Fire is Light…

… from which the truth must ignite.

So apparently Picasso made her own account. As far as I can tell she doesn’t have a blog and she doesn’t have any followers but she has an account. All the better to rant with, I suppose. To those who are curious as to why she keeps calling West a bear, it’s because he looks like one.  That asshole is a big burly, nightmarish beast in both stature and muscle mass. I’d dare say he is far more muscle than man if I thought that sentence would make any sense.

Limb snapping Maniac.

Speaking of betrayers,
I keep breaking my oath of silence. I don’t remember not talking being so difficult. I remember when I didn’t need words for anything and there wasn’t a situation I couldn’t wear a mask for. I remember when writing felt like a moral sin to my oath that I only practiced in an effort to finish the stories of the slain. Now it’s a mandatory fucking order that I stick on an imaginary wall for all of the world to see. When did I become so weak and co-dependent?

I bet getting me to break my oath was Fracture’s plan. He just kept calling me a dog until I snapped.
That fucker showed up to help with clearing the list. He didn’t actually get to help us though. I beat the shit out of him while yelling something to the effect of, “CALL ME A DOG ONE MORE TIME AND I WILL FUCKING END YOU.”

When I was done he disappeared. He popped out like he likes to do. Such a cowardly fucking ability. I use to hate that I wasn’t allow to path around like I see so many other proxies do, Firecracker and Trent included, but this talking thing has shown me that it would only be another crutch. At the end of the day I’m better off without it.

I suppose I’m burying the lead here though.
My list has once again been cleared and all six marks are once again dealt with. We used actual planning this time around. We scouted out each mark and figured out where each one slept and took out every single one of them within the same hour once we had their patterns down well enough. We left them no time to find out something was wrong and regroup. There was just swift silent death. Not the kind of death I prefer to give but at the end of the day it’s about results. Besides, I have weak ass squad mates to keep alive. Trent and Firecracker almost didn’t survive our last head on fight with a group so it’s best we play it safe… for now.

That’s not to say none of them put up a fight.
That first guy woke up as Trent and I were sneaking up. He grabbed a knife from under his pillow and rushed into the doorway to use as a choking point to fight us from, which wasn’t a bad strategy and he was a rather competent at defending himself with a knife.

The greatest problem with that strategy is you root yourself to the ground and make yourself inflexible. I may not have been able to penetrate his pillar of defense but by god I could knock it over, and so I did. I plowed into him and ripped his knife away from him once I had him pinned to the ground. And that was when the little girl came out.

“Sally dear, run!”

Little Sally Newbery, the whole reason we hit this house first and I came to handle it personally.

I pointed at her and tapped the crack in my mask to indicate she was to be taken to Fracture rather than harmed. I turned to finish her dad when I heard a stomping noise behind me. I turned to find Trent madder than I had ever seen him before. No longer did his eyes appear cold and soulless. I saw rage, pure fiery rage.

He dove onto the little girl and forced his knife into her and then let her drop as he pulled her dad over to him and disappeared with him into the path.

I went over to her. She was dying.

“Where is father…?” she forced out coughing, clinging onto me.

I figured I had already broken my oath once today, no harm in doing it again. So I started to answer, “He-”
But I was interrupted.

“Daddy said Father would keep us safe… h-help me, f-father…”

And then she went still. I let her drop again. I didn’t have time to process that information. Assuming Firecracker had taken out her first mark, there were still three more marks left and with Trent gone in such a huff I had to make sure they all went down before too much time had passed.

Fortunately Trent showed back up as his soulless empty self again and everyone signaled in their success. Besides that first encounter with Sally and her dad, there were no notable incidents to report.

I was curious why this group didn’t seem to have a base of some sort like the last one until I went back to investigate Sally’s house. I found their basement had been turned into a bunker complete with another small armory, an array of computers, and a table with a dissected body laying across it.

