Sons of C3 teaser - How I Became Soul
It took forever to write this (and then I mostly sat on this for months), but I finally have a little teaser of what C3 of Shandon will be up to. Note that while this is probably the longest thing I have yet written, it is not a coherent chapter by any means. I literally started at a random point for the one scene that is most solidified. It would certainly be nice if this was good, but it's best not to outright expect it.
This is also not for the first story. Dawn of C3 would be the prologue about the first few successes of C3. Sons of C3 will come after that one. And as per usual, details may change as I often just winged it for the sake of at least writing.
I wrote this from the point-of-view of Vadim Baikal aka Soul, one of Sons of C3's main characters. In part I did this because Soul is fun to write first-person for, but mostly I just did this as experiment because I am starting to suspect I may write better when I do so first person. Note that this does not necessarily mean I'll actually write first person in the future.
Also, while you don't have to read every part of the exposition that is Gaspar's Diary, I do recommend reading the first two parts for context.
Anyway, with all that out of the way, here's a look into Shandon and its C3 division!
How I became Soul
To get this patrol over with quicker, I jumped onto the flat roof of Shandon’s postal office. That vantage point would help considerably. With a bit of clambering and hoisting myself onto the roof, I managed to get myself up there. Thank you, monster serum. That was still a two-story jump I just made though. I could see the surprise on the faces of the few Shandonese passersby that were... driven enough to still be out at this hour. They didn't say anything because they must have seen the C3 uniform, but the surprise is dead obvious. Then again, they could just as well have been surprised to see the C3 uniform at all. I guess the people knew that a couple hundred soldiers wasn't a big number. Fuck's sake, I wish they told me that before I agreed to be dispatched here. Hell, if they just told Secretary Hughes we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.
Regardless, us of the "Shandon Division of C3" learned that the hard way when a few companies split off to address the threat to Steelknot, only for Baron Grimvuul to attack Shandon right after. That blasted overgrown fox could have killed us all too, according to his plan. Afterwards, Ilta and I came to the easy conclusion that a division this size had no room for error, which is just a little bit of an issue for this line of work. Not like this is a matter of life and death or anything. Moira didn't take it quite as seriously and just returned to turning any male heads that weren't hospitalized or buried. I guess we instead agree that we'd rather just live our lives. I don't know about Moira but alas, there's the matter of my dad. Of his idea of living his life. Which is roughly the equivalent of throwing your Croican Marks into a volcano, if the volcano could talk and promise to eventually return the coins tenfold. To summarize it for the back of a book cover: I work so dad keeps out of debt. Captain Haghen was even so kind to get a government official to monitor my dad. It's obvious I have to put in the work. No matter what the work is. Or how the Croican government expects me to pull that off.
As I touched on already, the issue was that we had no reserves since a lot of our division was either out of commission or dead. This included our own division captain, by the way: Duff fought alongside those of us that Baron Grimvuul caught by surprise. His command did absolutely nothing for our worries, but he pushed his magic and protective amulet to their limits. Or rather Duff pushed them past their limits, and Baron Grimvuul in turn pushed those of his skeleton. I tried tugging on my uniform’s right sleeve to get it back in order. Then I remembered there was no sleeve to get back in order, as that burned away in the fight and our resources weren’t doing that much better than our numbers. Still, that was secondary to me at this moment. With few soldiers and no leadership the next monster attack would mean a repeat of the Fellholz Disaster, so there was a lot to consider. To my surprise, the first thing I wondered was how long it would take for Duff to recover. He was always very calm, seeming to think problems would solve themselves, which didn’t work out well for us that time. And yet, when we didn’t have a giant monstrosity knocking our door down? I couldn’t deny Duff’s attitude was reassuring, so hopefully his Helix God would get him back in shape soon. Annoyingly, I was drawing blanks on other potential commanders. Commanding on a larger scale was probably an ordeal and a half, and the first person I could think of with that experience wasn’t even in C3: That’d be chief Sauer of the Shandon police department, and there was no way I was going to count on him. Not because he seemed to be a bit of an uptight pain in the neck. Okay, also because he was an uptight pain in the neck, but mostly just because the police weren’t going to be of much help during a monster attack. That’s what the Contra Creature Corps was for. It’s kind of in the name.
