Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » Heroes Only Die (Finished)

Fourty years since the world felt the sting of the nuclear fall out. Seven billion people wupped out in the course of a one year war, but none of that mattered anymore. The last of humanity is now farming out of radioactive soil and fighting off mutated bugs, the only creatures other then us to survive the end. With the water all dried up the world is a giant sand storm of dust and thirst. Which is where Masteron comes in. Well Diggers are the only people left who hold the key to survival in their trucks. They dig for great untainted water that the last of society can survive on, but Well Diggers are rare now a days. Everyone is a Hunter, a farmer, a bandit, or a gunsmith. But no job is as important as the well digger, they are the last heroes.

Mars bike rested outside an old building, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It was here where the man has just found what seemed to be the last untouched bottle of whiskey in the world! "No way in hell," he said scooping up the bottle from the mess of broken glass and dried up booze around it. "My luck day!" Liquor now a days was half radioactive and utterly disgusting, but it did what it is supposed to... This however was different, an original bottle of Jack! "There's no way there is a cellar with more," the old man chuckled. He took his weapon off his shoulder, a large cannon launcher with the uncreated name "The Bad Wife." Mars looked for a cellar of some sort, he exited the building and looked out back.

The dust was beginning to collect on his one wheeled Dust Bike. The building was mostly rusted but was still standing. The metal and wood of a small town surrounded this little building, had it been a bar or a strange house of some sort? Opening a pair of metal clear doors he stood before a new door this one looked as if it were a bomb shelter. "Ain't this an odd sight if I ever seen one," Mars approached the titanium door and took a big breath of the dusty air before coughing. "Here goes a shit ton of nothin..." And with that Mars gave the door a heavy knocked, hearing it echo through the passage behind it. "Probably nothing," he examined the door that had no nob, "once more I suppose?" And another heavy knock vibe rated the steel and titanium around the door.

Life in the bunker was always the same. Wake up, eat, work, eat, spend time with other bunker-dwellers, eat, sleep, repeat. No one really remembered how long they'd been there, since all of their calendars were very old and outdated and none of their clocks worked anymore. It had ceased to matter to them anymore. Life underground was monotonous, with no sense of day or night except for their ingrained schedules that repeated every single day. In the bunker, everyone knew everyone and there were few secrets in the bunker. It was hard to keep a secret when everyone lived so close together and knew each other so well.

For Hayley Allan, having a secret meant hiding part of her face from everyone... all the time. She wore an eyepatch over her right eye, and the patch extended to cover a large area of skin around that eye, to hide whatever irregularities lay there. Since she'd been a small child, she'd worn it. Only her parents knew the face that lay beneath it, and it was probably for the better. Most other bunker-dwellers just presumed she was blind in one eye and that the sight of it was too horrible for anyone to want to see. With only one eye, she'd received a job that was more simple than the jobs that other people had gotten. She sorted their food stores, regularly. It was her job to count everything and make sure they had enough for the next month, and it was her job to ration things if food was running low. Producing new food was impossible in the bunker, so they relied on stores of old and preserved foods. Lately, the store was running lower and lower... but she didn't tell anyone except for the leader of the bunker-dwellers. Their little colony was going to run out of food soon... but no one dared to open the door to the outside world.

Life in the bunker was always the same... until that day. Hayley was heading back to the room she lived in with her parents when she heard the sound of banging against the door to the outside. BANG. BANG. Bang. The sound echoed down the large empty hall between their colony and the door. Freezing where she was, Hayley hesitated to move, uncertain what may be on the other side of the door. For a moment things were silent as if the entire bunker were holding its breath. And then the sound came again... BANG. BANG. Bang. Curiosity got the better of Hayley and she walked towards the great metal door that sealed them in. Hesitating briefly, she wasn't sure if she ought to open it or not. And to be honest, she didn't know how to open it.

