The Chronicles of Soda Pup: Session 1 - "One Winged Angel"
----
"Takeru is a strange wind; he
reconciles friends and enemies. Please watch him carefully,
before you try to eliminate him", the old hound adjusted the
wide-brimmed shade on his head, feeling the coarse straw against his
paw.
"Master, your timeless introduction to the art of the sword has
prepared me for any contingency", Soda Pup 666 replied. He sniffed the
air briefly, savoring it, and adjusted the single-action .38 revolver in his belt. He recites carefully the
oath of his clan, "Every battle will be my last; combining the
qualities of agent and solder, I will look with wild eyes toward the
past and the future."
The old hound just smiled. It was a nice spring day.
-
The sun shines on all things, and so it was in the crucible of the
city, where the fallen angel, code name: TAKE-RU, made his careful home.
He clipped the insistent, feathers growing on the ruin that marked his
betrayal of lord God. His double agency, where the loyalties between
Sire Rushifell, and the global ultra organic super computer,
YEHO-VA7, became deeply confused. His introduction to the
art of war was hard-wrought by the travails of slum-life. His weird
eyes were set deeply in his head. His sighs outlined patterns of stray
chi in the air. He resolved to make his earnest compassion known by
at least one person by the end of the day. This was not penance, but
merely a function of his body. "No excuses, as above so below", he crossed himself.
-
Soda Pup 666 injected himself with the serum that
suppressed his vampirism; this was the abhorrent secret hidden behind
his cavalier attitude, and good natured smiling. Because of his newly
cursed blood, his clan had exiled him, but the oath
resonated too deeply in his heart to be forgotten. In his despair, he
was tapped by the 'Hell Hounds', enforcers for hire. They
hoped to put his clan's martial arts skills to good use. In their
hey-day, many emperors sought the power of the Soda Pup clan; they were
feared assassins, tacticians, agents, and strategists. Soda Pup 666 was still young, and having not
completed his family training, was further tutored in the
specialized field-manual military martial arts employed by the
Hell Hounds at the time of his enrollment. Master Hell Hound's thick
black fur reminded him of his own father.
-
Soda Pup 666 cycled through his on-screen menu, and selected the
SCOPE from his inventory, he glanced at the description briefly:
"Military binoculars allowing long-distance reconnaissance." With a
satisfying click, he felt them become equipped; numbers and lines,
indicating the level of magnification and relative distance of his
target, scrolled indifferently over his eyes as he honed the lens on
Takeru. He saw Takeru put a hand through his feathered black hair and
lock the door to his apartment. He looked like a skinny rock star,
but somehow regal. Soda Pup unequipped his binoculars, and assessed the
situation.
Takeru locked the door to his apartment, and put a hand through his
hair; he looked forward to peering into the eye of some wounded soul
and rooting out the residual pain and hatred in their heart, not unlike
the satisfaction one might get from tending a garden. He knew he was
being watched, and why. He was always prepared to die. His contacts
with Rushifell were long broken; all he had was his work as a healer;
all he could do was help as many people as he could before the agents
of damage control took him from his great work.
Soda Pup 666 knew he was made, and decided to be direct. He narrowed
his body and allowed himself to slide deftly through the basket-ball
hoop that was his perch, and scrambling loudly over the chain-link
fence of the court, he followed Takeru on four legs for several blocks,
his trench coat trailing on the concrete behind him. This was too much
for Takeru to ignore, and he confronted Soda Pup before he could
embarrass himself any further. "Who sent you?"
Soda Pup 666 barked incomprehensibly, struggling to formulate a
cogent response. In his eyes there was a deep well of pain and thwarted
compassion that was not lost on Takeru. Soda Pup 666 cocked the hammer
of his gun, and with tears streaming down his lean snout, shot the
last beautiful thing he ever saw.
-
The Chronicles of Soda Pup
Session 1 - "One Winged Angel"
COMPLETE