Storyflash: Avatar 3

Alright, before you read this post, make sure you read the previous post about resolving issues. Keep it in mind while reading this!

Part 3: Scarlet Sunset

This part of the story starts off with Captain Oliver Corr, a member of the New York Police Force. Together with several other police officers, Lewis Carr, Jack McDonnell and Francis Bates, Captain Oliver and his teammates are making their way towards an old apartment building, after a tip from an unknown person about the presence of a drug smuggling ring around that area.

When they do reach the apartment building, there seem to be no signs of life. No noise comes from the interior of the building, and it looks like no one has been there for ages. Nevertheless, Oliver orders his teammates to enter the apartment anyway, just in case something is amiss. As the four policemen enter the apartment, Oliver is struck by a strange feeling of uneasiness. Something was dreadfully wrong, but he has no idea what it is.

Moving towards the stairs, Oliver orders his teammates to split up and search the apartments. Oliver doesn't want to spend too much time in this place, and luckily, the apartment building is a small one, with only a few different apartments on the two floors.

But as Oliver reaches the first apartment, he sees the telltale trickle of blood, and the smell of decomposing flesh. Entering the room, he finds a pile of corpses, and it looks like they haven't been dead for long. Oliver quickly rushes from the room, ready to call the CSIs to the scene, but before he can do so, he hears a bloodcurdling shriek, and he sees the upper torso of Lewis crashing onto the floor before him. The rest of his body is lying at the foot of a giant, humanoid looking creature.

Pause for description: The creature is wearing a black metal mask, has twelve inch long claws, and is hunched over, as if trying to avoid the ceiling. It has no facial features except for a huge mouth, and it seems to hover above the ground.

The shriek has brought Officers McDonnell and Bates to the scene, and as they see the giant creature, they start firing upon it. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to inflict much damage, and with a lightning fast movement, the creature is upon the two Officers, shredding them to a pulp. Oliver quickly calls for reinforcements, all the while trying to shoot the creature - let's call the creature a Shade.

The Shade once again uses it's lightning fast movement to run at Oliver, but the police captain immediately throws himself out the balcony. Having only two storeys to fall, Oliver manages to make it out with nothing but a fractured rib, and he quickly returns to the police station, where he informs his superiors about the situation.

After a few days, Oliver - and the rest of the world, for that matter - is beginning to realise that this isn't an isolated event. In addition to the deaths of the three police officers, there were five more gruesome deaths in the immediate area. Not only that, but more bodies started to appear in three other locations around the city - in fact, bodies started appearing in many of the major cities in America - Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco...

After doing some research, Oliver realises that the bodies are appearing in areas near buildings owned by the Nightmare Corporation, an enigmatic company that deals in psychological and neurological research. As Oliver tries to search further, he uncovers the fact that the Nightmare Corporation has been harvesting energy in a matrix-like fashion - using the neurological nerve pulses and whatnot, the Nightmare Corporation has been harvesting energy from the minds of people who have been placed into a deep sleep and made to dream about an alternate reality.

Please note that Oliver is VERY likely to encounter difficulties during this period. You can include events such as dealing with suspicious people, quitting/getting fired from the police force, etc. It doesn't really matter.

Prying further, it seems that people who are in a deep sleep have been placed into - literally - a nightmare. This is because research from the Nightmare Corporation has revealed that fear, despair and similar emotions create the most energy for harvesting, and so they have placed the subjects into a scenario where there is nothing but death, destruction and the hunt to survive. The name of this project: Project Proxima.

Then, one day, Oliver is contacted by an employee from the Nightmare Corporation, a man named Marko Chekov. Chekov tells Oliver what he has been suspecting for a very long time - something is going seriously wrong with Project Proxima.

It all started when a particular scientist by the name of Dr. Manx developed an instrument known as the Transpirer, a device that allows the user to bring anything they imagine come to life. Dr. Manx was very secretive about the Transpirer project, because he knew that leaking it to the public was a terrible idea, and would likely result in worldwide destruction. Unfortunately, the Nightmare Corporation discovered the Transpirer project, but Dr. Manx managed to escape with most of the information about the Transpirer, destroying most of the other information. Nevertheless, the Nightmare Corporation was able to use the remnants of the information to create a prototype Transpirer, and proceeded to mass-produce it.

What happened next was a seemingly freak accident. While working with the Transpirer, one of the scientists happened to attach it to the main feed unit linking the system's mainframe to the machine responsible for harvesting Project Proxima. What happened next was a Group Transpirer on a huge scale - nearly a hundred thousand people around America were dreaming about a world where death and destruction abounded, and it was about to become reality.