Further inspection confirmed my fears. Trent tried to hide it but I found a little mask in Sally’s room and another mask in her fathers. And then I barged in on Firecracker trying to hide away the other 4 masks form the other four marks. These people were proxies and apparently I was the only one who wasn’t aware of it.

Trent and Firecracker both drew their weapons.
I hadn't actually been planning to fight them but if they were so eager I was happy to oblige. I won’t get deep into the details of that one. The cliff notes are I tazed the shit out of Trent and planted my fist into Firecrackers gut and left her winded. With the stooges taken care of it was time to pay Fracture a visit.

I found him at our agreed rendezvous point interrogating Sally’s dad. He was quick to put a gag in his mouth when I came in.

“Shouldn’t you be out collecting information for me?”

I threw out Sally’s mask for him to see.

“I knew she was going to ruin this for me. It’s always the children with you Duckie, ever since Moth.”

I punched the wall hard at the mention of that name. He recoiled back, the memory of his beating fresh in his head.

“Settle down boy… that wasn’t intentional! Don’t hit me!”  he yelled as I cracked my knuckles.

“So you found out. So what? Does this change anything? I’m still the one who gives you your orders. Are you going to start questioning them again?”

I stopped.

“And it’s not as though we don’t have the Master’s blessing. I mean just look back at today. You saw me pop away. I couldn’t do that if I had fallen out of grace.”

I tilted my head.

“Confused? It’s because you’re still questioning and fighting things, still holding back which is so ironic coming from captain let lose! Just let go and be happy. I know your feelings on the Bureaucracy. I think it’s time you made good on expressing them without words like I know you like to.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why was this kept from me if you knew I would be on board?”

“For fun. I wanted to test all that conviction you like to claim you have. You’ve already started on this with me. Got to finish it now, isn’t that right?”

I punched the wall again. “…Yes.” And then left.

It’s bothersome how incredibly in my head he seems to be which wouldn't be half as bad if it wasn't for that insufferable fucking grin of his.

Back to work I suppose, I have an accidental rebellion to fight.
Ugly Duck out.

Quotes

“Quit memorizing everything I say you little shit.
Find your own voice.”
            -Sierra

So Trent’s post was a bust and Firecracker was nice enough to let loose that I’m not entirely on my ‘A’ game again. Last time I let either of those assholes post. I have been having trouble sleeping. Quite a lot of trouble sleeping actually. It seems like every other week I’m bitching about something new and painful or annoying. Patterns imply a human hand operating amongst the chaos.

Been having trouble thinking trying to sort this out. Then I realized the last few posts have had supposed quotes from a long dead runner, some stupid bitch who got taken out in the first month. I sat for a long time trying to figure out who the hell else would have known her. Staring at the quotes it occurred to me they were in italics. Only one bastard I know pretentious enough that he feels the need to type almost everything out in italics.

Fracture has tried to drug me in the past. He disappeared shortly before the trouble sleeping started. Worst yet italics. Also, there was that time he edited my posted while I was writing them. That I can’t take the quotes down means someone with his level of control over my blog probably did it.

Checked all over for a canister. Also checked for rashes or a needle scar. Then I realized my body won’t scar. I could have injections all over and possibly never know it!

Need someone to watch me sleep. Can’t trust Firecracker or Trent, Fracture brought them in. To many untrustables. Filthy runners. Murderous proxies. Going to start moving around to see if I can’t get away from him.

Left the list in my room. I expect Firecracker and Trent to keep hunting.
I’m off to find Salome. Peace. Just enough until it stops.

Later.
Swan.

Runner Bullshit

---------------------------

Edit:

The following was posted over the course of two fits, the time it took for me to salvage the hard drive after the laptop was smashed at the end of the last fit, the time it took to transfer that to a new hard drive, the time it took for subject 926 to finalize his draft after all that, and the time it took for me to edit this draft with a disclaiming edit thereafter.

-Fracture

---------------------------

Edit: Edit: (?)

FUCK YOU!!!

