Lurker Wars 2: Other Side Fan-Prequel

[Host]

(Let me just warn you in advance, this story is patently TERRIBLE. I am far better at RPing than I am at story-writing. That said, let the tale commence!)


Shots rang out across the park between two buildings, a few short bursts from one on the edge before a mounted machinegun from the moderately sized building in the middle of the open field followed it up, silencing the attackers.
Well… silencing their bullets.
“JUST WAIT TILL YOU RUN OUT OF AMMO, SCUM SUCKING RODENTS!” Came the voice of a ratty looking, megaphone assisted lurker in the outer building, pacing toward a window while berating his nemeses.
“WHEN I GET TO YOU I’M GOING TO-*Fwangg*!
The lurkers hit the floor as some member with an unusually powerful bow tried to snipe the loudmouth… who had, rather than actually walked in front of the window, extended the stolen arm of a mannequin from a nearby clothes store, with the megaphone glued to it. He stands carefully, finding that, despite his caution, he had still suffered a loss; the arrow was sticking out of his now unusably-mangled megaphone.
“Anybody see her this time?” He asks, with a calm totally at odds with his earlier behaviour.
“Yes, sir!”
“Thank god...” Their commander replies with a sigh, “For a minute there I thought we might have to go out under sniper fire on top of that mounted gun.” He briefly checks his gun and the metal, faraday-cage like enclosure he wears. “You,” he begins, motioning to the Lurker who had caught sight of the sniper, “and you, get up to those buildings and kill – or at least distract – our sniping friend. The rest of you are with me. We’re going to finish this today!”
“Yes, Host!” The lurkers reply with unusual discipline for their kind.
They headed for their tunnel.

Host had been fighting this battle for a good few days, the ULMFers caught in an open field of death but sheltered inside some building for the administration of the park.
The fuck do you need to administrate in a park, anyway? Host wondered in annoyance, hoping his conjecture as to the structure's uselessness would cause it to fade out of existence in embarrassment. Alas, it did not, and the ULMFers had an all too defendable position, prompting Host to switch to more physically plausible plans. Preferably ones that did not involve all of the lurkers, especially himself, getting killed.

According to the group of lurkers that had initially chased the members in there, they were protecting someone fairly important to the continued resistance from ULMF. Host had volunteered his own lurkers for the job as soon as he had heard the news. None of the other lurkers would have stood a chance; their soldiers would have charged the guns as soon as look at them – or they would have shelled the building, destroying a prime opportunity to capture and interrogate an enemy... one that might actually be able to give important answers.

And so, they had arrived, taking over the duty of pinning and tying to overcome the ULMFers in the park.
Always one to go at his own pace, Host had his lurkers begin constructing a tunnel. Yes, the ULMFers could decide to try and make a break for it at any time, but he could tell they wouldn’t. They were waiting for their best chance – the moment the lurkers tried to take the building, and thusly, the moment the lurkers pinning them were at their thinnest. Time wouldn’t have been an issue… Except ULMF would probably send a team to rescue them, and Host couldn’t content with them and keep the building pinned at the same time. When the sniper showed up late yesterday, he knew his window was closing.
As much as he hated being rushed, he was going to have to make do with what he had gotten done. At least he had, with any luck, gotten the sniper out of the picture…

At least he had the advantage of surprise. Not because the ULMFers didn’t know he was there – they did – but because they had expected to be attacked by lurkers… as opposed to the disciplined group Host had, somewhat painstakingly, trained. They must have expected to be attacked directly, rather than besieged… Host grinned as he imagined the confusion and annoyance they must have felt at finding their opposition acting with wholly uncharacteristic restraint and intelligence. Few people ever really did realise that the lurker’s bloodlust did not, necessarily, impede their ability to fight tactically or intelligently.

At the far end of his annoyingly short tunnel, Host and his soldiers waited for news from the pair sent to get the sniping archer off their backs. There was no light but the little coming through the smallish, grass-mat covered hole above them.
“We are in position, sir,” Finally came the reply that was being waited on. Host threw a smoke grenade out, prompting a short burst of fire from the gunner. If he had more time to use, Host would have been quite pleased that he had, apparently, made the gunner quite jumpy; it was a useful way to make them waste ammo and easily showed their breaking morale. ...However, the counter-productiveness of making the gunner jumpy before proceeding to sneak out in front of him kind of dampened the achievement. He gave the smoke a few seconds. We’ve got to time this perfectly…
"Go.” He said to the lurkers going for the sniper, and held out an open palm. The fingers ticked back while the group waited to put their bodies in front of 20 one-hundred and thirty eight millimetre lead rounds a second, with a thin layer of grey air as their only protection. Then the last finger closed back, and, as quietly as possible, they began to pull themselves out, slowly crawling to the smoke obscured building…


