Palindromatic

The Seventh Division: AW2

The Poet

REAL//IDENTITY

NAME: goes strictly by the title “The Poet”. Those that have grown to be close to The Poet refer to her simply as “Poe”.
AGE: mid-to-late 50’s
GENDER: female
APPEARANCE: a woman with broad-shouldered, tall build, The Poet has more of an imposing stature. Her hair is often left alone, allowed to puff out and become more of a mane. For attire, The Poet will wear simplistic clothing that fits with the situation. Whether that be a little black dress and heels or a simple shirt and jeans, it's whatever fits the occasion.

Hider

OCCUPATION: is currently an inmate at Courtright Penitentiary, had previously worked as a psychogenerative rights activist in the ‘90s.
LOCATION: Courtright Penitentiary, Pennsylvania
FRIENDS//FAMILY//OTHERS:
- Maximillian Ali: deceased; throughout her time spent in The Divisions, The Poet has tried hard to keep the identity of her son under wraps. It was not until the mid-2000s when The Poet had been targeted by the son of her former partner, Desecration, resulting in Maximillian’s ultimate enslavement by Desecration II. The Poet killed her son before Desecration II could use him further;
- unidentified man/”Mr. Ali”: deceased; The Poet’s unidentified, nameless husband of which she refrains from talking about. It is believed the man’s surname is “Ali,” after the identification of The Poet’s son Max went public and his own last name had been discovered. Whether Ali is The Poet’s maiden name or her former husband’s is not clear. Nothing else is known about “Mr. Ali,” other than he had been a part of The Cult of Desecration and remained behind after The Poet left. Her punishment for leaving was witnessing Desecration flay her husband alive;
- Ned Anders/Desecration: deceased; once a brilliant man who wanted justice and equality for all, The Poet worked alongside Ned Anders as activists for psychogenerative riots in the mid-1990s. The two had developed a close friendship, at times bordering on romantic. At some point, Anders developed a cult following and spiralled into a power-hungry obsession with his followers. His true state of madness was triggered by the death of Polar Storm and subsequent rioting. The Poet left him shortly after he took on the moniker “Desecration”;
- Icarus Anders/Desecration II: deceased; the son of Ned Anders who would later revive his fathers’ cult following. Having been close with Ned, The Poet knew Icarus for many years, having watched him grow as a young boy. The Poet believed her son was the target of Desecration II’s avengement due to some form of jealousy over parentage.

ABILITIES: The Poet denies possessing any psychogenerative abilities herself, but it is clear she is not a standard human of any sorts. Having become known for an irritating comfortability in subterfuge, The Poet is something of a public spy. She does not hide her face or cover her tracks; she provokes and encourages confrontation, likes being uncovered as the culprit and being chased down. In the end, The Poet always evades capture. In most environments she can vanish, meld into the background or seemingly de-materialize on the spot. It is speculated that The Poet is capable of invisibility, camouflaging, teleportation, or has a time and space-altering gift. The Poet will never say what it is or how she does it.

The Poet is no stranger to firearms, having melded into a keen marksman over the decades. Sticking mainly to long-range weaponry – ie., the infamous collapse sniper rifle Vorian van Trauptiz designed for her – The Poet is skilled at picking off targets from a far distance. As The Poet herself once spray-painted across the freeway where many Cultist bodies lay, “with my words i will kill you – a soft, slowburn surrender/with my lead, i will keep you down”.

STRENGTHS: The Poet had always been known as one of the go-to allies when needing important data. Praised for being able to properly plan and execute infiltrations into many facilities, The Poet was a master at espionage. It remains a mystery how The Poet is oftentimes so able to retrieve whatever’s needed with little repercussions.

Perhaps one beneficial matter that helped The Poet’s spy games was her lengthy list of contacts. Most had been blackmailed into “not falling off the Earth until I wring you dry/and then let you saunter off it,” while others were simply people The Poet knew of – whether through hacking databases or word of mouth. For whatever’s needed, chances are the Poet knows someone who can help.

WEANESSES: The Poet’s old age is her main physical downfall. She is not agile, nor does she have moderately acceptable stamina. When on the field, she is limited to her knack of “vanishing” in order to avoid physical confrontations. She cannot run for long distances or at impressive speeds; she tires easily, runs out of breath substantially fast.

When it comes to fighting, in no way is The Poet a foot soldier. Perhaps once she may have been satisfactory at hand-to-hand combat, knowing how to throw a punch without throwing out her shoulder in the process. These days, she lacks the upper-body strength and mobility to be comparable to her former self. From all the fighting in her early days, The Poet has constantly sore limbs and joints, prone to waking up with some new part of her aching.
Her inability to vocally communicate with others often hinders her while in the field. Speaking with others through text messages works when there’s someone with time to respond, but when the entire team is wrapped up in a battle, it is common to lose track of The Poet due to not knowing instantly where she is. Likewise, unless she has a notebook or means of digital text, The Poet is unable to express her thoughts at all.