-Swan (ß An additional fuck you! My name is nicer!)

---------------------------

FUCK, it hurts. FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK

THISISRUNNERBULLSHIT! I’m a proxy damn it! FFFUUCCCKKK

la, la la.

Getting ahead of myself. Let me scale back for a second or something. If I’m going to do this… I really should do it right. I’m going to take a page out of Captain Flying Rock Monster’s book and see if this isn’t easier if I try to tell it from the beginning. Keep in mind this is NOTFORFUCKINGYOU. This is for me. I need to figure out exactly what happened. Since Fracture is being extra useless this is last fucking alternative.

Since the crying has finally stopped, let’s begin.
I seem to be suffering from migraine inducing memory loss. That is to say, whenever I try to remember what the fuck happened I break out in sweat, migraines, crying, itches, and the urge to bang my head against the fucking wall. The brain pain starts whenever I try to remember anything that happened within the last, what I am assuming, 8 days and feel insanely worse the later into that time period the thing I am trying to remember is.

Roughly two days after my first post, which is about two days before that fucking painful 8 day period, I finally managed to catch Fracture off guard at the hotel. I slugged him and when he turned to face me I slammed my shovel down on top of his skull. Then we stared each other down until I was sure he knew we were good and even and left after slugging him again. I think he went to deal with his bleeding scalp. On another happy note, I spent much of the next two days throwing lit firecrackers at Firecracker because it freaks her the fuck out. Ha ha. She gets so mad.

Two days later (Fuck, I can already feel the fucking migraine start to kick in.), Fracture had me call everyone together for some stupid fucking meeting in my room. Using the book I brought back, Fracture had managed to determine the location and goals of that stupid fuck Kreeger and his stupid fucking cronies. Apparently those sick fucks had been collecting children being watched by the master and were gathering them in some shack in the fucking woods of all places in an effort to force the master in a place of their fucking choosing for a fight. They corralled the little shits by way of tranquilizer or something. It hurts a little to draw on specifics... um... the stun stick. Fracture gave me a new toy.

“I’m hoping to brin(FUCK)g some of these bastards back alive. To help you with your little killing prob(FUCKFUCKFUCK)lem, I had this made.”itswas astupid fuckingstunstick shapedlikeaknife with ahiltand everythingthat goesoff whenever you presstheknife part to anything.

FUCK. Fuckfuckfuck! Why the fuck did I do that to myself. QUIT CRYING YOU FUCKING PUSSY!

… La, la la, la la, la…

And there went the TV out the window. Fortunately, the fire escape caught it.
I’m going to go ahead and move forward and we’ll see if I can’t finish this without throwing anything else out the window. Just in case though, I have Fracture with me this time so if I do snap I won’t break anything important in the room. I’ll just break him.

So we picked up and went to Kreeger’s group’s stupid fucking hideout. First by car, FUCK, and then walking, sneaking, elephant. Once fucking close Fracture did some recon. The children were… god damn it, in the fucking basing in a giant fucking cage of all motherfucking things. Seriously, what the fuck. Nine. 2 up, 5 mid, 2 down. Firec and Tren wnet top. Frac bot. I waited 5, charged mid.

IFYOULETTHEMHURTTHOSEFUCKINGKIDSI”LLENDYOU

whatever

Clear

Clear

Clear

... (That one was trent.)

They missed one. Down thestairs. Firecrackerlookout!

THISISNOTFUCKINGACCEPTABLE!whathappened,whathappened,whathapstopfuckingcryingandjustfuckingrememberalreadypagoha[hj]aeoargnargbuinbzfkj;agbjoleri[oaoBlackbloodaerop;aasgnoFUCK

…la, la la…

And after that I broke my laptop… on Fracture I think. I’m not sure. I think he might have moved. In which case I probably broke it on the desk. Fuck, I’m rambling.