Host wished they had better options than a smoke grenade. The things were useful, but they let the enemy know you’re coming. Something that incapacitated the enemy, stopped them from firing outright, but also did not affect the throwers would be much more welcome. A flashbang wasn’t bad, but it was somewhat unreliable in actually stopping opponents from firing their guns at you, especially at this range. Maybe if you combined a flashbang with some sleeping or paralysis gas, or hit more of their senses at once…
...nah. Could you imagine how much that would cost, and how hard it would be to produce? Not to mention the size and weight of the thing – current grenades were bad enough. Besides, you’d have to be wearing some form of full body, all stimulus protective suit in order to not be affected – and Host knew how difficult those were to get working, seeing as he had been trying to get one of his own for months now...
No, a grenade like that wouldn’t be possible. Not in this universe, bucko.

This train of thought kept Host occupied while he crawled with the rest of his lurkers to the edge of the smoke screen. With everyone in position, he once more held out an open palm, counting down to an action that would be even more dangerous than the last one.
So far, he had been lucky. Nobody broke any incredibly noisy twigs, nobody sneezed, and most importantly none of the ULMF gunner’s testing shots had hit home. Getting through the few remaining meters with such a good casualty rate would be much harder. He moved into a crouch, getting ready to run as fast as he’d have to.
3 fingers.
2 fingers.
1 finger…
Host closed his fist and pumped the air.
The lurkers broke cover, as fanned out as they could manage behind the smoke, running for the gun. As they had planned and by merit of the exo-suit, Host was the first out of the smoke.
Any normal human who was the first to run at a mounted machinegun would be certain to die. Host was somewhat more fortunate in that he had something a normal human did not. As the ULMF member fired and pulled around to shoot him, Host jumped.
It was no bunnyhop. With the exosuit’s assistance, Host went over the arc of the gun, though that didn’t stop the member from trying to follow him with it anyway. The commanding lurker was almost clipped by the fire as he came down in a roll, directly to the right of the window. The ULMFer tried to swing the gun around, but Host struck out with a leg against the barrel of the weapon, stoping it from turning far enough to reach him.
In a panicked last effort, the soldier on the other side of the window tried to go for his sidearm. He was normally machinegun crew only, not used to having to pull out a weapon, and was totally panicked by the superhuman that he was up against. Host beat his draw by several seconds and splattered his grey matter over the floor behind him.

His lurkers passed him while he stood up, entering the window. As he looked back Host saw that at least two Lurkers were still piles in the grass and hadn’t made it to the window. He didn’t have much time to take it in, though, because an ULMFer opened the door into the machine-gunner’s room to see why the gun had started firing, then ceased. Having rather expected the sight in front of him, he shot a lurker in the thigh while getting back and closing the door as quickly as he could, but took a bullet to the shoulder himself.

Everything after that went by in a blur. Host was not a dumb person by any stretch, but he was made to think about things thoroughly, and never did fare well when being rushed. For most activities this didn’t have any real bearing, but active combat simply moved too fast for his thoughts to follow. Granted, this was not too horrendous a problem, as a good majority of humans couldn’t think creatively in the middle of combat either.
Unfortunately, the good majority of humans also tend to have a very high chance of getting killed in combat situations, and it was a chance Host found wholly unacceptable.
He compensated for his lack of inherent ability by, like any good soldier, drilling the actions and reactions to various combat situations into his mind, until they became instinct.
Thusly, when Host got up, entered the room and immediately walked-up-to-and-punched-a-hole-in the far wall, sticking his gun through and mowing down any ULMFer in the corridor too slow in getting away... it was not an act of sudden creativity, but instead the result of many urban-warfare, exo-suit-equipped drills.

With only a word in order, his lurkers occupied the hall he had cleared for them. It continued to the left and right, with the left path leading off to a half-visible open room and the right path leading to a bend; there was a closed door in the wall directly opposite them, and another one at the end of the right passage...
It was, to be frank, not the best position to be in.
The lurkers spread out into the hall cautiously. The ULMFers could potentially hit them from a lot of angles. They should be clearing somewhere defensible to retreat to… but it would take too long to be that cautious – they had to push towards the ULMFers before their quarry managed to escape.
A lurker next to Host cried out in pain. The member that had put a bullet in his gut moved back around the corner of the hall to the right and out of sight. Instead of retreating, a lurker moved quietly but quickly up to the corner. As soon as the member turned it to fire again, the lurker held down his SMG's trigger and blew chunks of bloody flesh out of several vital areas, killing the ULMFer as immediately as possible. He didn’t just stop there, though, instead turning the corner and peppering the ULMFers past it with a wild burst.

