S.H.E.L.L.SHOCKED: A Cyberpunk/Sci-fi Story by DSM

First and foremost: I ask that you, as the reader, do NOT post on this thread until the story has been completed. While I do appreciate constructive criticism sent to me via VM or PM I reserve the right to be a dick to those that downright ignore my request to not post or simply bash my story. We all have a very distinct writing style, and I am no different. Many "mistakes" or "inconsistencies" you may see will most likely be my personal writing style at it's best, though there will no doubt be genuine stupid mistakes and grammar issues. Thankfully, I have the Wikilook addon for Firefox which will solve most spelling errors before they become a problem.

~Quirks I tend to do: Since there are many who do not know me, I wish to let you the reader know just how I write so you can easily see whether I've made a mistake or it's just me being me.

~I tend to use multiple fonts and even colors to tell characters apart. Such as Character A: The Hero. and Character B: The villain. As this italicized veranda garbage that RPG uses is annoying as hell.
~I may pop a youtube video in just before a tense sequence. This is usually the best music to listen to while you read to get your blood pumping.
~I'm horrible at environmental descriptions, and I know this. I try to avoid them as best as I can. I've improved since Legend of Zelda: SOTD (link in my sig) but I'm still horrible.
~I may use a certain word multiple times in a paragraph or chapter. Such as "horrible" as witnessed above. This...this is a mistake XD
~You May even See random words Being Capitalized for no reason, Even at the beginning of a second half of A sentence Separated by a Comma. This is because I capitalized the beginning of EVERYTHING as a child. The Shift Key was my Crack.

With that done, enjoy the story and feel free to VM me.

(Note: I won't be starting the story right away. I'll be posting races, character, and the universes' backstory at first while I gather up my thoughts and writings.)

Current year: 2442

A race of technological masterminds that speak in a digital language that is borderline impossible to translate. They mostly speak through sign language and using human computers to speak. They utilize a powerful ability to connect with electronic devices and interface with them personally. While this places them at extreme risk should there be an extremely powerful firewall as it can literally set them on fire. This ability allows them to access nearly any network or information they wish to access. They are very weak physically however, forced to use unmanned battlehships and electronic warfare to combat their enemies.

They have no true home cluster as their home is the planet *Name unable to be translated* also known as "Cyberworld". Cyberworld is a very very large artificial planet in a solar system where it is the only planet orbiting it's sun.

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/2646/ovdoy.png

A race of sharp footed insectoids. The Hissho are a warring race, but are of a much lower intelligence than other races, often just barely knowing how to pilot ships. They are borderline feral and are at war with both Humans and Sophon. They believe that they have a strong allegiance with the Galgan because of their warfaring ways. The Hissho are walking blades, four blade-like legs, two hands with four fingers with long finger-talon-blades and a sharp pincer for a mouth. All blades are razor sharp and incredibly dangerous, but they are quite frail but very agile, able to leap great distances and scale walls. Due to the radiated nature of their resources, it is possible that they evolved the way they did simply to comply with the high and low gravities of their worlds. Many of the Hissho's homeworlds have a very high concentration of resources, many of which are radiated and dangerous, which is why the Hissho's are the way they are. They use these resources to forge their alliance with the Galgan. Their homeworlds are very much alike with one another as they are very close to one another in the Hissho home cluster. Close enough and small enough to almost be called dwarf planets that share a gravity.

While the Galgan remain neutral, they admit to building most of the Hissho ships, garnering some hate and disrespect from humans even though they assisted the humans with their own space faring vessels.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/2...5640screen.jpg

The Galgan is a race of Bipedal avian pacifists. They are a tall and wise race with latent psychic power. While not dangerous physically, they are able to fray the minds of their enemies and are able to see into the future. Most cannot see more than an hour or two, but the wisest and most powerful of their species can see days, months, even years into the future. They have limited flight capabilities even though they are an avian species. They can use their mind to levitate themselves short distances as well as other objects.

Their home cluster, Elysia, is mainly gas giants with a single terrestrial planet, Shozon. The gas planets they call home support their floating cities supported by large jets that use the atmosphere they float above. They maintain a very neutral alliance with all races, choosing to use their resources to help the Hissho and Humans. Even if helping the two races fuels their war with each other. They feel that they will eventually exhaust each other and give up on the war, or one will demolish the other. They are leaning towards the human's mechanized warriors and vehicles to triumph over the Hissho's brutality and are even considering shedding their neutrality and aligning themselves with the humans, but are hesitant because of their solar system's proximity to the Hissho's home cluster and the plethora of supplies they receive in exchange for ships.