BACKSTORY: Only bits and pieces gathered over the years indicate who The Poet had been before The Divisions. It is known she had a son and, at one point, had been married. It is rumored The Poet hailed from Essex, England, and occasionally returns to a small home in the countryside there when not enlisted in The Divisions. However, no records of The Poet’s citizenship to any country have been uncovered.

It is known that The Poet worked with Ned Anders in the early ‘90s as a social activist for psychogenerative rights, having gone by the name “The Poet” ever since. The title was self-coined, a reference to the notes she would use to communicate and the early graffiti art she would leave in the wake of protests, often of poetic, political statements.

Shortly after Ned Anders became aggressive and nonsensical, consumed by the need for power and influence, The Poet left him. He proceeded to kill The Poet’s husband as punishment. The death of her former love was not found out about until after the fall of The Cult of Desecration. The Poet chose to keep it to herself, preferring her teammates did not see any emotional ties she had had with anyone else.

While many of The Second Division members refrained from killing Cultists unless necessary, The Poet took out her rage and ensured she slaughtered each one she came across. By the end of her career with The Divisions, The Poet had a personal death count of two hundred and fifty-two. Most had been Cultists, others had been criminals, and the rest were caught in her crossfire. The Poet rarely expressed remorse towards the innocents she had killed.

Upon the dismantling of The Second Division, The Poet vanished from North America, ceasing communication with former members. When WW3 started, she returned to fight in the war. Likewise, The Poet was present for the reunion of The Fourth Division after the Cult of Desecration made a resurgence. The Poet was determined to defeat the second iteration of Desecration, knowing from early on that it had been Desecration’s son and not the man himself.

However, towards the end of The Fourth Division’s run when Desecration was becoming a powerful foe, The Poet received a photograph of her son in the mail. She found him, standing on a street, visibly mind-wiped and under the influence of Desecration. The Poet knew Desecration’s intention. Like how the first Desecration killed her husband for leaving him, the second Desecration was going to kill her son for having defeated the original Desecration. Instead of letting Desecration II take her son’s life, The Poet slid a knife through her son’s temple, and let him die.

After that, The Poet returned to hiding for many years. She would not return for The Fifth Division, but when the call for The Sixth Division came and war was looming in the distance, The Poet returned, acting as a recruiter for new members. She refused to speak about her son or any prior events, sticking strictly to planning and war-talk.

When AW1 ended, The Poet had been responsible for bringing Lady Lust to a hospital in the next town over. Shortly thereafter, The Poet had ben glimpsed staggering out of the city, back towards Adventbrook. The last anyone had heard of her, she had been arrested and sent to Courtright Penitentiary for a crime that was never revealed to the public.
TOOLS//WEAPONS: based off of the M24 SWS The Poet had been known to use, Vorian van Trauptiz designed and manufactured a custom-made sniper rifle to better suit The Poet’s needs. Partially collapsible, designed to be smaller and compact, and made from a lightweight carbon fiber and nanocellulose combination; nicknamed, “The Pencil,” the gun is a powerful, ultralight weapon The Poet is often seen sporting on the battlefield.

A leather-bound notebook is also a noted tool of The Poet’s. It’s her primary means of speaking, by scribbling notes in it to share with others. For as long as anyone can remember, it’s been the same one: a mahogany color, gold-rimmed pages, the bottom left corner of the front over torn away. Yet, it seems, the pages are endless. The Poet’s used the same one for decades without going so much as halfway through the book.

When the notepad is too much of a hassle to write in, The Poet will use a handheld tablet to fire off text messages to others. A text-to-voice function was once implemented to help The Poet communicate verbally, but the idea of Stephen Hawking’s voice discussing battle plans while explosions and gunfire were tearing up the roads didn’t go very well.

TRADEMARKS: The Poet is mute, though the cause of it or whether it’s by choice have not been answered. She prefers to communicate as little as possible. When need be, The Poet will write cryptic, rhyming, and often poetic messages in a small notepad.

The Seventh Division: AW2

Hey, pals! Just another point I thought I'd point out: if anyone wants to bring in other characters at any point - whether they be another main one, a secondary/supporting character, or an NPC - feel free to. Main characters still require a full CS, but secondary/NPC's don't (unless they're important enough to need background info). Our characters are the surviving nine, but they'll need to recruit more over time.

Also, if anyone wants to add anything to the overall world - historical, geographical, anything culturally significant - that's welcome, too. It's a parallel universe from our own. WW2 still happened, but it didn't necessarily happen the way it did for us, if you catch my drift.

@Sigil, just finished reading your post. I love Dante already. I keep picturing this cranky, old man with ratty hair and a massive beard, probably a straw hat. I'm going to stick to the belief that Dante is a senile elderly man.

I also love the way he talks. He's going to be the unintentional comedic relief, isn't he? I'm calling it now.

@DJAtomika, if you don't feel like Alex & Shirley would join right away, they don't have to. Naturally, they're allowed to join The Seventh whenever. Go about things how you want to; make it more fun that way.