Host and his band moved up into the next, now-emptied area. The lurker who had done the clearing – and whom he made a mental note to praise for it – motioned toward the door the ULMFers he had fled into.
Host put a round into it and got a shot back out in response. He also got a sinking feeling… one bullet was far less than the group cooped up in this building should have given, even when you removed the ones that they had already killed from the picture. The ULMFers were retreating to an exit, that much was obvious... and given the token resistance they had shown, this room may well contain it. He should charge in with wild abandon and try to gun them down before they had the chance to get away…

Standing almost against the wall next to the door, Host prodded open the door with his MP40, and threw in a flashbang while ULMF bullets tore through the wood.
“Oh son of a…!” someone in there cries as the grenade goes off. Host waits for the ULMF soldiers to stop firing, and then, only then, does he rush in. There is only one ULMFer inside, trying to reload near the door while half-blinded. Host grabs his rifle and hits him in the face with it, then yanks his gun away as he falls. The room contains a largish, open window that humans could get through without too much trouble. He catches a brief glimpse of his fleeing target before the Members veer to get behind cover to the left, and out of his view. Host’s heart sunk further. The ULMFers running away was not too big an issue. The ULMFers running away under sniper support, which they must have as his pair of lurkers had yet to check in, was an issue.

He turned to the ULMFer behind him that he had bludgeoned with his own gun, who had been in the process of unholstering his pistol. Rather than panic or even try to surrender, the Member simply scowled and pulled out the gun.
While it all happened in a single moment and without conscious interference, the lurker made a decision. He should shoot the Member where he lay, even if his target had gotten away, if only because his training dictated it. Host had already aimed at the ULMFer before his opponent was anywhere near able to fire. At this range, Host didn’t think there was any possible way to miss…
He fired. The ULMFer screamed in pain as his the bullet tore a small piece out of one of his fingers, the pistol skidding away in the impact. …Well, Host had been hoping to just shoot the gun out of his hand, but that worked too…

The lurkers entered as soon as they heard the shot, having hung back in case the room had been clear bar the one ULMFer. They had enough sense not to shoot someone Host hadn’t killed after having ample opportunity, but he told them to “Keep him down.” nonetheless. He radioed the surrounding lurkers. If he was wrong, and the sniper was still pinned, his group could pin the fleeing ULMFers between the park and the perimeter buildings.
“Has that sniping archer started firing again?” The lurker responded in the affirmative.
Host said a bad word.
He was not going to send his forces into an open area under sniper fire. Still, he smiled a moment later.
“Let them through.”
The lurker’s response was incredulous, though not defiant.
“There aren’t enough of you in the perimeter to hold them back.” Host responds. “They’ll kill you all as they come if you just stay there, so let them through.” He pauses a moment for a response before ending with “They fought well. We were outfoxed.”
Host then turned his regard to the member that had stayed behind to delay them, at the certain cost of his own life. Even unarmed and surrounded by enemies with guns, the ULMFer looked angrily defiant, and Host suspected he would soon try to attack them despite being at an almost infinite disadvantage. Host put down his gun, and put up his fists.
“Let him stand up.”
The lurkers, somewhat hesitantly, allowed the surprised member to stand. The lurkers gave their leader room.
“Well?” Host asked after a moment, “Aren’t you going to destroy the enemies of your forum? Vindicate your devotion against the leader of your foes, whelp!” The member did not need to be told twice. He took an aggressive stance, concentrating hard on trying to win… despite the near impossibility of doing so. The fight would be quite fair… were it not for Host’s powered exoskeletal suit, but he had no intention of taking if off and giving the ULMFer a chance.

The ULMFer was the first to make a move, running at the lurker and trying to barrel him over. Unfortunately, Host simply ducked out of his path. The member tried to quickly throw some punches before Host could really recover, but Host blocked the first two, and then grabbed him as he punched again and threw the soldier against the nearest wall.
“Is this really all your fury is worth?” The lurker gloated, to the laughter of his men. The member pushed off the wall in a burst of aforementioned fury, emergency combat knife in hand as he lunged at Host. With a shout of “Whoa!” Host stepped back, and then back again as his opponent swung blindly immediately after his miss. As the member moved up to swing at the retreating lurker, Host stepped moved forward, grabbed his knife arm, pulled him, and used the their combined momentum to quite painfully knee him in the gut before he had a hope of responding to the lurker’s suit-boosted abilities.
He pushed the member back against the wall he had pushed off of.
“You would make a good lurker.” He comments, suddenly totally calm again he pulls the knife from the ULMFer’s hand with exosuit boosted strength, and meets his gaze.
Host turned the both of them toward the window – and let go of the enemy.
“Go. There’s no fun in killing you if you aren’t scared.” Host lied. Of course there was fun in killing him, even if he was scared. But then, “I’ll recognise the value of your passion.” doesn’t sound as menacing.
“Well? GO!” He continues as the member stands there, though not because he was dumbstruck. The leader of the band of lurkers had seen it in his eyes, and still could.
Despair. 'Soul Crushing' was the perfect adjective for it. He could all but see the grief over the lost and the destroyed, eating the Member's enthusiasm and dedication. The reason he had yet to leave was because he was contemplating ending his life in an honourable, suicidal charge.
“Rearm, and when we next meet, perhaps it will be your turn to hold my life in your hands.” He encourages the boy - and with a final waver of indecision, the ULMFer left.
Host stared into the distance after him.
The ULMFers were not the only ones finding this war becoming... grating.