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__...ozo_manual.jpg

The Federation of Sol is the race of humans in entirety. Residing in our home cluster, Sol, the Federation discovered short range faster than light travel in 2200 and terraforming technology in early 2300. Using this technology, they made every one of the planets, and several moons orbiting said planets, habitable by life. Even ones like Mercury and Venus using very powerful domes which are immune to the Sun's radiation and heat.

While they have not optimized fuel and resources for longrange Faster Than Light travel due to technological limitations, they have become a very strong race in the community of aliens in the universe. Quickly gaining an alliance with the Sophon and resources from Galgan, they are currently at war with the Hissho, wanting to claim Sol for their own. They received military help from human centric organization S.H.E.L.L. (Symbiotic Human Empire of Life and Luxury) and were introduced to both robotic and manned mechs. Immensely powerful and strong, they have kept the Hissho at bay and even pushed them back. Unfortunately, S.H.E.L.L.'s assistance came at an enormous price, the control of the Federation's police force on all planets. A simple yet massive demand, the Federation felt no inclination to deny them as while S.H.E.L.L. dealt with criminals on the streets, the federation could use the mechs to deal with the Hissho.

S.H.E.L.L., underneath their peaceful cover, is more of a mafia organization than a humanitarian one, using loopholes and undercutting to gain immense wealth and power in the galaxy. They have illegally broken more than a few wealthy men and women and stolen their funds for themselves to fuel their plans...what those plans are exactly are unknown...

His name is Lieutenant Leon A. Harper, A former military officer. His rank and life was stripped of him by those S.H.E.L.L. bastards because they needed a few extra dollars. He used to be very wealthy because of the multiple missions he used to go on, but S.H.E.L.L. obviously felt he had to be taught to not be wealthy. They were able to get away with their little crime by pinning the death of a senator on Mercury on him, even though he has never been to the planet.

He is a proud man, cocky and fully aware of his skills. Before S.H.E.L.L. got their hands on him, he was a respected mech pilot, mechanic and soldier, known as a fine marksman on the ground and the best of the MWPs (Mechanized Warrior Pilots). He isn't the best mechanic in the solar system, but he is more than able to keep his mech running perfect. Furthermore, he isn't a brilliant tactician, but he is more than able to use most human weapons and even some Hissho weapons as well. He was a lieutenant in the Federation military, having taken part in the original escapades against Hissho and was on Neptune when it was attacked and temporarily under the full control of the Hissho during his early days as a simple private. He, along with the fifteen others in his squad, survived for six weeks moving from hiding place to hiding place, avoiding the Hissho forces. He was a large part of the reason they survived as he often tested his luck and risked his life scouting ahead and directing the squad to safe zones.

Outside of his combat skill, he is a kind man, putting others before himself in nearly any situation, and tends to hold a grudge for a long time. He has a short temper and bears a heavy hatred for the Hissho due to the war.

Since he was in his uniform when they put a bag over his head and hauled him to who knows where, he was able to keep his uniform and his armor since both are connected to one another.

He is relatively tall with short dark brown hair. It was messy and unkempt, but it was meant to be that way. He is bulky and had a broad shoulder width, though the bulk was not from girth, it was muscle, he was an athlete to say the least. He Had pock marks on his rounded face as well as a well groomed beard kept mostly short, just a touch above being a five O' Clock shadow. The nose underneath his crystal blue eyes had been broken multiple times. The slight sags underneath his eyes showed that he often stayed up late at night and he had a dark brown mark just under his left eye, it almost looked like a scar from a fight, but it was a birthmark. He had multiple scars on his body however from multiple firefights and knife combat. He was a seasoned combatant.

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6122/leonharper.gif(Credit to those 343 guys)

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/4...2790ac4cd8.jpg(<<Credit to that guy for the photo)

Jump to Chapter...


