Post by mitch53macht on Aug 26, 2017 22:42:00 GMT -5
A force of wills
I remember hearing the door getting beat down. I remember my mother being dragged out of the living room. The same fate awaited me. A man, mostly in black, grabbed my little frail body by the neck, and dragged me along like I was nothing. Mind you I was only nine years old when this happened. Back then I had nothing to worry about, living in our relatively peaceful town. That all changed in an instant though. While I was being dragged away I struggled getting out of the man's grip. My Pokemon, who was still a Shroomish back then, watched as he gathered the courage to attack the man who was dragging away his trainer. It's quite demoralizing when you see your Pokemon trying to defend it's trainer with all it's might, but it simply gets beatdown in an instant by a human's fist. It laid there, unconscious, in a corner. I think it felt the same way as how I felt when I saw my mother being dragged away.
I saw, when I was brought outside, that I shared the same fate as many others. We were gathered in the town square around the clock tower. We were rounded up, expecting something to happen. A man, most likely the leader behind this operation, gave a speech of some sort. To me, it ended up being white noise. I saw some people, some of which I knew, join the men in black. I believe some of those men who joined them were mining colleagues of my dad. He was nowhere to be seen, though. Maybe he was across the town square? Maybe he was in a different town altogether. I had no clue, but that was the least of my worries. The only thing that I could see was my mother next to me just telling me over and over again that it was going to be alright. I am not sure if that was for her or for me because to me it was all white noise. One of the men in black came up to us and shouted that my mother needed to stop talking and sobbing. The first she did, the latter she couldn't.
I'll teach you one thing here, right now and if I were you, I would listen to it carefully. You do not, whatever happens, punch someone when he or she is down. The thing was, back then, it was exactly what happened. The man in black who stood towering next to us thought of it as the best way of shutting a sobbing woman up. Beating her when she was already down. She got kicked once… twice… just over and over again. You don't think at that point, when you're mother is being kicked repeatedly while on the ground, you don't think, you act. So I did. Time slowed down for me as I grabbed the nearest rock and gave the man a good beating to the head with it. To be clear, I do not regret doing that, even though it lead to something quite unpleasant.
The next course of action from the men in black was most likely a display of power, at least that's what I thought of it. I was probably only a minor hiccup in their scheme. Tsk... it's hard to feel powerless. The man on the stage noticed me causing a ruckus and called his henchmen over to bring me up to the podium. When I got up on the stage the leader started speaking again. "See this little man? This is what we need more of in our society, not just cowards that hide behind their wealth, but people who stand up for the weak". To be honest even while praising me I couldn't stand his face. "However" he continued “we can not let this go unpunished can we? I admire your courage little boy, but we won’t allow interference”. He grabbed a knife and the next thing I felt was a searing pain on the right side of my face. God that hurt… The scars still do, he didn’t even have the decency to sharpen his knife: it was blunt, which made it hurt even more. I was released and fell to the ground, heck I wasn’t even able to move for a good minute. I just felt weak. My Shroomish got beat down, my mother got beat down, I couldn’t even protect myself. Now I have to live with the results of it.
Let’s fast forward a bit. 8 years later I joined the army, this by the way was after everything went to shit. Most of the fight was over by then, but not for me. No, I knew that a lot of them were still out there. So I trained, and together with my Pokemon, we resolved to become stronger, not only to protect ourselves but the ones we care about too. The training paid off: I graduated at the top of my class and I got quite the position in the army. We had missions, mostly recon though, which to be honest was quite boring.
Let’s fast forward another 22 years. I was 38 and finally the day came, the day which people all were waiting for, our new government system got created. They called it a “guild system”, which, to simplify it, involves small units, called guilds, which people with similar aims could join so as to help collectively achieve our guild’s aims. There was a catch, though: we had to choose a side, one affiliated with those of the government, and one with those of the old rebellion. Both of them were still around, both of them reformed of course since, well…the answer to that should be quite logical. We were promised influence as long as we served our faction. Tasks could come in multiple forms, but the main one of course was taking over territory. People's age old greed for land, of course.
This system was announced on that day and even though it looked to have a lot of flaws, people cheered. Why? Well first of all, everyone was happy with change, and second of all, I expect guilds to become cheap entertainment, in other words keeping the citizens busy. The factions said that they were going to start hosting these tournaments called territory wars. You know war is terrible, but make it a controlled battle and suddenly it’s entertainment.
Despite how screwed up this all is, I applied. I got accepted, and now here I stand writing this memo. I’ll give you one thing away about my guild and one thing only: you do not beat down the weak and if you do, we’ll find you.