It was another day in the baron wasteland they call earth, rivers dried up and oceans were too radioactive to drink from, now this is the world they created. Religious idiots always thought the world would end in supernatural ways, dead walking the lands, the sun lowering down to earth all that nonsense. If you ask Delilah, a 5th 5 gunslinger who can rack up a body count with a twitch of her finger, she'll say the apocalypse is now. If you didn't believe her, she'd beat it into ya, verbally with her silver tongue or the butt of her pistol. Either way she'd take half your things before you'd realise you've been robbed or hustled.

Delilah stopped right by another rust bucket similar to her own, a one wheeler. The owner was pretty sharp because he didn't keep anything on it. Delilah huffed, she was going to have to follow him in. "well, no use standing here" she said to herself... Oh! Delilah's also slightly crazy. She'd be darned if she didn't know that herself though. Delilah embraced her insanity, heck it gets lonely in the wastelands, you need someone to talk to, even if others see it as talking to herself. To Delilah, if she can talk to it, she'll talk.

"Alright Elvis" Delilah said kneeling down, she was talking to her dog "let's go boy" it was rare to have one and rich families, even now, had their own.

Delilah followed the man, her dog followed her, sneaking alongside her. Everytime she crept, her shoes would creek like a loose floor board. She needs to level up her sneak skills, or the dude needs to get his ears cleaned. Either way she was doing a terrible job.

Mars heard the bike pull up, a stranger was above him. And that scent. It was of something vile, and nasty, "Roach hound..." Mars gagged, this world had been devoid of animals for well over twenty years. They just couldn't survive in these conditions. But that being said, bugs and insects did thrive here. Some mutated to grow to the size of dogs and others to the size of bears or elephants. Most of these bugs were man eatting because of the lack of other food, but some are smaller insects then themselves. Some even ate wood, and a Roach Hound was just one of those.

Mars peaked his head out and looked inside the steel, titanium building from the outside. "There he is, that maggot munching dog..." The beast had six eyes and had an exoskeleton. It had small tuffs of hair poking out of its shells to smell it's surroundings as well. Four long legs with a short pair of two spike looking legs dangling in the middle. It had a tail that looked to be all shell, and no ears. It heard and smelled using the hair coming from its body. It was then that the beast turned it's head towards the window, clicking it's pincer mouth repeatedly showing someone was there.

"Damn," Masterson cussed under his breath, his weapon was still inside. The roach jumped threw the glassless window and began to run towards Mars! If only he had his Bad Wife, he could just blow the beast to bits but it was still in the bar, all he had was the whiskey bottle and he wasn't about to throw that! His bike was on the otherside of the building, so instinctively he ran back to the cellar doors and slammed them behind him. Locking the pair as the roach hound began to claw at the steel and metal. Whiskey in one had, fist in the other Mars gave the grand titanium door a heavy knock for a third and final time, "hey!" He yelled at the metal, "it be rather grand if I could get some assistance out here!"

Looking for a way to get that great big door open, Hayley grunted to herself. It was hard with one eye in the dimness of the tunnel as the lights dimmed to signal it was time to sleep. She tugged off her eyepatch and shoved it into her pocket. With the second eye's worth of vision, she was able to find a panel on the wall that she hadn't noticed before. Yanking it open, she groaned in frustration to realize that the entire thing was rusted over beyond all use. Clearly someone hadn't bothered to maintain it... perhaps with the intent of never leaving the bunker. "Damn it." She punched the panel in frustration. Nothing. Looking around the tunnel, she searched for a way to get the door open... but she couldn't see anything. Desperate, Hayley ran back down the tunnels to find something, searching frantically for something. There had to be something to get that door open.

As she stepped into the room she lived in with her family, her eyes rested on the crowbar that her father kept in case of stray insects. "Yes." She whispered, slipping across the room to grab it. Briefly, she glanced at her bed and her things. No... she had no time for that. Turning, she slipped back out of the room with the crowbar gripped tightly in one hand.