A gunshot. From the old manufacturing district, if I heard correctly. Multiple gunshots, actually. I decided to leave it to the Shandon police as I had enough to worry about, and so got right to worrying. Ignoring obvious complaints about unusual hierarchy, who would we listen to? It was not like- Something being smashed. Hard to tell what it was, but I still wasn’t inclined to care. Except I started thinking I should. If someone was being riddled with bullets, what would be doing the smashing? Whatever was happening started to look like a job for the C3. Potentially. I still didn’t know what exactly was going on. Regardless, I had no desire to jog for several hours as punishment for not doing my job. At least, not when there was a job to be done. I grabbed my communicator and called Ilta. “I copy, Vadim! What’s the situation?” “We have gunfire in the old manufacturing district. Also loud crashing noises. Makes it sound like a job for us.” That was just the gist of it. I still had to get to the plan, though I didn’t have to. “I’ll make sure the police don't get involved.” Ilta and I had our occasional disagreements, but the definition of good or bad ideas wasn’t one of them. “Send our squad to the general area! And whoever Moira’s interacting with, to get her out here!” A sigh, and confirmation. I continued. “Get as many other squads on standby as possible! Our squad is not to be involved yet. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. I’ll go ahead!” Another confirmation. Ilta sounded like she was going to object to that last part but I wasn’t going to give her the time.
Another smash. As I jumped from rooftop to rooftop, I was glad to see police officers starting to block off the road towards the district. They would stay out of trouble. For that matter, they also wouldn’t be trouble. Loud voices. I can imagine screaming during whatever we would be dealing with, but I couldn't make much out at all. Finally, I arrived at a large warehouse. It had gone quiet. I didn’t see any unusually large creature. Actually, I didn’t see a soul in sight, as I’d hoped. Except for a toddler. Wonderful. I jumped down the back wall. “Wow!” I really hoped whoever was left didn’t hear the toddler. This problem needed to be solved fast. “Okay kid, go home. C3’s on the scene.” I wasn’t holding my breath for this to work. “Alone, mister? There’s lots of people in there!” Made to feel old at 18 years of age. Oh well. Already wasn’t planning to ask for an eyewitness account from this brat. Still, he needed to leave or I would be blamed for whatever harm came to him. “Yeah, I’ll solve the problem.” I probably wouldn’t. I needed to scout out the situation. “Oooh! Cool powers?” Not really, but thank you for the idea. “Yep! I’ll zap them.” I couldn’t. That was Captain Haghen, not me. Might not have been the best lie given he was literally one of Central C3’s biggest heroes. But the brat bought it, and was about to scream in excitement before I covered his mouth. “I’ll tell you all about it if you go home.” Again, I wouldn’t. Thankfully, I was dealing with a kid, so he went home to have sweet dreams. That made my task less of a nightmare. Still, whatever was happening had quieted down, and there was a chance whoever caused it heard the kid. I couldn’t wait for the squad even if I wanted to, so I entered through the back door.
I first found myself in a corridor. A quick look around confirmed it was abandoned. The administration office was dusty and hardly a sheet of paper remained. I say it was abandoned, but an open door further proved something had happened here. I continued on my way until I almost reached the main storage space. Figuring that space was the scene in question, I looked around the door. The room did not look good. What shelves were still there were on the ground. Most weren’t in one piece either. Support beams were cracked. The place was barely structurally sound. I was done with the state of the warehouse rather quickly, as there were more corpses all around the room than I expected there to be. A lot of bodies were scrambled, stuck in impossible positions. After glancing over one whose head I just couldn’t see, I spotted a sign of life. A girl roughly my age had either survived or arrived. She had a poor look to her, with messy dark hair, a patched-up green tank top and stitched together pants. Something was strange about all this. I entered the room as quietly as I could.
Hang on. Wasn’t I concerned with a kid who wasn’t at a safe place at a safe hour just ten minutes ago? I froze in front of a troublesome-looking guy and a brick not far from where his head should have been. Most women would be begging for trouble in places like this. Why was this girl here? “That’s enough fun! Why don’t you take a break?” The girl cheerfully said to a corpse. As she was putting his arms behind his head like he had merely clocked out. Okay, she was looking for trouble. Then she turned around to look at me. Crap.
As she was turning I finally noticed her bare feet. Of course, Fiend Recognition 101: Pay attention to what someone’s outfit might be missing. While Common Fiends wore as much clothing as possible to hide their monster features, this was not the case for Vonhoff Fiends: They could transform into their more monstrous forms if they needed to, but this would rip apart any clothing not made for those forms. In the case of the girl, I now sincerely doubted her lack of shoes had to do with a lack of money. In other words, I probably had the terrible luck of running into a rogue Vonhoff Fiend. One with even greater strength than usual, judging from what remained of the band of thugs. And I had her attention while my Banneret 6 rifle was still on my back.