I remember hearing the door getting beat down. I remember my mother being dragged out of the living room. The same fate awaited me. A man, mostly in black, grabbed my little frail body by the neck, and dragged me along like I was nothing. Mind you I was only nine years old when this happened. Back then I had nothing to worry about, living in our relatively peaceful town. That all changed in an instant though. While I was being dragged away I struggled getting out of the man's grip. My Pokemon, who was still a Shroomish back then, watched as he gathered the courage to attack the man who was dragging away his trainer. It's quite demoralizing when you see your Pokemon trying to defend it's trainer with all it's might, but it simply gets beatdown in an instant by a human's fist. It laid there, unconscious, in a corner. I think it felt the same way as how I felt when I saw my mother being dragged away.
I saw, when I was brought outside, that I shared the same fate as many others. We were gathered in the town square around the clock tower. We were rounded up, expecting something to happen. A man, most likely the leader behind this operation, gave a speech of some sort. To me, it ended up being white noise. I saw some people, some of which I knew, join the men in black. I believe some of those men who joined them were mining colleagues of my dad. He was nowhere to be seen, though. Maybe he was across the town square? Maybe he was in a different town altogether. I had no clue, but that was the least of my worries. The only thing that I could see was my mother next to me just telling me over and over again that it was going to be alright. I am not sure if that was for her or for me because to me it was all white noise. One of the men in black came up to us and shouted that my mother needed to stop talking and sobbing. The first she did, the latter she couldn't.
I'll teach you one thing here, right now and if I were you, I would listen to it carefully. You do not, whatever happens, punch someone when he or she is down. The thing was, back then, it was exactly what happened. The man in black who stood towering next to us thought of it as the best way of shutting a sobbing woman up. Beating her when she was already down. She got kicked once… twice… just over and over again. You don't think at that point, when you're mother is being kicked repeatedly while on the ground, you don't think, you act. So I did. Time slowed down for me as I grabbed the nearest rock and gave the man a good beating to the head with it. To be clear, I do not regret doing that, even though it lead to something quite unpleasant.
The next course of action from the men in black was most likely a display of power, at least that's what I thought of it. I was probably only a minor hiccup in their scheme. Tsk... it's hard to feel powerless. The man on the stage noticed me causing a ruckus and called his henchmen over to bring me up to the podium. When I got up on the stage the leader started speaking again. "See this little man? This is what we need more of in our society, not just cowards that hide behind their wealth, but people who stand up for the weak". To be honest even while praising me I couldn't stand his face. "However" he continued “we can not let this go unpunished can we? I admire your courage little boy, but we won’t allow interference”. He grabbed a knife and the next thing I felt was a searing pain on the right side of my face. God that hurt… The scars still do, he didn’t even have the decency to sharpen his knife: it was blunt, which made it hurt even more. I was released and fell to the ground, heck I wasn’t even able to move for a good minute. I just felt weak. My Shroomish got beat down, my mother got beat down, I couldn’t even protect myself. Now I have to live with the results of it.
Let’s fast forward a bit. 8 years later I joined the army, this by the way was after everything went to shit. Most of the fight was over by then, but not for me. No, I knew that a lot of them were still out there. So I trained, and together with my Pokemon, we resolved to become stronger, not only to protect ourselves but the ones we care about too. The training paid off: I graduated at the top of my class and I got quite the position in the army. We had missions, mostly recon though, which to be honest was quite boring.
Let’s fast forward another 22 years. I was 38 and finally the day came, the day which people all were waiting for, our new government system got created. They called it a “guild system”, which, to simplify it, involves small units, called guilds, which people with similar aims could join so as to help collectively achieve our guild’s aims. There was a catch, though: we had to choose a side, one affiliated with those of the government, and one with those of the old rebellion. Both of them were still around, both of them reformed of course since, well…the answer to that should be quite logical. We were promised influence as long as we served our faction. Tasks could come in multiple forms, but the main one of course was taking over territory. People's age old greed for land, of course.
This system was announced on that day and even though it looked to have a lot of flaws, people cheered. Why? Well first of all, everyone was happy with change, and second of all, I expect guilds to become cheap entertainment, in other words keeping the citizens busy. The factions said that they were going to start hosting these tournaments called territory wars. You know war is terrible, but make it a controlled battle and suddenly it’s entertainment.
Despite how screwed up this all is, I applied. I got accepted, and now here I stand writing this memo. I’ll give you one thing away about my guild and one thing only: you do not beat down the weak and if you do, we’ll find you.