The Seventh Division: AW2

I know everyone hasn't answered yet, but it seems like a personal drop-in is more preferred. If anyone prefers something else, let me know! It's still possible to figure something out.

I'll still wait for everyone else to respond, but for the people who have, how do you want it to happen? Would you like to have Merle/someone else appear at some point in your post to recruit them, or an entire post dedicated to the conversation/follow-up? If you want to have it be Merle, let me know, either here or by PM. We'll get to working something out.

Another idea is to have it be Maria - "Vault". She's going to be a secondary character throughout the RP. At the moment she doesn't necessarily have a locked-in personality, so she's up for grabs if anyone wants to use her. If you want more information on her, I can PM you details.

@McHaggis, stop slacking! You can do it! I believe in you! And you're not capable of "half-decent" posts, so don't even try to be humble.

The Seventh Division: AW2

Hm... I really should have confirmed how we'd go about this with everyone beforehand. 'Tis but a learning experience!

We can always have it so everyone gets what they want and no one has to make a compromise. Can everyone else confirm with me how they want their character to be recruited to The Seventh Division? Whether it be a call sent out somehow, finding them individually, or the character finding the group itself, what have you.

The Seventh Division: AW2

So a proper recruitment call hasn't gone out yet? Alrighty. Thanks!

@DJAtomika

Not yet, no. I don't know, I had the idea that everyone would get the first few posts to explore their character before joining The Seventh Division. Does everyone like that idea? Or would you all rather we jump into it quicker?

Also, I don't think I've ever expressed this anywhere: the AW2 plotline is an over-arching one; we don't all have to be confined to just that. So if anyone has any other plots, sub-plots, little stories they want to tackle (whether solo or with a group), don't feel like you're not able to. IC-wise, it'll take months for the aliens to arrive, so our characters have time to still have their own lives while not preparing for the end of the world.

The Seventh Division: AW2

Sorry about the confusion! The message was just a regular ole letter Maria sent to Merle, telling Merle to meet her and that "they're coming back". I think I put it in her CS, but I realise now that if even I don't fully remember that one small detail, no one else will. I'll edit the post. I think I was trying to be cryptic and mysterious and withhold information.

Oh, me...

Or I may also be misunderstanding the misunderstanding. It's early, and I've had five hours of sleep. I'm not humaning yet.

No one else picked up the message. Merle (or other characters) will find everyone else still. That's to come.

And I've found that confusion-causing line. It is fixed. All is good in the world again.

The Seventh Division: AW2

Folks. It is up. I am eight minutes past my deadline, but it has finally been posted. The IC post.

Be warned, it's extremely long. And that's the condensed version, too. I'm still unsatisfied with the ending, so I may tweak it, but for the most part, it is up and I can sleep now.

Enjoy! And get to writing!

The Seventh Division: AW2

THE//SEVENTH//DIVISION

A rumble, an atmospheric roar; the darkening skyline slowly leaking across the pale stretch of blueness threatened to carry along storms with it, to light up the world with its intimidatingly dangerous flamboyance. The scent of rain was carried in the warm breeze, and the temperature had dropped to something warningly cooler than it had been only moments before. There was a thunderstorm on its way, and as Merle Moreau stood on the ledge of the seventy-two-storey building’s roof, she found comfort in watching it loom off in the horizon. It would make its way to them, gradually and at its own leisure. And not a single spec of human traffic on the streets below, not a single vehicle weaving in and around the roads, knew it was coming.

Merle took a step closer to the edge, let her toes hang off and balance on nothingness. She watched a figure in neon pink stand-out with such stark vibrancy amongst the black and greys and neutral tones of businessmen and –women. The downtown core was a sea of skyscrapers and colossal monuments of humanity’s need to overachieve; and the schools of mindless fish were commuters rushing to subway stations, to catch streetcars and buses and head home after a long day’s work. They were waves of suits and ties and gaunt faces drooping into contentment. From so high up, they were not individuals – they were not single-minded persons with fully-realized personalities, hopes, love lives and fears. They were just a collective indication that humanity pressed forward, not because it wanted to, but because it still had to. These people did not work office jobs because they wanted to; they did not shed skin cells in a cubicle confined from the outside world, did not let their eyes find a cozy familiarity glued to buzzing monitors and screens, did not let their name become nothing more than what was etched onto their personnel ID, because they wanted to.

These people, the hive mind of the working class, did not exist in that safe state of vocational purgatory because they wanted to.

And yet Merle still saved countless numbers of them just so that their only issues were remaining stuck in a dead-end office job and let that define their failure in life.

