There Ain’t No Hope for the Hapless

…Those fuckers die easily. I just slit their throats and split their ribs, then I feed them to the bleeding tree!

Did you know hapless means unfortunate or unlucky? Yeah, neither did I. I was pretty sure it meant unskilled or something down that line of thought. Although, they say you make your own luck. In that respect a hapless person is probably an unskilled.  I of course mean unskilled in the respect of someone being a weak piece of shit. Fuck semantics. Fucking words.

Enough rambling, who remembers Nemesis?
I’d be surprised if anyone does at this point. He was kind of a foot note I left hanging a few months back at the request of the assholes who give me my orders. I killed his pet runner or some such shit. I saw him the other day.

That went something like this:

I was walking down the hallway. We don’t get much traffic; it’s just the four of us here after all. I could hear footsteps behind me. They were too heavy to be Firecrackers or Fractures. (Fracture walks like a little girl.) At the same time, they were lighter than Trent’s footsteps. (Trent also likes to drag his knuckles against the nearest wall when he walks for some reason.) Whoever was behind me wasn’t supposed to be here, probably. I slowed down a bit and pretended something ahead on one of the walls had caught my attention.

After a brief moment of changing pace I heard the footsteps speed up to further gain on me. When they got really close an unfamiliar voice called out ‘Black Blood’. I was ready for him though. I side stepped a stab and then grabbed by attackers forearm and slammed it hard into the nearest wall forcing him to drop his knife. I then jerk my arm back hard elbowing the attacker in his fugly fucking face and finally turned my head just enough to see who the fuck it was. I recognized the piece of shit immediately. I never forget the ones I intentionally let live; those fuckers always seem to show back up one way or another.

Without letting so much as a moment pass as to not give up my own moment, I grabbed his forearm again and slammed it against the wall harder. I couldn’t help but grin as I heard something snap confirming that his primary hand had been ruined. Too dazed from the Elbowing and far too busy screaming like a girl to properly respond, I spun behind Nemesis and bashed him hard in the back of the head with the hilt of my now drawn knife as I pulled a leg out from under him with my own leg. Fuck face fell hard on his fucking face. It didn’t take Nemesis more than a few seconds to start crawling forward weakly. It seemed he didn’t have much left anymore. Pity, I was just getting started.

I looked forward curious as to what exactly that idiot was crawling toward. His knife had flown a little ways down the hall to the other side of a chair Trent likes to keep there by his door for some reason. Further down the hall I could see Fracture standing there and watching, most likely drawn out by all the screaming. I felt my grin grow a little wider. I don’t particularly care for an audience but I wanted him to see this.

“Still trying to get your little revenge?” I asked him as I started walking toward him.

“Y-YOU’LL FUCKING PAY FOR WHAT Y-YOU FUCKING DID TO JENNET!” he yelled and crawled more desperately slowly getting closer to that chair. I could see him swelling with hope. Maybe this wasn’t over yet. ‘Maybe he’ll be too cocky and I can turn this around on him,’ I could imagine him saying. ‘Just a little further yet.’

“Oh?” I asked as I leaned over and slit his back open up the length of the left side of his spinal column in one swift motion. The pain stopped him in his tracks and left him cringing. “Your pet’s name was Jennet? Adorable,” I said as I walked ahead of him and stopped in front of the chair turning to face him.

“BLACK BLOOD!” he yelled before he started crawling again, slower now. “Wh-Why i-isn’t that w-working?!” he whined pleadingly, the desperation finally starting to show in his voice.

“You must have been reading me all this time,” I said as I started walking toward him again. “Studying your pray. How Commendable. I guess you do actually know how to hunt,” I told him as I leaned over and slit his back open up the length of the right side of his spinal column, but much slower this time to drag out the pain and the screaming. “Pity you suck at your job.”

I looked up at Fracture to see how he was enjoying his show. So cold was his grimace as he stood there watching intently taking in every word and every action. I could see Firecracker running towards me from behind him. She looked quite focused like a hell bent bitch on a mission. I’m not sure if she was going to help me or put an end to my show. I never found out. Fracture close lined her when she tried to pass sending her hard on her ass. I took the opportunity to get back to work. Fuck face had started crawling again. I followed again, this time keeping pace to his side.

“You’re just going to bleed yourself out if you keep pushing yourself like that,” I teased him.

“NOT BEFORE I KILL YOU!” he yelled with renewed hope and vigor in a mildly impressive display. ‘Just maybe,’ he must of thought. ‘Just a little further.’

“Just a little further,” I whispered to him. “Almost. Come on. This is for her. Redemption is just ahead.”