I spent several hours looking over what I wrote to try to figure out what the fuck happened which also hurt but not nearly as much as remembering and writing it did. I… think I have a better understanding of what happened, except Firecracker isn’t dead or even hurt so, oww, sure something happened there. Fucking headache flares up at the simple fucking thought of that. ThefucKWHY...

Not even sure how we got back. Those fuckers much have fucking carried me back. And I noticed something on that end note. What in the fuck does FUCK. Ow. I’ll try to type this fast.

blackblodo

FUKFUCKFUCK.

…mmean. Why do those two words hurt so fucking much to think about…

…La, la la…

I should stop before I break something again.

On a closing note, according to Fracture, all of the kids made it out alive and have been returned to... umm... somewhere? I'm assuming their homes or wherever the master was storing them. We also didn't manage to bring any of Kreeger's gang back alive which suits me just fine. Fuck those assholes, seriously. They deserved it. Fracture says the book only had ten names in it so with any luck that is the end of them.

God damn it! Even this tertiary crap is hurting my head to think about.

I can’t take anymore fucking crying,
Ugly fucking Duck out.

Fear

“Hello [Deleted].”

“Every time Fracture, every single time. Can’t let it die. One of these days someone is going to hear you and I will kill you. I will fucking bleed you dry.”

“Can we just get this session started, Mr. [Deleted]?”

“Bleed you dry!”

“I’m just going to assume that’s a yes… So where are we on your old little catch phrase?”

“My catch phrase, F?”

“Yes, your catch phrase. That stupid little thing you constantly used to say to justify your emotional disconnection.”

“I don’t recall.”

“I think it went something like, ‘Attachment is a weakness’, right? ‘I don’t miss my squad, such attachment is a weakness.’ ‘I had to give up moth, such attachment is a weakness.’ ‘I’m not sorry about what happened to Picasso, concern is attachment and that would be a weakness.’ … I think my favorite was that last one. You really had to start twisting your own words to make that fit. And I think you cried over-OWOWOWOW”

“Fracture, what did I say?”“That you’d kill me?”“Yes, I will skin you. Slowly. And then feed your skin to you!”

“You’re so afraid of your secrets getting out [Deleted].You're so attached to them. It’s almost like they're a wea-OWOWOW.”

“I WILL KILL YOU.”

“Calm down.”

[About 15 minutes of growling later, Duckie finds himself back in his seat and I find myself only mildly bleeding.]
“So… does that saying still hold true?”

“…True enough.”

“How’s Ember?” [This comment was followed by Duckie throwing a chair at me.]
“I can see I hit a nerve.”

“I think I’m done with this conversation.”

“Same goes for the squad you refused to send out for the first week you had them. Are you suddenly afraid of people dying on you? That sounds like a weakness.”

“Does this have a fucking point, F?”

“I just need to know if this is an issue or not. You’re not known for adjusting well to things… especially not to your own decisions. I’m not entirely sure how but I somehow predict this will also end in blind rage and your death. I’m just worried [Deleted].”

“Blah, blah, blah, threats. I hear you, ass. Are we done?”

“I suppose.”

[At this point Duckie walked over to his closet and pulled out shovel. I… well let’s just leave it at I left.]

I can smell your fear Duckie and that means they can smell it too. Tread lightly.
Fracture out.

Leading is Hard

First off, I am impressed with Fracture. He seems to have recovered from whatever was in the cylinder rather fast. Granted I haven’t seen a lot of him around, he keeps sneaking of to somewhere. But when I do see him he is chipper and impatiently awaiting orders.

That brings us to the more title related topic; I’m struggling with this order giving thing. It’s kind of a pain in the ass. I realize the merits of team work and getting shit done faster and more effectively but when I look at my squad I really want to just tell them to go home and then hunt the marks myself.

I mean, what if they do it wrong? What if the mark gets away? What if they get the wrong person? What if they miss something important on the corpse?