Merle’s failures included letting an entire city die. A city not unlike the one she currently watched over like a ghostly sentinel. The man that just tripped over his own pair of shoes two sizes too big for him next to the raggedy panhandler outside the NBOC Tower knew damn well who Zenith was, what Zenith had done – both good and bad. But it didn’t weigh heavy on them like it did for her. Down by the convenient store, the woman in the off-white pantsuit soiled by the ketchup stain on her left breast from lunch resumed sitting in her padded office chair every day while Merle had spent the past two years mourning over the loss of friends, of family, of strangers she never met but still attended the funerals of. And none of them cared at all about that. Not a single one of the last commuters who trickled down the steps into the subway station cast a single condolence or care her way. Only blame. Only criticism for not trying hard enough. Only hatred and loathing for having given up.

While they caved and allowed themselves to fold neatly into the life of an everyday citizen – haughtily unaware and uncaring because they did not want the life they were rescued to continue living – Merle fought to let them have that life. And she found herself, once again, readying every last atom comprising her body to fight once again for them. And not a single one of them knew it.

A jet flew by overhead, its telltale droning noise catching up with it seconds after it vanished out of Merle’s peripheral vision. More and more of the sky had succumbed to the spreading plague of nasty weather the weatherman forgot to predict. Weather best suited spent indoors with a hot mug of green tea blowing steamy tendrils off into the world while the power was knocked out and the only entertainment was listening to the thunder, watching the lightning, the way the trees danced in the violent upheaval of Mother Nature’s exhales. But not today.

When the noise of the jet hit Merle, she paused, let her eyes lose focus on the street she had been watching, and thought…

In the dead center of a permafrost-coated street, she had stood. All five feet and ten inches of her, her boots rooted to the ground, her fingertips drumming off the assault rifle dangling from the sling draped over her shoulder. It was an accessory of war she had not been sure she would use yet felt comfortable cradling.

The city of Adventbrook silently shivered in the throes of a mid-winter snowfall. It chilled Merle to the bone, made her feel something other than total petrification. Something other than absolute certainty that it would be the last time she ever witnessed a downpour of snow so elegant, so soft. She wasn’t ready to accept that.

Her back had been turned to the remainder of her squad for the solid five minutes that team of four spent staring down their decided-upon target: the massive object in the sky, its body swaying – wriggling gently – as if it were a flag caught in a constant phantom breeze. It had an organic look to it, like a mountain had bred with a whale and the offspring was a demented amphibious crag – a living, fleshy rock, so misshapen and unruly in its stature that no god could have created it with good intentions in mind. Only the goal to terrorize those who gazed upon it with the concept that nightmares didn’t come from under beds or closets; the true terrors emerged from the clouds, from the outer rim of the solar system. The true monsters swam dauntingly through space to the tiny blue planet. And when they arrived, there was no plan to attack instantly. Only to linger, to let every last human see their impressive comfortability in chaos and fear. They didn’t just revel in horror; they bred in it, found love in it. Staring down the long, jagged beast with no identifiable face and no possible limbs or appendages – just one lengthy, uneven body – inspired that fear without hesitation or pause.

A shudder thrummed through Merle’s lips. She blew it to the wind in a gust of visible breath, a fluffy cloud of her final breaths drifting away into the icy chill.

The worst thing to acknowledge about the flying, unnaturally organic beast was it was only one of several. The smaller one with the ridged humps trailing down its curved back reared upwards and shook the falling snow from off its body. It was just one of few. And every last one of them hovered over the city like a stationary blimp reminding the cowering citizens caught in the crossfire of inter-species war to buy a subscription to inevitable death by otherworldly destruction.

It happened somewhat slowly, the inevitable arrival of what was once just pixelated shapes broadcasted on every screen around the world. That had only been mere months ago. Their trek past the planets Merle may never know again felt like it was a slow-burn passage through their pocket of the galaxy. She felt she had time to prepare, both physically and mentally. She though the world had time to prepare, and yet in the corner of her eye she could spot the faces peeking through the windows of the high-rise condominium; people didn’t flee like they knew they should have. They would be casualties on the battlefield.

Merle had not been prepared for that.

The smallest bio-ship of the group that had found a nice niche between the Bell Tower and the library jerked towards the sky, letting out a low grumble as it did so that echoed across the atmosphere. It shook the ground; it was earthquake-causing vocalizations. The bio-ship that could just be glimpsed between the two skyscrapers ahead followed suit – the one directly above Merle and her team let out a shattering roar like a few millions trumpets blaring at once.

Merle’s heart stopped and plummeted into her guts. One of the Polyhedron trio next to her raised his assault rifle; someone outfitted in a massive, mechanical behemoth-of-a-suit engineered by Vorian shot out a plume of liquid flame, revved a motor on its back, sent discharged heat swirling by their feet. Merle herself flexed her hands, felt the cold concrete in her mind, and was ready to rip up the very ground at a moment’s notice.

The roaring swelled, the many titanic howls syncing-up, forming a battle cry in unison.

Until the world fell silent.

And it was the last few seconds before Adventbrook would ever know a living silence again.