Chapter 1: Awakening
Chapter 2: The Adorable Life Of Anna Sklavos
Chapter 3: Welcome Back To War, Mr. Harper PT 1

Chapter 1: Awakening

Coughing and trying to breathe at the same time, Leon awoke to a twilight colored blur and the sound of his own body groaning. An immense pain shot through the back of his skull and went down his neck. He rolled onto his back and blinked a few times, clearing up his vision to see a smog infested atmosphere above him, shading the land in eternal orange. He sat up and looked around, feeling the bump on the back of his head and finding that he was in the middle of a substantial junk yard. Trash piled stories high above the blackish orange rock of the planet, reflecting the sky above it. He couldn't tell if it was day or night. He used his knee to support him as he got up and stretched, speaking to no one in particular at the same time. "Fuck...least they let me keep my clothing..." He checked the small datapad on his left wrist but found it smashed and battered. Impossible to repair. He used his other hand to rip it off and throw it to the side. Until he got another one, he couldn't activate the armor pack on his back...which now that he thought about it, he hadn't checked to see if it was alright. He reached for and took off of the metal prongs that held it. It was a thick onyx disk that had a series of small holes on the bottom that were for the prongs between his shoulder blades, allowing it to be easily equipped and deployed if he needed it...if he had his datapad. There was some scratches and gouges, but it looked alright. He replaced it on his back and dusted himself off before he started to walk around and see what the junkyard had to offer.

It looked as if he was on Venus, a planet he had never had the "pleasure" of coming to. He knew this was a junk planet where most of the universe threw their refuse so they wouldn't have to pollute the universe. There was a single town on the planet controlled by mainly robots, but Venus was also a well known hideout for the cluster's worst criminals and military exiles. S.H.E.L.L. must've thrown him here and kept him alive so they wouldn't dirty up their precious image with an officer's death. This was also the planet where TFS sent the exiles they couldn't kill. The death penalty was still outlawed in the cluster even with crazy radicals trying to repeal it. So instead of giving them the chair, they give them the penalty of being thrown onto a junk world to be put to death by the inhabitants.

Walking among the junk and metal of the yard gave him no hope for survival here. Most of the metal was useless and couldn't be used to build even a bike, let alone a ship or a mech to get around easier. He had to try and find a tender's shack or something to at least find out where the town was. He probably would be able to get off the planet...but what would he do?

Thats when it hit him, not the thought of what the heck he was going to do once he got off planet, no! The damn frying pan! His hand immediately went to his head as yet another bump popped up and the black metal frying pan fell to the ground. "What the fuck!" He cursed several times over, looking up to see the shadow of something running away, using metal platforms and hills to move quickly. He hadn't noticed them before, but the pillars and hills stacked above him were shaped, cut, in a way to allow one to step on them and move easily. He didn't see a way up, but now he knew that he wasn't welcome here. Hopefully, he would be able to communicate with whatever hit him with an old school frying pan and get help.

Chapter 2: The Adorable Life of Anna Sklavos


It took him a while, but he eventually found a half decent way up the side of the metal mountains. Using pipes and wide metal strips, he climbed his way up to the top of the cliff. The wind picked up as he got up top and nearly blew him off to his death. He retraced his steps from on top of the metallic ridge to where he was hit in the head. He located the frying pan from the height he was at and walked along the cliff side following the path he saw the shadow take. He was lead around the entire scrapyard, seeing even taller mountains and what looked like a town miles and miles away. But he was on Venus, the town "miles and miles away" could be "Dozens and dozens of miles away". There was a very high visibility on Venus, you just couldn't see past the smog layer.

He made his way into the areas of the Junkyard with much higher piles of junk. The sheer thought that the human race dumped so much garbage here could almost make one puke, least until they realized that most of this was a hundred years old, refuse from when the human race first started to explore the universe...which would explain why it was so well maintained. He proceeded along, admiring the subtle beauty that was created by whoever or whatever tended to these metal gardens. Welded metal flowers popping up out of the ground, small, disturbing, caves with welded sets of families in a metal home. As he proceeded, he saw the shadow yet again run around a corner, watching him, waiting for the moment to pounce.

He started to run now, curiosity getting the better of him. He ran around the bend to be met with another line of caves, but he caught a glimpse of something going into a walled cave and closing a door. With his lips pursed and his brow furrowed, went forward to the cave entrance and was surprised to see a dark metallic version of an old school house's entrance. A door with a knob and a window next to it. He looked through the window, which was surprisingly made out of glass, and saw into where the shadow went...

There was a couch in there in front of a common television, it was showing some old tape of some old show. Built in battery kept it running. On the couch was a metal mannequin and the being that hit him in the head with a frying pan...it was a woman with dark brown hair. Her clothing was ragged and covered with dirt. She cuddled with the mannequin as if it was her boyfriend. He knocked on the door, seeing as she had nowhere to go. She jerked and looked at the door, seeing Leon. She got up and walked to the door and opened it up. "Hello? Come in! Come in!" She threw a frying pan at him...now she was inviting him into her home? Was she insane? He walked in and she took his hand, leading him to the couch. She sat down, but he stood. Now that he was closer, he could see that her browned white clothing and dirty black jeans were a lot more torn and ragged than he thought. Her hair was long and reached down to the middle of her back, both dark brown and very dirty. She was thin and malnourished and her face was dirty. She had brown eyes and cut up cheeks. She looked right about 21.