 

[Host]

Re: Lurker Wars 2: Other Side Fan-Prequel

Host could see the building he had taken as his own personal base of operations not far ahead. His lurkers had already entered their barracks’ and bars, after getting back from the building in the park... once the ULMF sniper had finally buggered off and found something better to do.

The other lurkers leading this war would not be happy that he had failed to capture or kill the target, Supermeme least of all. But it was only one of a number of such failures... none of the other leaders were fairing any better.
Host frowned.
This whole campain just didn’t sit right with him. Attacking, killing – that was all well and good, but occupying? Lurkers weren’t made for staying in one place. They were raiders and pillagers, and the longer a large group of them stuck around - especially if that place is a city and thus has little forgeable food - …the thinner their resources, and their patience, got. Lurkers were no farmers.
Granted, most people also thought lurkers couldn't be intelligent combatants, and he had shown them wrong in that… but getting them to settle down full time and ply trades? All but impossible.
Besides, they had long since looted all the optimal tings they could get their hands on. The normal lurker involvement levels had passed some time ago – the defenders had been beaten down, the city had been sacked, and the lurkers had been happy.
But the survivors hadn’t run away.
Normally by that point the remaining non-lurkers fled, and the lurkers would take what they want. Maybe they'd stick around and party for a day or two if it was a particularly good haul or battle, but they'd soon scamper off to plan a hit on some other forum.
But the survivors hadn’t run away.

Sure, some people tended to stay anyway, but this was an unprecedented level of people hanging around to the end. Host admired their tenacity; their sheer will, devotion, and dedication to sticking around in the face of probable death.
He would, himself, have simply left the forum to its noble defenders... but, unfortunately, he was about the only ranking lurker who thought that way. Some were angry at the defiance... some were worried about the precedent... and some just wanted to kill more things. In the end, Supermeme decided that they would stay - and so they stayed. There was simply no arguing with the guy.
The conflict the lurkers would engage in would not be a battle. It wouldn’t even be a slaughter, which Host could find fun when in the right mood. They were going to crush ULMF into the dirt until there was nothing left but a smear.
It would be genocide.
Well, ‘would’ being the operative word. The ULMFers were proving beautifully resourceful and spectacularly resilient – Host really couldn’t do anything but admire them for that. Unfortunately, he could tell that they were being worn down – the state of their forum and their people was making them depressed, and desperate. Communities’ spirits being ground down was a side effect of lurker attacks that he tried to avoid at the best of times, if one he accepted as a matter of course… but now it was effectively his goal. Well, he would be glad when it was all finally over, he thought, as he reached the doors of his headquarters and entered.

“And what have you made for me today, kiddies?” asks Host, gleefully, as he walks into the ‘cell’ containing the ULMF scientists he was holding captive. His entrance is met with a stony reception.
“Oh, come on. You need to learn to take a joke… You know jokes, right? Funny, Haha?” Their reaction continues to be cold.
“Oh well,” concedes Host, shrugging. “How is progress on my armour project going?”
One scientist, who had ended up becoming their unofficial spokesperson, responded. “We are far enough along development that the powered armour should be generally usable, with only some testing to be sure.”
“Wonderful! That means you’re ready to give a demonstration!” Host responds eagerly, intentionally jumping the gun, and before anyone can respond adds “Which of you wants to pilot it?”
Host was not quite stupid enough to get in it himself. While the ULMF scientists 'were' guarded, even Host’s lurkers wouldn't be able to determine if something being added to the suit was a normal, necessary part... or an explosive device. The scientists had almost certainly boobytrapped it... judging by what he had given them access to, either with a timed explosive or a trigger detonated one. If they proved willing to send one of their own into the suit, it was likely the latter.
They simply responded to his question by pointing out one of their number, without any of them looking startled – ...hopefully, that meant no timed explosive. Still, he would find out when they tried to pilot it.

Host had a bomb of his own strapped to the suit as well, just in case they tried something with the suit itself; it wouldn't do to get killed worrying about a boobytrap, while handing a potentially indestructable death-suit to your enemy.