A light dribble pelted her nose, followed by its twin that nosedived into Merle’s cheek. Merle returned to the present, became aware of the rain that began to dampen her clothing. The sky was a sheet of multi-layered darkness, no color or light for miles. Even as the street cleared of people who sought shelter indoors, protected from the thunderstorm just beginning to put on a show, Merle still stared downward.

The rain intensified from a light trickle to a steady downpour. Merle wiped the water leaking down her brow with the back of her hand and leapt. With her mind she reached out to the building across the road, felt the sandpapery roughness of the wall in the very epicenter of all her thoughts, and pulled herself toward it. She whipped through the air like a bullet, crossed the gap in mere seconds. When she was close enough, she pushed herself away – felt the wind push against her – and mentally latched onto the cold, metal crane a few buildings down.

Using the various buildings and landmarks, Merle navigated the downtown core, swerving between buildings like a bird on a mission, flying a few hundred feet off the ground. The city zoomed by her in a blur of stone, glass and metal; she hardly paid attention to any of it, save for the next object she would use to pull herself closer toward.

Up ahead Merle saw the skeletal carcass of a building still under construction, its interior left exposed. It was the one, the one she had been looking for for hours and only found when she needed it. She headed towards it, dipping under and around the top-heavy tower separating Merle from her destination. With finesse she had always been proud of she gripped onto the metal support beam visible in the inside of the work-in-progress building and gingerly came to a slow hover before it. She swooped inside, touched her feet down on rough flooring, and was thankful to be out of the rain. The cold had gotten to her, made her feel chilled beyond comfort even in the warm spring heat.

As she ran her hands over her face to flick away the rain that caught her, Merle absent-mindedly turned around, gazed out at the city she was trying to hide from, and –

An explosion, a burst of intense light; Merle was blinded, felt the ground smack her hard in the back, felt her skull slam against the pavement. Heat licked her bare hands and face – her palms bore into the snow beside her, pushed herself up, felt the solid world beneath her feet but still couldn’t see.

Someone screamed, their voice trailing away overhead. Her eyesight returned to her, showed her the grey sky and the massive girth of the bio-ship that slammed its weight into buildings as it chased after someone. Merle covered her head with her arms as debris rained down on the ground. Little black dots ate away the corners of her eyesight. A second explosion ripped through the air and something heavy crumbled nearby.

“Zenith, get up!” A voice crackled in Merle’s earpiece. She didn’t know who it was, didn’t have time to contemplate who had seen her narrowly miss the street that erupted beneath her and took her down with its impact. Merle was on her feet and up in the air again before she fully registered someone had even spoken to her.

Gracelessly, Merle flung herself around a building, was airborne once more. Down the street she saw one of them – not the bio-ships, not the things that carried the enemy. But the enemy itself. It had lowered itself to street-level, was casually strolling toward a tank and an onslaught of gunfire. The long, billowing wings that trailed behind it had flared, the lack of any other limbs, its tendrils lashing around itself rapidly.

In a split second, the tank was pirouetting through the air, and the next moment, it had collided into the building next to it.

“Need back-up on 75th!” Someone barked in the earpiece.

Merle felt the tank in her mind, its rough, metallic edges. She didn’t think of the people trapped in it – didn’t think much of the repercussions. With her own telekinetic strength, Merle lifted that tank high into the air, saw the soldiers scatter for cover, witnessed the hesitation of the squid-like alien. It began to spin around to face Merle, its tendrils darting to stare her down.

It had barely budged when Merle slammed the tank down on it – hard, hard enough to send dust and debris kicking upwards.

“Back-up! 75th and Queen! Now!”

The tank toppled to the side. The being rose, climbing into the air to meet Merle’s level. The tank followed it, twirling in the air like it weighed nothing.

Merle spun around, began to back up. A scream in her ear was cut short, replaced by static. She headed back the way she came, her mind racing for ideas –

Something hard careened into her side. Merle stumbled, dropped a few feet, but quickly regained balance. Her mind locked onto the stop sign below and it was uprooted, floating by her side in a second and inches from slamming into the face of Vivian Pang. Though she wore a suit that granted her levitation, her face wasn’t concealed. Merle saw the fear all over it.

“Run,” Vivian mouthed seconds before Merle was thrown to the side as the tank suddenly replaced the spot where Vivian had been hovering only a second before. The body of Vivian slammed into the face of a skyscraper and fell to the ground with a rain of glass, her arms and legs twisting and flailing around her uselessly.

A nearby bio-ship bellowed.

Merle had the split second thought to zoom downward to the street to reclaim Vivian, to get her out of harm’s way, but just as quickly as that thought was formulated, the tank rammed into the ground where Vivian’s body had been.

It lifted. Merle didn’t dare look at what remained.

Instead, Merle looked over to the alien crossing more distance between them at a slow gait. Its tendrils licked the sides of the buildings, its wings fanned out threateningly. A yell rumbled from deep within Merle’s chest, ricocheted up her throat, and what came out was something bestial and uncontrolled as Merle felt the ridges of its sides, the leathery softness of its wings.

