set up around a central courtyard.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. I pulled my magshot out and ducked behind a low wall, peering over it. Two men dressed in blue were running my way. Friendlies. I stood up to greet them.

"Brothers in arms!" I cried joyously, but it only sounded like the mad gibbering of a slow dying equine.

"You with the bicycle!" cried one, raising a weapon to point at me, "Put the nerf gun down and get on the ground!"

"LAPD!" cried the other, "Get on the ground!"

I blinked. This made no sense. How could my own empire betray me so? I scowled. I had just singlehandedly wrought destruction upon a superior force of enemy tanks armed with nothing but my trusty flash. They were jealous. Fine, have it there way.

"I REPEAT, PUT THE NERF GUN DOWN AND GET ON THE GROUND!" yelled one of the Conglomerate's lap dogs.

Outside I could still hear the fizz and buzz of the radio, still intermittently playing music. La cucaracha, la cucaracha. I smiled. Let them try to take the handsome Sylvanicus and Tankbane the Flash. La cucaracha, la cucaracha.