She looked up to Leon and blinked a few times, staring blankly. She screamed and flipped over the couch and pulled some metal out from underneath it and pointed at Leon, yelling in a completely different personality now. Was this woman insane?! Leon put up his hands and tried to reason with her. "Hey hey, I'm not here to hurt you...I swear" She continued pointing the flat piece of metal at him, but not yelling. "Put the metal down..." He used his hands to visualize his words so she would understand. She lowered the piece of metal but kept her eyes on Leon and didn't move from her spot behind the couch. "Why...are...you here...in my home...?" "You...invited me in..." She looked confused, not remembering inviting him in. She obviously had some mental issues, maybe short term memory loss or a split personality, each personality taking half of the memories. "You come here in a ship...slept on my ground and invaded my home...bad ones will look for you...look for me now..." "Others...? Who are the others? And I didn't come here on purpose, I was...hmm...I was taken from my home, thrown onto your land to die by other bad people. What is your name...?" "Umm..." She looked confused at his question. She obviously knew what he was talking about, but she couldn't remember her own name. She stood, having calmed down now that she could relate to Leon in a way. She walked around the couch and sat down. "I...I have been here for a long time...since...well...ever...my great great great great great great grandfather found my land...sculpted the land to suit my family...welding and shaping the metal into homes...friends...community"

She twiddled her thumbs and kept looking at the door. Her family has been here for a very long time, the way she described her family "Sculpting and shaping the metal" meant that there was more and that the mountains and pathways and flowers and caves were built by her ancestors when the human race first terraformed the planets and turned Venus into a massive dump. Her family must have been cast out or came here to escape everything and...they turned the metal into this home for their children..."Family became angry over food...started to...fight...kill...I hid. They left and I remained...alone...lived and used the old ship's reserves to live...shared with bad people without them knowing I was there...bad people now know I'm here...they will come for me...even if they don't kill me...food is starting to run low...will not last for more than a few more days..." She got up and went to the door, looking out the window next to it. She saw a few shadows dancing in the other caves. Leon walked with her, keeping his distance. "What if I said I could help? I might be able to fend them off, find you help and get you food." "I don't need food...I need a new home..." She turned towards him, tears starting to well up. He smiled, crossing his arms. "Don't worry. We'll deal with the bad people and I'll try to get you off planet once they are dealt with..." He stuck out his hand, offering her to shake his hand. "I'm Officer Leon Grace" She looked at his hand for a moment, wondering what to do. She took his hand with both of hers and just stared at him for a few moments then spoke. "I think I am called...Anna...yes, thats it. Anna Sklavos"

(ALERT SUBSCRIBERS: I added a bit more to Leon's profile in the original post and changed his armor. I have also shaped up CHAPTER 1 a bit AND fixed an error in CHAPTER 2. Take a look!

Chapter 3: Welcome Back To War, Mr. Harper PT 1

(I recommend looking up "Explore 6" for the fallout 3 soundtrack on youtube)

"So...this is the Boundless Dolphin? Seems almost like nobody has been here in a hundred years..."

Opening the slanted old airlock to the Boundless Dolphin was easy as it was a very old type of ship. The doors had corroded from time, revealing cracks in the seams to slip a hand in and force it open temporarily until gravity had it's way with the door and closed it again. Even with a dome that augmented the gravity on the planet, it was still heavier than earth's gravity. It didn't make walking that much harder, but things tended to break easier. From what he has heard, the gravity on Mercury is a bitch to cope with, but everybody that lives there could wrestle a gorilla.

The ship itself had come down and buried itself nose first into the ground then was covered by trash and rubble as the years progressed. They had to use both wall and floor just to get a firm foothold. From what Anna had said about her family, they, and this ship, had been here for a very, very long time. "I am unsure of the others but...those other guys, the bad guys from across the canyon, they are very very dirty. and never ever clean up when they take food from the ship. Those ninnies." Seems Anna switched personalities again. A note for him to remember was to see what triggers the personality switch and see if he could help her. Stepping into the hallway, he better assessed the ship and came to a simple conclusion: It was a rust heap! It was a small freighter used by the military back in the day, meaning that these must have been the first colonists to try and settle down here, inevitably failing. The formerly white walls were now a dark brown from the rust and grime that had settled in. Garbage and old metal poked in from multiple breaches in the hull and all of the signs that used to point to key parts of the ship, which he guessed to be the Armory, Engineering, cockpit, crew quarters, and escape pods, were long gone. "So...what exactly downed the ship? The angle that it's imbedded in the ground says that it was a crash."