Sprinting back down the hallways, she heard the banging repeat itself once more. She reached the big metal door and shoved the crowbar between the door and the wall and started to pry it open with a loud groan and the screeching of metal being dragged across metal. Getting a couple of inches, she paused to catch her breath. Then, she strained again, getting the door to screech open another foot. Peeking out of the opening, she put her patch back over her right side of her face. "Hello?"

Delilah approached the hound and kneeled down besides it "Heel Elvis" she said and the Roach hound slowed its scratching to a halt. it jut circled her once and sat besides her "I swear i smell whisky, don't be a hog and pass me some" she said leaning against the door. She held her 9MM tight, waiting for the guy to make a wrong move.

"Will you stop hassling the boy D, You don't need to drink that crap anyway" a male voice said, it came from behind her, a man was there, looking around, he wore a bandanna to keep his blonde hair under control.
"Psh" Delilah Waved him off "Jayce this boy has a bottle of whisky, i ain't gunna pass that up"
"You're already crazy" the Blonde fella appeared besides her "I mean, Who on earth smells Whisky in a wasteland like this?" The dude said drifting away like smoke and then reappearing near the Roach hound. The blonde guy was sat there looking at her "In any case, this'll be fun to watch"
"There's nothing wrong ith making new friends right guy?" she said to Mars, her ear pressed to the door

Behind him was a blood thirsty Roachhound and crazy woman talking someone or herself, and in front of him was a door sealed shut by... It opened. Just a crack but it was open. A crowbar peaked through and opened it a hair more, enough for Mars to hear a timid greeting but not yet open enough to see a face. "Open it up girlie," his fingers gripped the edge of the door and began to pull, slightly causing the door to creek. Noises outside caused Mars to yank a bit harder finally revealing the girl inside. She looked short and shy, one of her eyes was off in his opinion it was as if it was flickering in the dark.

"We're are the weapons at lass?" Mars was in his late fifties, early sixties. Very muscular arms and body with fatter legs to hold him up. His mustache kissed his beard just halfway down his cheek and that lead to a scruffy path that covered all his neck. "Well get a move on," Mars said pushing past the girl into the bunker, "Masterson," he said quickly turning around and extending his chubby free hand to the girl for her to shake. He kinda looked a bit as Santa clause would if santa had lived threw the end of the world and decided to dress like a cow boy might. "How about those weapons..?"

((Her right eye is covered by an eyepatch, he can't see it))

Realizing that it was a human outside the door, Hayley felt a little braver about opening the door. When the man outside pulled on the door, she did her best to push the door further open with the crowbar. Once it was open enough that he could easily come in, she let her arm drop to her side, still holding the crowbar. "Weapons?" She asked, a little puzzled. The bunker had weapons, but they were hidden behind a locked door in the back of the storeroom. It would be hard to get that door open without some force or the key.

Santa was something Hayley would've never heard of, but all the same the man looked pretty odd to her. She sidestepped when he pushed past her. "But..." While she wanted to protest, she couldn't find it in herself to do so. Shaking his hand slightly, she offered her own introduction. "Meredith... bunker stockkeeper. Uh... weapons are behind a locked door... I'm not sure where the key is." She'd never been given the key for that door. "I'll show you to the door though." Turning, she started making her way, half-blindly, down the hallway back into the bunker.

Delilah pressed her ear against the metal door "you there guy?" she waited, no reply "That whisky is going to be in my belly one way..." she kicked the door open, the lock busted off on the inside "...Or another" she looked around and saw another door open.
"Here she goes again" Jayce said looking at Elvis, Elvis looked back, sharing the insanity that is, his owner's. Both the roach hound and blonde boy dropped their heads in annoyance "D, That was a little over dramatic don't you think" Jayce said to her appearing next to her, looking directly at half open door with his hands on his hips "You're doing this for a bottle of whisky, lass you're losing it" he said appearing in front of her, every time he appeared somewhere he'd form together from smoke in the wind.
"Jayce, i'm getting that bottle. Screw finder's keepers" what else was he thinking she was going to say, this woman WANTED that whisky. Delilah walked though him causing him to scatter into colourful ash which disappeared into the dark bunker.