Fracture tells me that it’s my job to train them to make sure they do it right. I was unaware leading them made me their mentor as well. That can’t be right. No one trains collectors. You get the list and you figure it out or die. That’s really what it comes down to. Besides, the idea of training my own replacement kind of sickens me. If I’m going to be replaced I’d prefer it be by someone who found the strength by their own merit.

In fact the more I think about it the more I think that is what this really is. They are having me train my own replacements. I want to go run the both of them through and see if either of them are worthy of that. I already know Firecracker isn’t. I don’t hold high prospects for mister never talks ever.

I… need to calm the fuck down.

So I’ve been doing all the hunting on my own. I think that was the point I was trying to get out. The list is getting out of hand though. Four red marked names came up last night, each with the same 24 hour time limit. That is insanely unheard of in my experience. I've never seen anything listed beyond a yellow and I certainly had lots more time to deal with the situation than this.

I can’t get all of them, they are too spread out. I think Fracture might have fucked with my list to create this situation. I mean he can apparently have my list locked out, I don’t see why he couldn’t fuck with its listings. I’m sending Firecracker and Trent to deal with the two out of town marks, Fracture is going to track one of our local names for us, and I’m going take out the remaining guy with the bold printed name. “Creeger.”

Fracture, I swear to god if I find out you are fucking with my list I will break your legs again.

No more time to waste writing.
It’s time to kill Creeger.
Swan out.

Squad Member 03 - 'Trent', Ember, and Fracture's fractured face!

Live a lie, live a lie, live a lie.

Catchy.

I have quite a bit to cover today so let us see what I can blow through.
First, I am not only doing better but I was never really sick. I was in fact, lying. I pretended I was unwell because I found what turned out to be a drug filled cylinder thing in my room and I wanted to prompt who ever did it to act.

I was a little surprised by who actually showed up. Fracture did this of all people. I didn’t give him a chance to explain. I bashed his face in with the can thingy and then opened it in his face. He started babbling and shit. I locked him in his hotel room until he sobered back up. He was rather bitter when he came down from that. I had never seen Fracture glare before. He is like a giant pouty little girl. I couldn’t figure out if he was more upset at me or at himself for failing as hard as he did, my money is on himself.

He stopped his leering when he realized it wasn’t working. Went back to that irritating grin of his…

Fracture also showed up with my final squad member who was instrumental in locking Fracture in his own room. I don’t know who he is. He refuses to take his mask off, which I can respect. I use to do that. I figure he must be someone that I literally burned at some point which is far too many people to start guessing at. He also doesn’t talk or really do anything. He just sits there staring at shit. It’s definitely not whisper, whisper was taller.

He and Firecracker seem to be getting along. In the way that he will just sit there and stare at her and she’ll talk at him for like an hour. I had forgotten how much she liked to talk before I destroyed her life. Glad I have a shell of man to sit in front of her for her to talk to. Although, I think he’s just going to snap at some point and start beating the shit out of her.

Can’t ever really tell what’s going to happen with the quiet ones. I mean, they say still waters run deep but I hear there is nothing but weird shit in the Mariana Trench. I’ll have to keep an eye on him.
I think I’m going to call him Trent.

In other news, I slipped off to go truck flipping with my friend Ember and her partner west. I think they thought I was going to hit West with the truck. I seriously just wanted to flips some trucks. We flipped two trucks on top of each other and lit that bitch on fire. I was a fun group outing. I think Ember really needed it too. Ember’s been rather depressed again…

So I bested Fracture, got the rest of my squad together, and got to spend the afternoon doing stupid shit with my best friend.

It’s been a great week.
Swan Out!

Squad Member 3 - Firecrackers in the... Fog?

It’s so foggy… I don’t understand… am I killing someone right now?
I should be covered in blood if I was…
Why am I…?

…

Firecracker… I’m supposed to be talking about Firecracker.

La, la la… FOCUS.

… la la, la la, la la la, la, lala, la la.

She’s my new squad mate. She is not new though… although she stopped… trying to kill me. She’s still so angry though. Her furious grimace when she looks at me… is piercing.