“Oh! Did you invite yourself to the party? Because you are late!” The girl addressed me with her earlier cheerful attitude as she began to approach. I considered the options that remained. Having been enhanced by the serum, a punch from her wouldn’t instantly leave me like a ragdoll. Still, the serum wouldn’t fully bridge the obvious giant gap in strength and it was unknown what else she was capable of. There were a couple possibilities, even given her strength, of which I know none because I’m a soldier and not a scientist of the RDMF department. “Ah well! Better late than never, even though you are a little boring.” She was drawing close. I expected the girl to transform at any moment. If I had my rifle at the ready I might have been able to shoot her before that happened. Maybe I could have hit the Vonhoff Organ, and have her patched up for questioning. Or just fire and forget, as I wasn’t a great shot. “...On second thought I take that back because you are not responding!” The girl had stopped, leaning in as she said that. She was right. I wasn’t responding. Or at least my legs were neglecting to tremble in fear. That surprised her? Make that two of us. Even more surprisingly, I decided to open my mouth. “What response were you expecting then?”
A deadpan reply. Truly one for the novels. The girl, clearly unimpressed, resumed her approach as she grinned and wagged her finger. “Pay attention now!” I certainly did as my personal space was invaded. “Arms like this…” The girl grabbed my arms and raised them high into the air. I thought it best not to resist. Not that this was an option: I could swear I felt physical strength even in her normal human state. Or was my understandably fearful mind playing tricks on me now? “Body like this…” I was forcibly turned one-eighty degrees. The girl took a step back. “And off you go running and screaming for the C3!” She pushed me towards the door, sending me stumbling across debris and a broken leg. Miraculously, I broke my fall and just stood back up, dusting off my uniform as more words left my mouth.
“I’m sorry, I don’t do screaming. But I can run for myself if you want.” The only truth in that statement was that I could run. Fear seemed to flash across the girl’s face when she realized my affiliation, before that uncanny joy partly returned. Taking a step back and looking a lot more defensive, she said: “N-now that’s funny! I hardly see you guys here! Go figure!” “Ugh, don’t remind me! We are horribly understa-” I trailed off as my brain finally started to obey me again. In the unfortunate fight with Baron Grimvuul we lost a bunch of veteran serum soldiers and Fiends. And here I was, talking to a rogue Vonhoff Fiend with the strength to tackle monsters several times her size and whatever else surgery granted her. She sure seemed to enjoy being a Fiend too. I started looking around, somewhat absorbed by the possibility that I could use this to my advantage. “Oh, that guy? Don’t mind him, he thought the merriment was to die for!” The girl snapped me back to the moment. My gaze accidentally found a bald corpse whose face sported the most forced grin I had ever seen. I could find no injury on him before the girl jogged towards him and stuffed the body inside a shelf as if that undid my discovery. No longer lost in thought, I decided it was worth a shot and started.
“Suuure… Look. I have a proposition.” It was hard to interpret the girl's exact expression, but I seemed to have her interest. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess this is your idea of fun.” I continued as I gestured across the aftermath of her scuffle. Our exchange continued non-verbally. The girl brought her hand to her chest as she feigned surprise. Was she seriously acting innocent now? If the lack of bullet wounds on the corpses didn’t make it clear enough, her words and actions earlier did: This was not a normal gunfight and the girl didn’t pass by skipping and jumping. I returned this blatant lie with a very blatant head tilt to communicate my skepticism. With that point across, the girl dropped her act and gave a disappointed nod, a cue for me to continue. “You now know that I’m a soldier of the C3. And I’m pretty sure you know what the C3 does. Why throw ordinary criminals for a loop, literally, when you-”. I was swiftly interrupted with obvious enthusiasm. “I can beat up any Fiend criminals you find?” That arrangement wouldn’t last very long. Fiend Engineering was pretty thoroughly regulated. I wasn’t sure what she was on about, and it probably wouldn’t be the last time. “...At the very least. On the side, I guess. What I wanted to say was you get to punch giant monsters and whatever else it is you did to these dregs.” I finished, referring to whatever happened to the grinning corpse on the shelf. The girl darted towards me enthusiastically but stopped short.
“Hold on! Aren’t there commanders or… What do you call them?…” She was searching for the right word. “...politicians that decide this sort of thing?” That question filled me with a temporary dread, reminding me that recruiting a superpowered stranger off the streets indeed wasn’t standard procedure. Then I remembered where I wanted to shove standard procedure currently. This needed to be done. “The politicians are far away in Ariocester and command has… seen better days, thanks to a certain fox menace. My proposal stands, and I doubt anyone is going to argue it.” I thought it best to omit the condition that the girl not do anything stupid and out-of-line for now.