Elvis crawled alongside his owner, his legs pitter-pattering on the ground "Where are you Cowboy?" She called out, peeking into the the bunker. Her left eye checking to see if it was clear "Just give up the bottle, that's it. The bottle for your life, either way i'm getting the damn bottle!" She yelled in frustration and twirling her gun on her index finger, she SOOOO WANTED that booze. "Jayce this kinda reminds me of the time i shot you in the foot. I was drunk, you were frisky"
"Oh cmon, it was once, let it go"
"i will let it go as soon as it stops being funny" she laughed at her friend who was walking alongside her, his hands tucked in his pockets and his cheeks turned a rosy red.
"Did you hear that?" Jayce's head shot in the direction of a heavy door being forced open
"Yea, i did..." She quickly pointed her gun on that direction. Her finger lightly resting on the trigger.

The bunker door had been left open a crack, Mars wasted no time in busting down the weapon storage which was mostly filled with tasers and other such items. Small pistols, bats, maces, daggers and at the back wall of the closet like area was a single crate with the US flag stamped on it hidden under the dust of the crate. "What do we have here," he was in the closet only a moment more as people from the bunker began congregating at their front doors. some looked outside at the woman who peaked into the bunker, the others looked at the older heavy gentleman rummaging threw the weapon supply closet. But all at once the crowds rabble was over powered by two sound... First came the yelling of the woman outside taking to herself, but then came the heavy laugh of Masterson, "clear the hall Meredith my girl!!!" A laugh erupted from the man as he rested the now half empty whiskey bottle next to his boot.

Lifting a fully loaded mini-gun into the air with both hands people retreated into their bunker homes, the revving began softly at first the sped up to the pace of a quick swirl and bullets began to rain forward blowing the gear door off of it's hinges and into the dusty outside world! The woman's incessant talking was drowned out by the bullets raining from the back room and the insane laughter of the man firing them. stray bullets tore up the area around the door but from what he could tell he hadn't hit any of the bunker dwellers. The revving slowed and Mars clicked a lever dropping the first line of bullets. The crate had been stuffed with two lines of fifty and as he completed setting the second line into the firing chamber he gave a shout out. "Still alive?"

Delilah got up from cover, 3 bullet wounds in her left shoulder, arm and forearm arm. If she'd been any slower he would've taken her whole arm off. The bullet skimmed her forearm causing a minor flesh wound but the other two went clean through "You fat bastard!" she yelled holding her shoulder, blood gushing from the wounds "I'm gunna slaughter you" she hissed through her teeth.

She looked at the 2 bodies that lay on the ground... "you monster... You killed two boys..." her eyes widened in despair, a single tear escaped her right eye. They looked to be 10-14, maybe they were curious to see what the commotion was about. They saw first hand.

"oh my god" Jayce said kneeling down besides the boys, their mangled and bullet ridden bodies lay waste in a pool of blood "kill him, this is... Monstrous..."
"Jayce, I'm gunna skin him alive" she took her pistol and ran through the bunker dwellers homes "you shoot me now, you might kill someone else, but what does it matter to you? You already killed two kids in cold blood" she yelled at him sneaking through the homes, getting closer to him each house she passed through.

Hayley pressed herself against a wall as the shots rang out, and rapidly the dwellers of the bunker retreated into their homes, slamming doors, and not welcoming any of the strangers in. Two unlucky boys were shot, one in the arm and the other in the leg, but both were herded into a room by their mother, hiding her children from the outsiders. Another young boy was killed, but only the one child.