Before too long he found himself just out of reach of the chair’s leg. Just a little further and maybe he could pull himself forward to his knife and just maybe there would be a chance of winning this fight yet.

“You know, I just might have let you live. But I’m afraid you broke rule 926.”

“Oh?” he asked with a weak and failed attempt to laugh. “Wh-What rule i-is th-that?”

“Don't ever piss me off,” I informed him as I pulled his head back by his hair and slit his throat and saw the last of his fire drain from his eyes, his wrath and his passion now my burden to carry.

“What a lame line.”

“Don’t fucking start with me. I’m not here to amuse you,” I growled and got to work cleaning and resharpening my blade as I headed for my room. “Clean up this fucking mess and double check your security measures. I don’t want anymore of this shit getting through. Trent, check on Firecracker. Oh, and give Fracture a good slug. He did that to her.”

And then I disappeared into my room.

Good bye Nemesis. I hope you rot in hell.
Oh, for the record, rule 926:
‘Keep no pets. They will die on you.’

It’s in the handbook.
Swan out.

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.

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 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

The Fire

Driving is long, boring, and annoying. Especially when you’re the passenger and your driver is constantly trying to get in your head with his constant psycho babble and opinions.  
“But you don’t see the flaw in that logic? You have to give life its worth and mea-”

I couldn’t take another moment of Fracture’s incessant babbling. I started wailing on him trying my damnedest to slug him repeatedly in the same spot over and over again until he finally shut up. We damn near fucking crashed into another car. But we didn’t so it was worth it, so incredibly worth it. The silence was so sweet… for about the five minutes it took for me to grow tired of that too. Now I can’t get Fracture to talk again. He’s such a girl.

In light of all the nothing there is to do I thought I would make a post. But now that I’m actually doing this I realize the nothing has left me with nothing to post about. So I think I’m going to take this opportunity to explain what the Fire is. I reference it enough.

I can see Fracture growing concerned as I read aloud what I’m typing. I’m really not supposed to talk about the fire. It is, after all, blasphemy to the Bureaucracy. Let’s see how far Fracture will let me take this before he starts talking again…

Let’s began with the boring part.
Fire is the essence of chaos and the element best associated with passion and obsession. It is the element most like man. It breaths like we do. It eats like we do. Fire is also the only element capable of homicide as a well handled fire can be used to extinguish another fire. In this way the flame more than any other element is truly a brother to mankind. I believe this is why fire burns us so. Brothers tend to be complete dicks.

Here is where it gets a little more interesting.
In much the same way that fire lives like we do, fire also has a mind like we do and a spirit too. The mind… well the mind isn’t too important here. We don’t worship the mind. It calls for the destruction of all things through the consumption of all things and the rebirth of all man has ever known through pain and fire. Not a big fan of the mind. The mind is an asshole.

All the flavor in life dwells in the spirit. It is the spirit of fire we worship… well, it was. If you haven’t caught on by now this is a cult, specifically a long dead proxy cult.

You should hear Fracture screaming at me to stop now. He’s such a girl.
Unfortunately for him, nothing is going to stop this post. I refuse to let the cult die in its entirety.

These embers must remain.

The spirit of fire calls forth for all to embrace their passions. It tells us to love all that we do with a fiery fervor. Let lose your obsessions and live a beautiful life in hope that your beauty may inspire others to do the same. It offers immortality through the creation of a moment so beautiful it will be forever remembered through the course of human history.  Above all else the fire demands complete freedom in which to pursue its passions and expects all others to earn the freedom to pursue their own.

It is through the flame that proxies are taught that death does not have to be an ugly affair. As a flame burns beautifully on a man as it claims his life, so too can the death a proxy bares to its victims.

It is through the flame that true loyalty to the master is taught for the master cannot make you do something if you take a passion in serving him and willingly do his bidding. This is something I find lacking in most of my ‘brothers’ who would sooner serve only when it convinces them.

Most importantly, the fire teaches you that you will die and it will hurt as no light can burn true forever no matter how beautiful or brilliant. It is through service to the master that we must find our death. If our loyalty is true, the master will usher us to a death worthy of ourselves so we may find a moment in time where our wrath will make us eternal.

I believe there were more lesions but I never learned the rest.

We were shut down.
“The Bureaucracy doesn’t understand. They don’t understand because they don’t care. The fire calls for its followers to pull away from those who would oppress us and the Bureaucracy sees that as a threat. The common desire to better serve means nothing to them. They serve their own interests before our master!”

These were the last words of my first trainer. He was brought before the class by five masked men and lit on fire in front of his surviving students to be made an example of. He uttered those words while he burned.

…It was beautiful.