She remained quiet for a time as they maneuvered their way through the shifted hallways and climbed the pathways that the former crew used to simply walk through like they were, ya know, flat and normal. "The ship was forced down by a deity, one called "Sawbowtawgay". He turned off the engines and forced it down so my family would settle here and live in peace." ""Sawbowtawgay"?! I hate to tell you this Anna, but I don't believe that is correct....ah...here we are." They came up to a door near the middle of the ship, it was rusted, but the words "Armory" could be seen printing on the door underneath the grime. He tried to open it up, but there was nothing to grab on the door at all. Only way to open it was a hardwired panel on the side that operated without electricity. A common precaution on most ships nowadays in case the power of the ship was knocked out. Unfortunately, the panel was busted as well. Before he could pick through it and see what he would need to do to fix it, she turned him around and had a devilish look in her eyes. "Are you calling everything my family believes in wrong?!" "Relax, Anna. I don't think they were wrong I just think that there was a simple mispronunciation. To me, it sounds like the ship went down because of "Sabotage". A panel like this doesn't simply "Get smashed". Even from when this model of ship was being used, the panel was blast proof. Only way to break it is by somebody opening the panel and exposing it to either a blow torch or a gun. Even then, opening the panel can only be done by the captain's key. Being a mech driver and mechanic, I know this by heart.

She took her hands off of his shoulders and looked confused again, her personality must have switched yet again, or she was actually confused at his words. "What is...Sabotage...and what is a "Mech"?" "Sabotage is when somebody deliberately breaks something to either hurt somebody else or screw up their plans...it seems that the Boundless Dolphin was sabotaged by somebody and forced down in an attempt to hurt your family. And...how to describe a mech? Hmm, it's hard to describe exactly what a mech is because of what it can do. Let me find a blow torch in this heap of junk and see if I can think of a way to answer that question."

She kept close to him as he lead them down the hall towards the engines to try and find a blowtorch to repair the panel only to find the path blocked by a huge heap of rubble. "Fuck..." He stood for a moment before leading her back towards the armory, past, and towards the bridge.

The small bridge was flooded with a lot of garbage from the broken front window, but it was manageable. There was a number of old red preservation boxes here that used to hold the food, but they were empty. Anna ran over to them and looked into each one saying "No" over and over again. "They weren't meant to be empty yet! They...they had food in them when I checked them a day ago! How am I supposed to..." "Don't worry, you'll be getting out of here soon enough...ah, here we go!" He had dug through the trash and refuse and found an old blowtorch used by the former crew. He was used to the air-based blowtorches on his armor, but an old bulky one that ran off of propane will do...and there wasn't a damn bit of fuel anywhere. He dug deeper into the pile while she simply watched, sitting on a box that was in the corner.

After several minutes he stood and shook his head, having not found anything. He turned towards her as she sat on the box, kicking her legs out a big. He came up to her and had her move aside and he opened the box and yelled with joy as inside was a single tank of propane. Even back then, they used the stuff. Took another thirty years after they terraformed everything to finally cycle it out. He reached in and took it out to find that it was right around quarter full, more than enough for him to work. They picked up the blowtorch, hose, and tank and went back to the armory door. He connected the hose and knelt down to get to work on it. He used the grimy wall to spark the propane and get to work at repairing the panel. "So I thought about your question...Imagine a huge metal beast four times as tall as you and ten times as wide with huge guns for arms and angled legs, black in color. That is a mech." She looked on him almost in awe as he described what a mech was, going into detail of how it was a massive war machine that has crippled the Hissho advance in mere weeks. The thought of Leon having once wielded such power almost made her mouth water. "And there we go." He stood and closed the panel then pressed a button. The door shuddered but didn't move. He pressed it again and it rose very slightly, but it quickly fell back into place. He punched the button this time and the door steadily rose up and revealed the armory. Sealed lockers kept the guns in perfect condition, though knocked over from the crash. Stepping inside, they heard scratches from the airlock behind them. Anna turned and looked down the hall, fear on her face. "They're coming..."