Hearing the cries of the bunker dwellers, Hayley felt awful for letting this stranger in... Covering her ears to block out the noise of gunfire and shouting, she tried to not cry. What had she done?

The scene in the hallway was somewhat bloody, and a barrel had caught fire, flaming wildly in the hallway. Several people had taken bullets before retreating into their homes, leaving trails of blood across the floor. This would be the reason why you never give a drunk man a gun.

"Damn it..." Mars had killed a child, he had never done anything like that before. Should he make his escape now that he had the chance or surrender to the savage woman out of respect for the bunker dwellers loss? He couldn't decide, not right away anyway. "Can't believe I'm doing this..." He lowered the mini-gun, setting it on the ground and picked up the bottle. "I guess I gotta surrender now..." He pushed the mini-gun over to Meridath, "if she kills your friends it's on you now." Mars got on his knees and took a swig of Jack, "when kids start dying I'm done." He closed the fourth of a bottle and put his head down, "only his judgement awaited now.

Delilah approached the old man, back handed him across the face and grabbed his collar "are you bloody stupid "yelling at him in his face. She shook his collar and punched him in the nose hard enough to make him bleed "what was the great idea of pulling out a mini gun!? Couldn't you just talk?!" she continued yelling in his face. She lifted him up from his collars, pulled on them with force, then kneed him in the stomach "All I wanted was a frickin drink but I wasnt going to kill you for it, i woulda fought you for it, but not kill!!" she let go of his collar and let him fall back onto his knees.

She faced the other way and placed her right hand on her left shoulder, it was painful indeed, but she was lucky the bullet went through. That didn't change the fact that it was bleeding.

She glanced at the mini gun and realized the eye patch girl was there. Her clothes made it obvious she was a dweller. Delilah then looked at santa claus the child murderer. She rubbed her forehead in frustration, still angry "Are you just going to let him go? I know you're considering it" Jayce said kneeling down besides Mars and looking up at his face.
"I don't know Jayce" Del replied, picking up the bottle of jack.

Delilah whistleed for Elvis who came running towards her. It's pincers nibbling on her ankles out of love. Delilah kneeled down a put the bottle in a pouch the Roach Hound was wearing, she used him as a carrier for important things. "shoot him now, make sure he never kills another child again" Jayce appeared next to Delilah, trying to get her to shoot him
"It's not my choice" she said looking at the eye patch girl. She was obviously talking to herself, she just kept looking off into the distant but in her head she was looking at Jayce "little girl, do you want him to live the rest of hisorry life in regret knowing he killed a child and some others In cold blood, or do you want him to pay?" Delilah cocked her pistol.
"You're giving her the choice?!" Jayce was annoyed, he shook his head in anger "she won't make the right one!"
"Shut. Up. Jayce. It's up to her" Delilah was just as pissed as her imaginary friend.

There was a loud commotion going on below, stirring Cairalyn from her sleep. Her hair stuck out in every other direction, her face looked beaten and old for someone of her age. Reaching over to the floor left of her makeshift bed she currently resided in, a heap of tore and dirty blankets, she grabbed her mask, a black plastic cover that was rimmed with a silver-looking metal. Placing it under her bangs, Cairalyn used it to cover her eye, a cloudly blue orb with a slash in the middle.

Standing up slowly, she groaned and listened to the shouting occuring downstairs, she figured she'd see what it was this time. She only rested in this place momentarily, usually out in the wasteland, looking for whatever prize she can find. Her latest winning was a full-size katana, swinging it onto her back and popping in her prosthetic arm, white and grey, with a chip in it to automatically match her skin color. The prosthetics in that time looked so similar to flesh you'd never know it wasn't real. She sighed as she looked down at her fake arm, moving the fingers around, calibrating it as she hadn't used it in a long while.

Walking down the large staircase she had her katana ready, at any moment he could unsheathe it and raise Hell, yet she decided to wait, she didn't want to kill any innocents. Leaning against the stair rails she takes a deep breath, trying to figure out just what the hell was happening in between these fools, she wasn't one for petty drama but this interested her, mainly because it interrupted her sleep.

