Friday Meme Light: Cause It's A Bittersweet Victory (Ten Years Later Thread)

[thewunderkind]

The clock continues to turn on the ship.

The last years have been of turbulence, surprises and great fights, but eventually, five years ago, the Ohm were defeated and slowly, peace was restored to the entire multiverse. The crisis was averted! Congratulations!

...However rebuilding universes takes time. Energy. Power. It still might be years off before you'll get to go home, and Stacy is truly saddened about that. Call it catch 22 if you will, but at least the life on the ship is a lot more peaceful now. The farms have grown, and now there's enough in-house grown food to feed everyone who doesn't feel like eating slop or eating slop in the sensoriums every day. That's a small comfort, right? Oh sure, there's still the surprise or two on it, but now there's slowly more places to stop, and Stacy has been a lot more lenient about people getting their shots...

As they sometimes say, life will find a way to flourish, anywhere it can. My, there's a lot more bellies around the ship than before...

And maybe. One day. Far off future. You'll get to go home. But that's not now.

Ten years is a lot of time for people to grow, personalities to change and emotions to emerge. How have your characters turned out of it?

Comments

[sit-shake.livejournal.com]

Under normal circumstances, he'd prefer to settle this peacefully. But not this time.

Now that the war was over, the gloves were off.

Sousuke fired the rocket-propelled grenade from across the hall, already dropping his weapon to the ground and switching to a new one. His foe this time had more lives than a kiddie pool full of angry cats (They were angry because they were wet), and he wasn't taking any chances.

[jesus_is_gundam]

Setsuna ducked under the rpg, and it continued down the hall past him. It collided with a wall not far behind him, sending another shower of smoke, dust, and debris everywhere.

Using the smoke as cover, Setsuna sprang forward, charging right at Sousuke.

[sit-shake.livejournal.com]

You crafty bastard.

Sousuke sidestepped Setsuna's sudden charge, raising his handgun even as he managed to slip past and disappear into the smoke. He fired twice quickly, aiming for what he estimated to be Setsuna's location.

"Surrender, Setsuna F. Seiei, and you won't be harmed."

Assuming of course, that those shots hadn't hit him already. Because then he would kind of be lying.

[a_mere_human]

Setsuna assumed Sousuke was lying anyway. After all, why violently break him out of jail if all he were going to do was throw him back into jail?

"Never!"

Today, they finish this.

The shots had narrowly missed, and Setsuna reversed direction, following Sousuke back into the smoke. He pulled out his shank, and fully intended to make this man bleed if he could get close enough,

[sit-shake.livejournal.com]

Because dammit, Sousuke had been busy during Setsuna's first apprehension. NO FAIR YOU GUYS, HE TOLD YOU TO WAIT UP FOR HIM.

Sousuke sensed danger and dodged; even so, Setsuna's shank raked briefly at his side. Before he could fire again, however, the floor of the Precinct suddenly collapsed out from under him, weakened by the explosion he'd caused earlier. He tumbled down into... what was this?

Apparently someone had built the Precinct on top of the basement of a very enthusiastic weapons aficionado. The space he was in now was huge, a concrete labyrinth with gun racks, knife cases, and stored explosives. Why would anyone store this much weaponry in one place?

/kanyeshrug

He coughed in the dust and debris, looking for his opponent.

[a_mere_human]

Hear that click-click sound? That would be Setsuna standing on top of one of the gun racks, now aiming a gatling gun at you. That all these weapons were apparently fully loaded saved a lot of time.

See if you can dodge 5000 rounds per minute!

[sit-shake.livejournal.com]

Sousuke had already recognized the dark bulk of a nearby machine because for some reason there was an M6 Bushnell there. He dove into its cockpit, beginning the startup sequence even as Setsuna's gatling fire tore up the ground and hit off the Arm Slave's armor.

This was going to be your grave, Seiei.

[a_mere_human]

Son of a...

He aimed the spray of bullets instead at a section of the rack near the arm slave that was holding explosives. He managed to set one off, which set off the rest, which destroyed several racks, and hopefully that arm slave along with it.

[sit-shake.livejournal.com]

Sousuke was already moving when the explosives went off, but the resulting destruction on top of the earlier explosion was starting to destabilize the structure (someone probably should have put in more support beams instead of more things that blew up).

The place was starting to sag and sink further downward, but before it did, by god, he was going to get even with Setsuna for throwing him at that mangrove crab. He let loose with a spray of bullets, gunning for Seiei.

[a_mere_human]

Fuck. Setsuna would just go for Plan B, which is RUN LIKE HELL. Unfortunately, he can't quite outrun bullets, especially with the floor starting to drop beneath them, and gets clipped in the shoulder and hit and falls.

But hell if he's going to die before Sousuke does first.

He reached over, grabbing the first weapon available, a plasma grenade launcher, and started firing back from his spot on the ground.

[sit-shake.livejournal.com]

It was always the plasma grenades. Sousuke gritted his teeth as an explosion rocked the M6, sending a cascade of damage reports over his display screen. Worse, the collapsing basement floor had begun to fall away to reveal... water? What?

From beneath the black depths came a gigantic black tentacle. Then, more.

OH NO IT WAS A KRAKEN FOR SOME REASON

It grabbed for Setsuna and Sousuke both.

[a_mere_human]

DAMMIT!

What was with all these monsters and eldrich horrors always always popping up in the middle of their death matches? First that crab, then the yetti, the giant chupacabra, and all those other creatures (they've had a lot of death matches over the years), now this.

And with Setsuna already injured, the Kraken was able to grab hold of him easily. But it wasn't too interested in a rather skinny morsel like him, so it waved him around a few times, then tossed him away towards what must surely be his final resting place.

The M6, however, was something the Kraken was going to have a lot of fun trying to crack open.

[sit-shake.livejournal.com]

Sousuke was skinny! Sousuke was a skinny, unnutritious morsel! Unfortunately, the kraken didn't seem to share that opinion. A tentacle shot out and wrapped around the M6, exerting terrible strength on its metal frame. Sousuke could hear the chassis slowly crumpling around him even as he struggled to get weapons back online. The kraken dragged his Arm Slave slowly toward its hooked beak, ready for its next meal.