“God fuck you!” Merle spat. She threw her hands out, lashed them to the sides, and watched as the bulk of the alien shot out a spray of liquid as its midsection was bisected. The multiple orifices lining either side flared, its tendrils probed the massive gash in its midriff. It began to decline, jerking around as it did so, and landed roughly in a bank of snow.

“Broadview! Please! Anybody! Broad…”

The old Bell Tower down the road burst forward in a plume of rubble and smoke. A bio-ship emerged from within the carnage it caused, its uneven body thrashing about as multiple members of The Sixth Division gave all they had to make a dent.

An engine whirred overhead; one of the Polyhedron trio flew through the air, and only a heartbeat later, a winged alien chased after the smoke trails the Polyhedron left behind.

Fire shot up into the air to Merle’s right, and an inhuman screech rang out.

Two tanks and many soldiers rolled across the street below, their turrets aimed at the bio-ship that had quickly reduced the number of Division members fighting it.

That moment, when Merle had been suspended mid-air and watching the bio-ship slam its weight into Agatha Thavarasa and sent the older woman careening into the ground, Merle felt it. For the first time in that battle, she felt an inkling of defeat already pulsating through her circulatory system.

It was then that she knew they might not win.

. . .

As quickly and as violently as it had rolled in, the storm had swept across the city and left nothing but puddles and mud in its wake. Merle sat at the edge of the floor, letting her feet hang over the edge, her back resting against the metal ribcage of the scaffolding. With one hand she absent-mindedly rubbed the silky sheer material of her headscarf between her fingertips while she watched the dark clouds drift away.

She had lost track of time, was unsure of how long she had been sitting on the floor watching the city recuperate after the storm. It only became a conscious thought that she had been waiting for some time when she heard the creak of a floorboard from somewhere below.

Merle’s attention perked up. She had bounced onto her feet quickly, had the nearby loose plank of wood pinned down in her mind without hesitation. Even knowing the meeting was a planned event, Merle didn’t want to be too sure things would run smoothly. For whatever reason, someone could have found out about the letter Merle received telling her where to meet, could have found out about the meeting that neither the public nor the former members of The Sixth Division would have approved of. But Merle needed this meeting and this speculated information, and she needed it to go well.

But she didn’t trust it to.

The topmost part of someone’s head emerged first from the ramp leading to the floor. Black hair, parted to the sides and framing a round, pockmarked face. The woman’s eyes were red, her lips cracked, a noticeable lack of color in what had once been warm, brown skin. She made eye contact with Merle, and something of a smile submerged.

“Merle,” the woman softly said. Her eyes shifted to the plank of wood hovering off the floor, ready to collide into the woman at a moment’s notice. “I get it. I get you can’t trust me.”

“Not yet, Maria,” Merle replied. “Not after you left us.”

“Fuck off,” Maria scoffed. “I left because I was pregnant! Because I was scared, Merle! Okay? I mean,” Maria Diaz gulped and pressed her palms to her forehead as she moved further into the room. “Merle… I couldn’t fight that battle. I’m not – I’m just not a fighter, I… I remember things, know things. Know everything. What could I have done?”

It was not a lie. Maria Diaz, known as the “Vault,” had never been anything more than a human computer, a walking Wikipedia. She had been young, still was, and had a bright future ahead of her. Merle knew Maria was drafted into working for various organizations before the war, SETI being the latest. Merle couldn’t blame her for not wanting to die when she couldn’t even fight to begin with, but there was still an unshakable resentment towards the ex-Division member that Merle couldn’t shake.

“But, look, okay? I’m here to help,” Maria insisted. She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her biceps for warmth. She looked smaller than the last time Merle saw her.

Merle released the plank of wood. It clattered loudly on the floor, made a heavy thump like –

- Man O’War collapsed on the wooden floor of the museum, the left side of his face torn away, revealing raw bone and sinewy muscle tissue. He had been severed in half at the stomach, his intestines visible, glinting in the light. Merle looked up at the gaping hole in the roof he had fallen through and saw the thick beams of wood hurtling downward towards her. She mentally grappled with the beams of wood and tossed them aside, the ache in her arms and back protesting as she twisted about to dodge the following debris.

“More outside,” Sung Jin Lee declared as he raced across the littered floor of the museum’s lobby, the long, boxy rifle Vorian created cradled in Lee’s arms. He paused short of Man O’War’s body, saw the gruesome mess of the man’s face, and shook his head.

The two shared a moment when they locked eyes. It was a shared thought, no telepathy required to decipher either look on their faces. Both teammates were contemplating fleeing while they still could.

Shards of the long window blew out, peppering the floor. One of the Polyhedron skidded across the floor, having been thrown through the window. Merle ran over and helped the only surviving Polyhedron to her feet, steadying the towering figure donning an all-black armored suit.

“Motherfucker,” Bernice Washington hollered from behind the matte black helmet. She patted Merle on the shoulder, shoved her away, and proceeded to sprint out through the doors that had been blasted away.