Mars looked at the girl, "Sorry about your friend lassy, but mad bandits are the dangerous type." He opened the bottle of liquor, still on his knees and took a swig. "I'd use that mini-gun and blow that woman away if I was you..." He set the bottle down, "but that is entirely up to you." He didn't want his career to influence her choice but he was a well digger. He looked around at all the angry folk gesturing for Meradith to kill him. They looked like they had been running low of food for some time, and the driness of their skin told him that their water was running out too.

"Before I go though," another drink of the whiskey interrupted his thought, he had stollen it back, stealth was funny but in his mind only viable to get your booze back. Mostly drinking to annoy the bandit, "would you like me to plant a well here?" He coughed, just a bit of fresh water for your people to drink..." What the hell, he didn't want to die yet, he may as well repay them from the life he took with a fountain of salvation. Finishing off the whiskey he looked at Delilah and slid the empty bottle over to her, "you can have the rest." He was simply mocking her, this community was either going to let him live and kill her if she tried to keep them from getting the hydration they so desperately needed, or they'd kill him and he'd still have taken all the booze she had so desperately wanted. Either way he won, either way he died... But that wasn't important.

Delilah grabbed the bottle and pulled back for a swing to his temple, then he mentioned a well and she stopped mid swing "A well?" she asked cocking a brow, he can dig wells?. That was unexpected to say the least, given his figure and manor of speech "You can tell her to kill us, but the only monster here, is you" She said pulling him up to stand by his collar "Mock me all you want, you killed a child for alcohol, if that isn't torture enough for you. You can build them a well, but what about food? can you give them that? the kid you killed? Even if you build this well, you're just slowing the inevitable" she threw him with full force at the girl's feet "we will watch you, if you do anything, We will shoot you where you stand and I'll make sure to hit something that will hurt and not kill right away"

Hayley was silent as she observed the exchange between the man and woman. Most assuredly the woman was strange, but then so was the man and she was more than a little bit overwhelmed with being put in charge of a human being's fate. The offer of well for water was alluring, she wouldn't lie. Hesitating, she looked at the woman and spoke softly. "Um... c-can he dig the well and his fate be decided after that?" Her expression was uneasy and her gaze wary as her single eye flickered between the two strangers. She looked at the strange roach that was following the woman around and scooted back against the wall, clearly uncertain what to do about the oversized creature.

Normal wells took a few days to set up, no more then a week if the digger was a real pro as Masterson was, "It may take two or three weeks girl," Mars was lying. However guilty the young boy's death was, he wasn't wuite ready to die yet. And was hoping to slay the woman, perhaps in her sleep. But for now he had to bide his time. Mars looked at the girl, "Thank you for your mercy girl, you won't regret this..."

"She may have shown you mercy but that won't say anything about me" she twirled her gun on her index finger "One wrong move and you're going to see your fingers fly before you can react. I hope you can dig wells without a few fingers" The hound stood besides her and stood guard, if anything were to sneak up on them, it's legs would feel the vibration on the ground and it's hairs would pick up the slightest of movements.
"I can't believe this, he's suckering you. He'll kill you any chance he gets" Jayce was angry, though he stood by Delilah with his arms crossed "I don't trust him one bit"
"We don't need to trust him Jayce" Delilah said looking at him, to the others it looked like she was talking to nothing but to her, it was Jayce "We need to trust the bunker-dwellers, they lost people today. They need something in return. by the looks of the girl they're probably almost out of food" She needed to stand guard on Masterson "It's a shame, The devil doesn't sleep, and i see everything" She said moving her shirt to one side to expose a devil tattoo on her shoulder "Elvis go get that bag i left in the outer bunker" The Roach hound clicked a few times and scurried off, the pitter patter of it's feet echoed on the stone floor.