When they were ready, he moved to a viewing window looking out into a moderately sized, dark room, presumably containing the suit that he hoped to soon make his. There were some noises as the pilot got in, the Lurker's bomb on his person - and then the lights came on.
Host gave a sound of awed approval.
“You got it to look exactly how I wanted it!” he praised, hugging the nearest scientist, but with an eye always on the grey, and somewhat reptilian looking humanoid machine. Underneath the metal he knew there was an exoskeletal structure, similar in function, if not design, to his own; the hidden heart of the machine. Over the top were multiple-centimetre thick metal plates, arranged not unlike reptile scales, glimmering in the artificial light of the room.

“How easy is it to operate?” Host asked, letting go of his rather uncomfortable captive. Feeling more at ease answering technical questions than dealing with his captor’s contrary burst of affection, he replied, “Not that hard. It feels like a stiffer exosuit.”
The suit and pilot move their joints for display, before starting to dance, prompting a small grin from the commanding lurker. Seems like at least one of the scientists had a sense of humour after all.

“Can it jump?”
“Yes.”
“Like an exo-suit?”
“No. too heavy for the power supplies or mechanisms that could fit on the chassis.”
Host just nods, having been rather expecting that.
“How difficult is it to create?” He followed with, despite basically already knowing the answer was
“Very. Getting a power supply and joint materials able to move it, without breaking under the weight of all he metal needed to give it a resistance to bullets, is incredibly costly and time consuming. Not to mention the difficulty of actually creating it…” Host nods again.

“Now... Give me a demonstration of its accuracy.”
The scientist again speaks to the suit’s operator, and he takes up an assault rifle that had been intentionally left by a lurker on a nearby table. He steps away from it and proceeds to aim at some of the other items on the desk, putting holes into them. He does it while standing still, then while walking, and finally in a short jog.
“Well, not the best, but when you consider that he’s only a scientist , that’s not too bad… I’ll have to really see when I get it on myself…” Host says to himself, though loud enough to let the ULMFer watching with him hear.
His next demand is for the ULMFer to “Show me its agility.”
The scientist spoke into a radio. “Run around the room.” The suit took off. It was only a little faster than the average human - but the average human wasn’t bulletproof. …Better make sure that that last claim was correct, though…

“I want to see how it fares at taking shots.”
“Alright, I’ll get the pilot –“
“What? No. That wouldn’t be an accurate test.”
The scientist stammers at that, not having expected his pilot to be shot at.
Oh ho. Begins a train of thought inside the lurker’s skull, Have you perhaps designed it to explode or fall apart when shot?
“If it is safe, there won’t be a problem, right?”
“…Yes.” admits the scientist.
“Good!” Host immediately followed, and he ordered a lurker into the room. Host spoke to his Lurker through his own radio; he wasn't getting in there himself. They might be planning to blow him up when he wore the suit, but that didn’t stop them from improvising with the assault rifle the suit currently carried.
The scientist was gracious enough to explain what was happening, before the pilot got too jumpy.

“One shot to the chest,” Host ordered.
There was the explosion of the gun firing and the clank of it striking the armour. Host scrutinised it as it turned back toward the viewing window. Relaying through the scientist with him, he ordered it closer, his delight visibly deepening with each step it took that he couldn’t make out any damage from. Finally, he found a small scratch on the chest plate, at around the point of being ready to jump around in joy.
“How many shots do you think it’s going to take to take this down?” He asks, almost breathless with excitement.
“…At least thirty.” The ULMFer replies warily, as disturbed by the look in the lurker’s eyes, as he was worried that Host might decide to test how many bullets it took to achieve penetration.
“Short burst fire into the chest,” Host ordered simply, the lurker in the room firing on the civilian, with a few centimetres of metal between him and the bullets. The scientist panicked and flinched away, the lurker following his chest as best he was able... and the member un-flinched again after the bullets stopped, totally unharmed.
Host ordered it closer for inspection again afterwards. There were more scratches and some small dents, but nothing noticeable.

“How hard is it to repair?”
“Not as hard as it could be, thanks to the scale-esque design the armour uses. You’ll have to make new 'scales' when you want to do full maintanince, but on the battlefield you can still hammer them back into shape.” The scientist sounded visibly relieved that his friend apparently was not about to be shot at again.
Host reigned in his excitement, despite this being the most important development yet. Maintenance had been the primary difficulty of all the other prototypes, and it sounded like they had found a good solution for it. Now he’d just have to deal with whatever boobytrap they had added to it…
“Well done, ladies and gentlemen! You may soon be finished! Bring them and the suit to my warroom in 15 minutes; I will send this through my own, private test run.” He said, addressing his guards in the latter half. The scientists looked quite shocked… but not as much so as when he added, “I want the suit fully repaired by that time.”
“But that’s not enough-”
“I’ll give you 20 if you answer me this,” 'bargained' the lurker. “Can it survive a mounted machinegun long enough to run up to it and knife the operator?”
“…No.”
“Right.” Host responded, noting that he had done almost exactly that with the plain exosuit just today, thanks to the ability to jump. He made a mental note not to disregard the exo-suit offhand for the more protective option.
His last words before leaving were “Get moving, pit crew! You don’t have a second to spare!” All with a devilish grin on his face.