Sung Jin Lee watched her go and cast one last look back at Merle. Merle didn’t know then that it would be the last time she saw Lee before his death.

The two nodded to each other. Lee ran out after Bernice, the barrage of gunfire signalling he rejoined the fight against the enemy force that seemed impossible to defeat. In all that time, they had only managed to slaughter one bio-ship and roughly a dozen of the winged aliens.

There were still six other bio-ships and countless other aliens.

Only a little more than half of the Division members remained.

Merle rolled her shoulders back, let out a heavy sigh that felt good to release, and started at a jog towards the door. She saw long shadows stretching across the ruined streets as the streetlamps flicked on, the night beginning to settle in. Several bodies of soldiers were scattered across the steps of the museum. Among them, Lady Lust sat, blood pouring from her gut but the scope of an assault rifle still pressed to her eye, her finger still squeezing the trigger.

Merle emerged onto the steps, looked up at the sky, and saw the faces of each bio-ship staring down the small group of the remaining members.

“We got this, babe.” Merle looked down, saw Lady Lust looking up at her with a weakening, shit-eating grin. The old woman had still worn her silver and black masquerade mask, still smelled like vanilla then mixing with the stench of blood and smoke.

Merle looked back up at the sky, saw a slit in the front of bio-ship peel back, revealing the wetness of a muscly sphincter.

When that opened, and when the winged aliens began to pour out from it, Merle knew it was time.

They – the ones still standing there – were all they had left.

“Merle…?”

Merle blinked her eyes, remembered who she was and where she was standing. Maria had gotten reasonably closer, her arms still folded across her chest but now with her hair tossed back, dripping from the rain.

“Are you okay?” Maria asked. There was genuine concern in her voice. It was an emotion Merle had not heard expressed towards her since she last visited her sister. People didn’t grace Merle with sincere, consoling emotion anymore. It sounded like a foreign language she once knew how to use.

Merle nodded. One hand was clasped over her hip and the other ran through her hair beneath the loose headscarf. She gently shook her head, tried to toss those thoughts from out of her mind. It was not the time or place to be dwelling on that era of her life, Merle tried to tell herself.

“Uh, you were – you were saying…?” Merle mumbled, waving a hand to Maria and gesturing for her to continue speaking.

“It’s, um, what I’m going to say, Merle… look, it’s not a good thing, okay? I need you to know that first so that – I don’t know, maybe so that you’re prepared for this,” Maria said. She was having trouble speaking, pausing and breathing heavily. In-between words she bit at her bottom lip and was unable to make eye contact with Merle.

The other woman took a few paces forward, swaying from side-to-side as she did. She was hesitating, stalling, trying to find the proper words when there was only one way to say it. Merle knew from Maria’s letter what their meeting was about, and yet she wasn’t surprised to find Maria struggling to announce it in-person.

“They’re coming back, Merle,” Maria finally said. She stopped, a good ten feet away, and stared out at the city.

“I know. You told me,” Merle bluntly stated.

“That’s not all…”

“What else is there?” Merle asked. She was aware that her voice was a croak, a tool at her disposal that she had let rust over time. The anxiety bubbling inside her chest didn’t help any.

Maria shrugged, stared off to the side as if awaiting answers from something else. She clicked her tongue and sighed, bowed her head and shuffled her feet.

“Maria,” Merle said, firmly, with confidence that she didn’t feel. The way Vivian Pang would have expected from Merle after all those years. “What else is there?”

“It’s…”

… on me!” Merle panted, murmuring those words and knowing the earpiece picked it up with perfect clarity but not knowing if anyone else would even hear it.

She flung herself towards the bio-ship, rolled onto her shoulder when she roughly landed on its back and performed a haphazard somersault that made her ache all over. Before she had gotten back onto her feet she had jammed the pronged explosive into the flesh of the living construct. It had beeped in indication that it was armed.

A second later, Merle had jumped off the other side of the bio-ship and let herself freefall. She heard the roar of the second bio-ship that had been hounding her down as it crashed into the side of the one Merle armed with the bomb.

In her head Merle locked onto the underbelly of a third bio-ship and swung, swooping over the ground where she spotted two other members taking on several aliens. Merle changed her course, having attached her mind to the backside of one of the aliens closing in on her allies. With all of her mental strength, Merle tore it away, managing to fling it a yard down the street.

When Merle landed on the ground, the bomb burrowed into the flesh of the bio-ship went off, and the night sky was illuminated by the eruption of fire.

Something caught her attention, and taking a chance to look, Merle saw Sheldon Wright and Sung Jin Lee sprawled out on the ground, both staring blankly at the sky. Dead.

“… it’s more,” Maria muttered.

Merle felt her brow twitch, her lips purse into a taut look of disapproval.

“More of what?” Merle growled.

Maria took a sharp inhale that slithered between her clenched teeth. The anger Merle let subside for the former teammate was rising again. She had little patience for Maria’s inability to be outright with the information.