By this time, there was nothing that Chekov nor any of the other scientists could do to prevent what was about to come. To give them credit, the Nightmare Corporation did everything they did to contain the incident, but eventually several incidents leaked out to the public. The incidents have not yet been traced back to the Nightmare Corporation, but Chekov believes that it is only a matter of time before it does. And it is also a matter of time before the world of Proxima and its inhabitants become a reality.

Luckily, Chekov has already informed his contacts in Russia, Europe, Japan, and other parts of the world for the disaster about to come. Unfortunately, he believes that they will not act unless there is a real threat to global civilisation. As a result, Chekov believes that something must be done to hold off the Cluster while the remaining world nations attempt to rearm themselves and react to the situation.

The solution put forth by Chekov has its heart in the Transpirer project. What better to fight against an army of imaginary demons than an army of soldiers with imaginary powers at their disposal? Dr. Manx had already begun a experiment in the Hawaiian atolls concerning the eventual users of the Transpirer, and who would lead the charge against the Cluster. And now, Chekov is inviting Oliver to join the project in an attempt to stop the coming Apocalypse.

Despite the unbelievable story, Oliver can still clearly remember that night in the apartment building, and so he quickly joins up, and begins to organise a programme to ensure only the strongest are there to fight against the Cluster. The solution is something adapted from Battle Royale, a Japanese cult hit involving a fight for survival, where only the strongest survive. During the course of this programme, several strong individuals emerged, including the Raider clan, a group made up of the three strongest Transpirers in the entire programme. However, Oliver, Chekov and Manx only manage to carry out a month's worth of training before the Cluster struck.

In a single push, the Cluster managed to break out of the Nightmare Corporation's defenses and barriers, and proceeded to lay waste to many of America's major cities. Due to the slow reaction of the American military and the sheer number of forces the Cluster had at its disposal, the Cluster steamrolled through most of America, and managed to take nearly 85% of the country in a single week. It was only through the timely intervention of several nations and the Transpirers that managed to stop the Cluster incursion, but even then, it was a hard fight just to keep the Cluster at bay. Even the most advanced weapons that the world had at its disposal were only just enough to keep the mainstay troops from claiming more territories.

In the weeks after the Cluster invasion, the rest of the world, especially Russia, kept making amphibious landings on the port cities in America, and while many were killed in pitched battles against the Cluster, the Russians and the Japanese managed to get a foothold in Cluster territory. Meanwhile, Europe kept using bombers and other aircraft to attack the Cluster via the air. Meanwhile, the Transpirers, lead by the three Raiders (you can give them names), lead the main charge against the Cluster.

About six weeks after the Cluster first appeared on the planet, Oliver, Manx and Chekov were contacted by a man named Scott Reed, who represented a guerrilla group known as the Flarerunners, human survivors from the continent of Proxima. Reed told the three everything he knew about the Cluster, especially the special abilities that they used in battle. Using the information from the Flarerunners, the Transpirers and the combined forces of the Russian, European and Japanese armies managed to break through the Cluster forces, and occassionally managing to deal the Cluster crushing defeats.

However, Reed and the Nightmare Corporation scientists know that crushing defeats are just not enough. The Cluster are the creation of a hundred thousand minds, and they have the unlimited resources of the human imagination at their disposal. Even though humans might deal them crushing defeats one after another, the Cluster will never stop coming until the Earth is completely under their control. Even now, the liberation force is beginning to run out of resources, and the strain on the minds of the soldiers is taking its toll.

Alright, now that's the situation of the world right now. The Combined Armies are in an advantageous position in terms of geographical position, information, and brute power. However, they are quickly running out of ammunition and creative flair in a fight against an enemy that is fuelled by an unexplanable urge to destroy with unlimited forces at their disposal. What should be their next step?

Should they move immediately to try and destroy the controlling Transpirers located in the Nightmare Corporation buildings? Should just kill the one hundred thousand people dreaming of the Cluster, ending their misery and the danger of the world being overrun? Also, Scott Reed and the rest of the Flarerunners will also die with the Cluster if this happens - they are also the product of the human imagination. So should the Combined Army attempt to utterly destroy the Cluster through brute force? And what role does the Driver play in the weeks and months to come?

This is, of course, up to whoever wants to end the story. In my mind, this story isn't complete, and there's not much chance of completing it in the near future. It doesn't matter, though. This story is done.

I'm sure Herrick and Jun Yi must be breathing a sigh of relief.