Twenty one minutes, forty nine seconds later, the scientists were escorted from their cell and into the building’s warroom.
Host studied the suit carefully. They had replaced all the damaged scales, just as he had ordered… and used up any spare time that they could have added anything new to the suit in doing so. The lurkers guarding them had been watching them even more carefully for anything out of the ordinary. With these factors combined, he was totally certain that they hadn’t been able to add anything new to the suit.

He had carefully watched the materials going in for the ones that could be used to make explosives, and had intentionally only allowed them enough such material for a small bomb; on the outside of the suit, it would probably only maim - but on the inside while he wore it, a bomb constructed from the amount of explosive material they had been given... it would most likely kill him outright. He had intentionally given them only one obvious course of action, to try and blow him up when he entered the suit, to funnel their choices down a route he was watching very carefully.

“Looks good.” Host said as he raised the openable back and ducked into the machine. He looked around at the display screens that were then immediately in front of him, turning his head to find, as expected, that the suit turned with him. A lurker pushed the back closed behind him.
He wiggled his fingers to start with, and the suits fingers moved. He walked, slowly and then normally, over to a heavy table and lifted the edge slightly. As with the exosuit, he felt almost no resistance as it moved, a few piles of documents sliding along the newly-made slope. The lurker put down the table, and went to sit in a chair - which creaked in protest as he did so - but, overall, held his newly increased weight. It sounded like it was a pretty close thing, though.
Host put his metal plated feet on a nearby table, eliciting another groan of protest from his seat.

“It’s not as comfortable as the exosuit.” He complained. “…But it is everything I asked for. Well done. You have secured your freedom. As promised, after the conclusion of this war, you can go wherever you want.
Congratulations on finishing early, by the way!” he finished, and did not add
You really didn’t have to, seeing as it won’t help you get out earlier, and just means we have a new weapon to fight your own people. In fact, the only reason you would have to hurry that makes any sense... is if you wanted to boobytrap the creation to kill me, and help ULMF in the war as quickly as you could.


A few tense seconds passed and Host scrutinised the ULMF scientists, waiting for them to try something. As more time passed in which they didn’t, Host started to get worried, as much as he tried not to.
It had to be there, and it had to be detonator triggered, he thought, trying to reassure himself that his assessment of the situation was correct.
So why aren’t they trying it, with their target in the crosshairs as I am? the lurker nevertheless wondered. He actually considered asking, “Well? Aren’t you going to try and blow me up?”
There would be some who might call Host suicidal for that thought - and indeed, for the whole ludicrous plan of getting into a certainly booby-trapped suit, instead of having it torn apart, scrutinised, and then put back together by more trustworthy scientists.
Considering his thoughts towards this war, and which sides were justified, they might be partially right.
Host himself, of course, would have simply pointed out that there was no such thing as a ‘trustworthy’ person, let alone a scientist, and that it was better to go with the danger you knew.

…The obvious answer for the scientists' inactivity came to him before too long, and he mentally slapped himself for not seeing it.
The scientists were surrounded by two guards for every one of them, and were currently standing in an arrangement that gave the guards ample opportunity to stop the scientists from actually using the detonator – obviously, as Host was hardly going to give them a good chance of blowing him to kingdom come. Stopping them here had always been the plan; they’d take the detonator out or sneakily try and put a hand in their pocket... and, with any luck, a guard would stop them, take it, and he and his suit would be perfectly safe.
But, of course, the ULMFers knew that their chances of pulling it off in this situation were bad... so they were waiting to be told to leave. The formation might break up some, and the guards would be more relaxed, thinking that the danger had passed. It was the moment that gave them the best chance of success.
He had underestimated them somewhat. He had expected them to think themselves safe, and able to get the explosive to go off without any problem once he was in the suit, but apparently they had realised that the lurker would put security in place to stop them.
At least, that what Host hoped was happening. If he was wrong… well, he’d actually prefer to be correct and blown up, than have no idea what the dreadful thing they had done to his suit was...