“Of them.” Maria finally answered with exasperation in her voice. “Merle, there’s more of them. So much more – Merle, I… I have no clue what we’re going to do. It’s an army, Merle. Hundreds. An army of them.”

She threw her still-working hand to the side, saw the tendrils of the alien rip away and spray blood around it as they floated away in the wind. She stumbled over the body of a civilian. She regained her balance, felt the warmth of a car on fire brush against her face.

The condensed chunk of a school bus clattered on the ground next to Merle. She didn’t flinch. She hadn’t seen it coming and did not look at it as she shuffled past it.

In the midst of a mind that was failing her, Merle felt the wing of another alien, tried to make it enough of a conscious feeling in her head but the haze creeping across her mind restrained her from doing so.

Suddenly, she was airborne, and the next moment she felt her leg snap in two as the ground caught her. Something had thrown her away and she had had no way of defending herself in time against it.

Merle let out a cry, a striking scream. She toppled onto her side, drew her broken leg up to her chest and clutched it in her arms. Every part of her ached. Ribs were broken, she could tell. She heard a constant ringing and was certain a large gash on her right shoulder blade was leaking blood all down her back. One finger was bent backwards, and her other hand was numb and limp from the elbow down.

For what felt like the longest minute she had ever endured, Merle remained on the ground, breathing raggedly through lungs that couldn’t keep up any longer. It was impossible to hold it, or anything, back any longer. On the cold stretch of pavement dirtied with snow, blood and bodies, Merle let the streams of tears flow freely down her cheeks. She let her chest rise and collapse with every sob. She felt it.

She felt defeat.

“What are we going to do?” Maria breathlessly asked. Merle hadn’t noticed when her old friend had started crying, only became aware of it when Merle could hear the emotional strain in Maria’s voice. It shook, sounded childlike. It was frail and broken and just barely on the verge of total surrender.

She looked up at the stars, felt the snowflakes blanket her bare, bruised skin as they drifted downward in elegantly spiralling patterns. She felt the ground shaking every time a bio-ship roared, every time another building was totalled.

“… s-s…ome… help.” She lifted a hand to her head and fingered the earpiece still clinging to her ear with more dedication than Merle could admit she had at that moment. She wiggled it free and tossed it aside, let it be buried under the snow that didn’t stop falling.

She closed her eyes, listened to the crackle of the fire nearby and the battle beginning to dwindle down – not in their favour. Her fingers dug at the snow and felt every little fractal of ice melt beneath her grip. She breathed in, felt the starch coldness of winter fill her broken lungs whole, and breathed out.

The entire world and everything in and around it lapsed into pure, unperturbed darkness. And Merle was ready to let it.

“Merle… what the hell do we do now?” Maria was only inches away, and Merle could feel the heat radiating off of her body. Her small, beady eyes were bouncing between staring into either of Merle’s, looking for a single sign of recognition and resolution.

But it wasn't the end of her. It was not written by any god that Merle Moreau was intended to die just then. She found no light at the end of a tunnel she ran a marathon's length away from. Instead she was blessed with perfect immobility, imprisoned in her own skin as she smelled the ashy aftermath of fire, felt every ounce of her being succumbed to being utterly decimated. Some sick deity willed her back to life, let her simply wake up in the street she had been left to rot in, still alive.

Worst of all, she watched as the deceased, crippled bodies of every last victim rose into the early morning sky alongside the winged aliens as if it were some misconstrued biblical prophecy come true. Every last one of them vanished into the mouths of the remaining five bio-ships and, as if a battle had not just been waged at all, the bio-ships peacefully and noiselessly lifted high enough into the sky and out of Earth's atmosphere until they were nothing more than a far-off spec.

And that was it.

All they had given, all the time they spent preparing for their final stand; it had all been swept away without a simple afterthought.

It was all over.

“Merle!”

“We’ll do what we didn’t last time,” Merle monotonously, slowly answered, each word stretched out into something dangerously paced. “We’ll win.”

"Who will?" Maria asked.

"The Seventh Division."

The Seventh Division: AW2

@Palindromatic – Aaah, it's Tilda Swinton! Be still my heart!

Also, I can't wait for the IC. I'm sure it's going to be rad.

@McHaggis

Tilda Swinton. Is there no better candidate for playing a superhero?

Seriously, though. I'd love to see a superhero squad composed of: her, Meryl Streep, Sally Field, Maggie Smith, and Bette Midler. Could you imagine? It would be glorious.

The IC post is coming along nicely. I had a setback when I realized what I was trying to write was, essentially, pure fecal matter. So I had to redo it. But so far it's good. It'll be up soon!

@Lexicon. that's alright if you'll be absent for a bit. It'll all be introductory posts anyway, so you won't miss too much. Thanks for letting me know, though!

The Seventh Division: AW2

Alright, my character's CS is up, and now there's no more excuse for me to not finish that IC post. Stay seated and keep your hands inside at all times, folks! This ride is about to start and it'll be a bumpy one!