The girl dashed towards me, grabbed my hand and violently shook it. “Then yes, yes, and also yes! Let’s go! Did I mention yes?” That did it, thank goodness! But she did need to let go. The brutal handshake stopped before she asked: “So when, no, how do we start?” “First, let go of my hand. Second, we need to leave fast. We can talk later.” That wasn’t an exaggeration: Several minutes had gone by and I expected Ilta and the others to be near the premises at this point. Maybe they were even deciding to approach. If I had to explain this arrangement with my new ally, I preferred to do it away from the corpses she left. The girl let go, and followed me to the door I came from.
“So, names! I’m Lunet! Who are you?” Asked the girl, Lunet, as we went back through the corridor. “Oh, I’m just a single soul who’s horribly understaffed for this sh… city, as I said.” Even though I just recruited a very strong pair of hands, I knew that wouldn’t make all the difference. For all I knew, I could still be halfway to a grave. For a moment I lost myself in thought again. I later noticed Lunet was also pondering something, but she soon broke the silence as if she had a great idea. “Alrighty then! Soul it is!” Wait. Did Lunet just assign me a name? “What?! No! Okay, it’s Vadim! Vadim Baikal!” I immediately responded, hoping it wasn’t too late to introduce myself. Lunet, however, just examined me for a moment, which gave me a sinking feeling. “...you don’t look like a Vadim to me.” This, of course, begged the question of what your standard-issue Vadim looked like. Try as I might, I couldn’t articulate the question. I only got one word in before Lunet pressed on. “Why are you so down on this, Soul? I like it!” At least I knew how to answer that one immediately. “Maybe because I don’t like it?” The nickname made zero sense. It wasn’t even shortened, like Vad, or Dim. The latter sounded even worse on second thought, so I opted not to bring that up to Lunet, who was going all in on that brainwave of hers as I slammed open the warehouse door. "It gives you that mysterious vibe, like a handsome stranger on the corner! Drawing the attention of those streetside women!" I gave up on trying to understand Lunet’s utterly insane thoughts. We were back on the street, and the brainwave still wasn’t done. “Don’t be a Vadim! Be a Soul, Soul!” I then began to give up on my own name. As we approached the police barricade, I recognized Brittany among the police officers. She was definitely one to ask me questions. Today, however, she looked thoroughly confused. Brittany must have caught our bizarre exchange. That was fine by me, for I couldn't begin to explain this. As we passed Brittany, I quickly stated the obvious fact that there were corpses, and told the police they could start cleaning up the scene. “...You’re not going to stop doing this, are you?” I asked Lunet afterwards, more as a formality at this point. "Nope! This is your life now, Soul!" Lunet proclaimed.
Evidently this was my life now. I managed to survive a close encounter with the most manic character I’ve ever met, recruiting her on the spot. Our odds improved ever so slightly, provided I was correct and my allies wouldn’t be difficult about this. Only a minute later, I saw those allies. They were about to enter. I just knew.
“Vadim! We were getting concerned!” Moira said. “We received no communication at all! Why?... More importantly, what took you so long?” Ilta asked. I glanced at Lunet to make sure she didn’t say anything just yet. She seemed content to listen. “It’s a long story. This Fiend girl here is coming along. I’ll explain when we get back.” For a second, I could see a worried confusion on Ilta’s face in particular. Clearly she already had a rough feeling about what transpired. But then she grabbed her communicator, calling… Malger? “Sergeant Wolf, do you copy?... The situation at the warehouse is under control. When we get back, I suggest you talk to Vadim… I don’t know, but he’s concocted something.”
Ilta’s report was telling. It seemed that Malger Wolf took temporary command. The good thing about that was we now had someone to answer to again, and I could think of worse candidates. Of course, this also meant I had to explain and justify my spontaneous recruitment to him soon. Malger was a man of few words, so I couldn’t be sure if he would agree.
Regardless, I did what I needed to do.
End of Teaser
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Notes:
I can imagine there being some readability issues. I tried to indent every smaller linebreak, like I've seen books do. Unfortunately, Tab does not work that way on tumblr. I'm sorry.
Again, details are likely to change. I already had to stop myself from changing more than I did during the last pass I did. I'll worry about that when/if I actually start writing for real.
While a lot of stuff is up in the air, there's two things I am certain of: C3 of Shandon's predicament will royally suck and they manage to come back from it, and Soul does meet and enlist Lunet roughly like this.
I wholeheartedly understand if Soul seems dubious right now. Every single incarnation of this character hasn't been exactly the nicest guy on the planet. Don't come here expecting a goodie-two-shoes. However, also consider this is but a small part early in the story.
Now that I've finally got this out there, I've honestly no idea what is next. But while I thought for a while that maybe Wildchalice would be dying a common death, chances are I'll find something else to write for it and procrastinate.
Regardless, see you later.