Blah, blah, blah. Fucking spit it out already. It’s Picasso. Fracture showed up with her earlier at… some point? She said she forgives me… I was afraid she had lost her fire.  I said… something, and she punched me so I’m pretty sure she still has it. To keep tradition with Fracture, I renamed her Firecracker after… that cold angry bitch. Fitting…

I should explain why she glued pieces of her mask to her face when she was hunting me…
It’s a practice the Maskless had instead of wearing masks… there was all kinds of symbolism and rules and other stupid shit to it. They could tell… if you were really one of them based on how the pieces were attached… Even told them your job and purpose and shit…. So she did that to try to piss me off. Guess that’s my fault for telling her about them before the incident with her brother…Fucking words… ruining faces…

It looks good on her I guess… scary… kind of… maybe…?

She punched me again this morning…

“YoU LooK like sHit,” she said.
“Fuck you too.”

And then she punched me. I don’t know that I deserved that one…? Maybe I said it wrong?

Never got along with the last Firecracker either…
I can remember us fighting. I was so much shorter then… right?

...

“Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?” she asked. Her tone was different. I thought she had something serious to talk about.

“Uh,… sure I guess?” I said from behind my mask. I was still ugly then. My face… so torn. I had to wear my mask at all times. Felt cold without it… I followed her out into the hallway.

She thought for a few seconds and rubbed her arms. It looked like something was wrong. “I was just thinking… could we go out? I’ll even let you do that thing you do with marking masks if you promise not to ruin it.”

I had to study her for a minute… she was so pretty… but I knew better. People are ugly. “You're fucking with me, aren't you?”

She stopped for a minute… that piercing scowl… “Of course I am. Who could ever like your fugly ass Mr. Ugly fuck.”

That was really my fault for thinking… she had something important to say to me…

And it was really her own fault she fell down the stairs. I mean, who is stupid enough to pull that kind of shit in front of a stairway…? Just took one quick push…

She wasn't nearly as pretty with that gash on her face… although it left a pretty scar later… cold bitch…

...

WHY THE FUCK IS IT SO FOGGY!!

I need to lie down… sleep it out. Fog is a disadvantage… can’t see them coming…

Mr. Fugly Fuck out… or something…

Squad Member 01 - The man I named 'Fracture'

What is in a name? Is it a mold by which an identity is shaped and formed? Or is it simply something that we call something by?

Does it not become something more when we refer to new things in terms of old names? Are people more apt to fight the nature of a title they are branded or are they more likely to mold themselves to fit the title they have been identified as? Are they not both molded in different ways than regardless of how they chose to react?

These thoughts… these, dreams… these are the dreams I dream when I am left on my own.

I have a confession to make, one I’m sure Fracture himself is already well aware of since he has access to my file. There was another Fracture before him. A man I fought for and would have died for if I had only ever been given the opportunity. A man whose mark I still bare on every mask I wear long after he died a lengthy four years ago. He was my squad leader and we called him Fracture much like I call my demented shrink Fracture.

It was not a name I wanted to give him but that first day he showed up with his broken little legs and tried to tell me his real name he managed to get out the letter ‘F’ before I could shut him up with a good punch in the face. Eager to shut him up I branded him the first ‘F’ name that came to mind.

At first I was mad at him because he was this weak sniveling wimp who in no way deserved the title I had branded him. Now I hate him because he is an evil twisted farce of the original Fracture. At least, that is why I hate him as far as the name I gave him is concerned. I hate him for a lot of other reasons too.  The biggest reason is because of this fucking smile. It irks me to no end.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fracture has been in and out of our hotel room a lot lately. He says he’s been trying to setup all the finer details of my squad’s formation to make sure it goes through properly. I don’t know why he keeps stopping by to see me though. I figure he must be checking up on me.

Fracture is apparently going to be a ‘subordinate’ in my squad for the duration of its function. That conversation went a little like this:

“What the fuck are you going to be able to bring to the squad exactly? Are you going to pull up a chair and psychobabble at them mid hunt? I’m sure that’ll do us loads of good.”