“You can go.” Host said, acting nonchalant while his own life was on the line.
Not a second after they had turned toward the doors did a scientist reached into his pocket.
A lurker, having been instructed to look out for this very kind of thing, yanked out the scientist’s arm, which held what Host quite imagined a makeshift wireless detonator would look like. The scientist tried to push the button while the lurker tried to pull it away, and a fight broke out among the rest of those present as both guards and scientists tried to help. Host lost sight of the detonator while moving to help, himself - not that there was any chance he would get there in time to change anything. Suddenly, it shot up into the open, in a hand attached to an arm in a white labcoat, unhindered by any lurkers.
A moment later, Host’s world went black.

 

[Host]

Re: Lurker Wars 2: Other Side Fan-Prequel

Host woke up to the sound of screaming. This struck him as rather odd – then the pain hit him, and he realised that he was the one making it; and for good reason. It felt like his skin was on fire.
Moving on sheer pain reflex, he rammed against the back of the suit, opening it, and scurried out. The warroom was as hot as it was devastated.
There had been one hell of an explosion here. The scientists, who were lying in a charred pile with his unfortunate guards, shouldn’t have been able to pull that off… but they were nevertheless his first assumption till some better evidence presented itself.
After a moment of thinking in the heat of the room, an important question occurred to him. Why had he only gotten away with first and second degree burns when everyone else had died? The obvious answer was that the suit had protected him... but the important corollary was that the explosion had to have come from outside.
Had the scientists kamikaze’d...?
...Not likely. It wouldn’t have been the smartest move they could have made, and they had ample ability and time to be smart. Maybe the ULMFers had attacked the building? He knew they were good, but good enough to get the drop on him and his?
He walked out in confusion, his gun in his hand, staying quiet in case any order he might give was heard by something less friendly than the lurkers.
Well. Less friendly to him.

The door out of the room was burst open and snapped off its hinges; the room through it was just as devastated as the one he came from.
Unlike the one he had come from, however, this room had a window. As Host caught sight of it, he leaned against the nearest wall and simply took in the view. He didn't call out orders now not because of the threat of ULMF attackers... but because there was likely nobody to hear them.

The horizon was large, red, and shimmering. The buildings, those that were even still standing, were deeply scarred with the incredible heat that radiated from the explosion. Everything flammable had combusted, and ash was strewn about the ruins, pulled along by phantom winds. Everything not combustible was melted, blackened, or charred.
He had passed that window not five minutes ago, and dared to wonder how the view of that deserted, war-torn cityscape could look any worse. Now he had an answer he had never wanted to find.

Host returned to the war room, passing by the burnt-in screams on the corpses near the entrance again as he did so. He only stopped for a moment to pick the remote detonator from the scientist that had been holding it in a death grip.
The lone living lurker got back into the suit that they had created for him, and began to explore the ruins of what had moments ago been his base of operation.
The feeling of it all was surreal, the thought of the war he had wanted done with being over in one instant merely leaving him confused… though Host expected the full brunt of the shock was merely biding its time to strike.

As he finished checking the rooms of what had been his building, and began to explore outside, he thought - and he came to conclusions.
This was an act by the ULMFers. He knew it. The lurkers were winning; there was no reason to drop a bomb on the place containing their own forces when they could just retreat, and then do it. Blowing the place up in this situation would be a ridiculous folly to a degree not even Supermeme could stoop to.
Which means that it was the ULMFers, he thought, as he began to walk the dead city’s streets. Which means that we succeeded.
The lurkers’ goal had been to crush the ULMFers utterly; body and spirit.
And they had. They had been fighting for their forum, but they had given into despair. They were still far too dedicated to simply lie down and die... so they had done the next best thing.

Host found a corpse in the street as he wandered, half aimlessly, and turned it to see the face. Having landed face down, the ULMFer he had let flee from him not yesterday was still recognisable. Host looked into its lifeless eyes.
The ULMFers had gone out by suicide, and taken the forum with them.
The lurkers had gotten what they wanted in the most horrific way possible.

Host had lost everything that he had known, bar his pair of guns and a lousy suit of armour, for nothing.
He did not cry and he did not scream. Those were actions you took when a tragedy is caused by someone, and can be blamed on them.
He couldn’t blame the lurkers for attacking.
He couldn’t blame the ULMFers for defending.
He couldn’t blame the lurkers for responding by trying to crush them harder – and he certainly couldn’t blame the ULMFers for being crushed.
He just sighed.
This shit was getting old, Host thought as he sat down next to the corpse.
Just…
He closed his eyes and held up the hand with the detonator to his suit’s deathtrap.
Fucking…
He rest his head against the hand with the detonator.
…Old.
The shock finally caught up with him, and his mind emptied under the enormity of the destruction that had taken place.
He sat there for a good, long while.


Why he got up and continued to wander this dust that had been a city, Host could not say. Perhaps he was looking for a souvenir, just to prove ULMF had once been here - and had fought valiantly where others would have fled. Perhaps he had wanted to survey the totality of the destruction he had a hand in causing. Perhaps he was looking for survivors, or perhaps, after all this time staying alive, his survival instincts and tactical mindset would not stomach him just sitting around.
What caused him to begin the walk that brought him to the entrance of a certain bunker was uncertain, and largely unimportant. What was important was his arrival – and the person that lay inside.
Host spied the heavily charred person in the bunker, but could not believe them to be alive - not until after they fired a bullet into the chest of his suit.
He ducked to one side of the door immediately, trying to find the best way to kill the ULMFer without getting shot full of holes… and, after a moment, he realised it was indeed an ULMFer; the shreds of a uniform on it that no lurker would be caught wearing assured him of that.

If he had a grenade… but, damnit, he didn’t. He couldn’t just jump out in front and open up, he’d get… actually, yes he could, he realised, correcting his instincts. Wearing a near bulletproof suit was going to take a lot of getting used to.
Still, probably shouldn’t let the member damage the suit if he could help it, not when any chance of repairing it was god knows how long away, and without knowing how badly the explosion might have affected it.
The ULMFer had been in bad shape; more burn than body… (Wow, what gender was it even?)… perhaps they had passed out since the shot. Host edged a hand along the entrance to the bunker, waiting for the ULMFer to fire on him. Right when he figured they must have been unconscious and been safe to kill, the thought was followed up with the sound of exploding gunpowder and a bullet clanged against the hand of his suit.
He immediately withdrew it.

Hmm, maybe I can- Host’s thoughts stopped dead as he came to a sudden realisation.
He spluttered into truly mirthful laughter, and when he found the air to speak again, said, “You know, I just realised something. You may be the last ULMFer left alive on the forum – and I may be the last attacking lurker. Our target for defence or capture is ash and rubble. Everything we fought for is gone… and we’re still as dedicated to killing each other as ever! Wahahahahahaha!”
Host laughs, but it isn’t sarcastic or even dark laughter as one might expect from the context – far from it, it is composed of joy and, for lack of a better word, what sounds quite like relief. He confirms it by stating as soon as his mirth once more permits,
“Don’t you just think that’s beautiful?! Hahaha!”

Host’s laughter gives way to silence, which he occupies with his thoughts. Eventually, he speaks again to his silent adversary.
“I am not one to quelsh the determination needed to continue after tragedy and injury like yours. Heal your wounds, ULMFer. Rest, recover, and grow powerful again, so that you may take vengeance for what has occurred today – but always watch your back… for I will be doing the same. Hmhmhmhmhahahaha…”
His melodramatic laughter was quiet as Host walked away from the survivor’s bunker, and back into the ruins of ULMF – his steps now falling with purpose.

Truth be told, finding an ULMFer still struggling to survive had done more for his own morale than anything else. It was a full blown ‘one green seedling in the ashes’ moment.
The forum would, in some way, still continue. He had not been part of a community’s genocide, because genocide had not taken place. Though ULMF may never return to the wholeness and glory it had before… if only in the determination of one member, it would continue on.
And, just like that member, he would recover. He would find new lurkers, train a new army, and get back to doing what lurkers should be doing. And maybe he really would meet that ULMFer again in some far off forum, and between them ULMF’s battle against its lurker attackers would continue.
…But, for now, he had to get lurkers to follow him. And he knew exactly how to make that happen – he headed to the place Supermeme and Supersonic should have been staying at the time of the detonation…

After a few days gathering up artifacts that belonged to either of their ‘super’ leaders, including the body of supersonic itself (along with a few small mementos of ULMF for his own sake), the remaining lurkers - who proved to be not quite as decimated as Host had thought - found him.
Bearing gifts of things that had once led them, he had been fairly quickly reaccepted into their ranks – but he also soon found that they still planned to annihilate what was left of ULMF, which, itself, had also survived far better than Host had expected.
The whole thing was more bitter than sweet – the world had conspired to cause him to be forced to try to utterly destroy the forum, against his morals, twice.
As the lurkers watched and waited, and Host along with them, unable to stop the collision of forces that was upcoming, ULMF grew to become greater than it ever had been – but so did the lurkers opposing it.

Host’s face was deadpan as he watched from his position on the airborne carrier, heading toward the new ULMF, the battle already having begun. The first battle against the ULMFers for the first time in ages was begining – he had no more time for introspection.
He hoped only that the ULMFer in the bunker had taken his advice… because, whether Host liked it or not, he was coming - and he would not hold back.


"Host.”
Chalcon? “You’re supposed to be dead…”

 

[Host]

Re: Lurker Wars 2: Other Side Fan-Prequel

...Oh, yes, and you can use this as a comments thread if you so choose, since that is the end of the story.