“Besides being a therapist for you and the other members, I’m going to be your guy’s watcher. It was my primary function during my time spent with a squad before I was promoted to handler.”

“The fuck is a watcher going to do for us?”

“Find, track, and feed you information on a mark until such a time that you or one of your squad mates can make it to the scene to slice them open.”

“Why the fuck can’t you just slice them while you have them in your sights?”

“Because I’m trained to keep tabs on people, not to bring them down. I’m not a talented violent tard like you. Killing may come naturally to you but not everyone can do the things you do. If an opportunity presents itself I’ll take out the mark myself but on the whole that’s really your responsibility.”

At that point the conversation became a lot less vocal. I slugged him for calling me a tard and was about to leave to end the conversation on that note when suddenly he slugged me back…

I slugged him again harder and he slugged me back harder still. At some point we just started beating on each other. He certainly looks a lot worse for wear than I do. He may find he regrets his decision to punch me back but I’m proud of him. Because it’s not whether or not you win a fight, it’s about the fight itself. Fracture comes off as far too much of a snake to really work with on a hunt, but it’s good to see he has at least a little fight in him. Unfortunately, he’s a wimp and is going to lose all of his fights.

To bad he can’t creepy smile his opponents into submission,
Swan out.

Squad Member 00 - 'The Ugly Duck'

“H-he’s controlling you! You have to fight it!”
- A Runner

“Do you see an arm up my ass? This is me stabbing you! This is me laughing!”
- A Younger Swan

Ah, fond memories from a simpler time. I’ve really mellowed out since then, although I’m sure it’s hard for anyone reading this to imagine a more violent less stable me…

So I decided I’m going to introduce each squad member for Mask Squad with a post detailing my thoughts on them. Then I realized I was going to need to make a post for myself since I am going to be a part of my own squad. Not that I actually care to share who I am with a bunch of random assholes. Fracture says everything we say screams volumes about ourselves. So instead I’m just going to ramble and talk at you all.

First, I’d like to take a moment to declare the farce that is the united union of proxies under the bureaucracy. Hehe, that immediately got a yellow light. My greatest problem with it, with the exception of the people themselves because proxies are a bunch of bastards, is the name we’ve taken to. Proxy. It sounds so technical, just like the rest of the world has become in my absence.

I spent four years in what was roughly self isolation after my squad died. I came back to a world where my brothers somehow trusted each other enough to operate under one name and the assholes on the other side of the phone had taken to calling themselves the bureaucracy. Our heritage and traditions twisted further than they ever were before into business practices and an agenda…

I my day, we called ourselves masks. There were others, brothers all the same, who called themselves other things. They were Knives, Agents, the Hallowed, the Black Leaves, his Gentlemen, the Children, and those assholes, the Maskless. That’s just to name the few I had actually heard of. It’s funny now that the name Hallowed is synonymous with the hollowed. I don’t know that it’s true, but I just picture those self righteous assholes doing something so bad that the Master hollowed out all of them.

Back then some runners, as I’ve seen some of them that don’t blog still do, kept journals. They were little trophies to be claimed for our kills. I remember sitting down and reading them with our squad mates. That was how we found other runners and figured out how runners were changing as we changed. How they were adapting so we could counter adapt. People still had code names then. It was interesting seeing how often a runner would find another runner. It was funnier still when they fought with each other.

Although I guess the same could be said about us, both then and now. I knew proxies who kept journals. I personally thought that was the stupidest thing in the world… now I keep one online for the world to fucking see. Oh, how far I’ve fallen. And of course we fought and still fight each other. I don't imagine that will ever change. I don't know that I would want it to.

The point is, I can’t let go of the past. That time when we were not this thing we have become is very much still with me. That’s why I’ve named my squad the Masks, in honor of my old squad.

Ramble out.
Swan