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                          G.U.A.R.D.I.A.N

                     A Thrash's chronicle by ROMeo

Thrash is a Role Playing Game (RPG) about videogame fighting games
and anime martial arts created by Blackbird (AKA Ewen Cluney).

G.U.A.R.D.I.A.N is the settig of my current Thrash's campaing and,
in fact, this writing is the product of my current game which is
being translated here in 90% original form.

Also, this is my first attemp in writing a fic, so I really hope
you like it and the flames don't go up too high.

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Chapter 3: Hitching a ride

<Nuevo Leon, Mexico>
<9:45 PM>

Charlie Haven is drinking alone in a bar, since he started his
life as a runaway he always drinks alone. He can no longer stay
in a single place. Whenever he stays more than a week in the
same place, they come for him. It has been like this since the
day of his father's demise, and will stay that way as long as
his new body stills being the ultimate bionic killing machine.

He still remembers his father's face when he finally had the
prototype of what would change the way the army looks at
bionics forever.

Even with the outmost advances in bionic research, war cyborgs
always seemed to be one step behind superhumans. More than once
the governments have had troubles with these so-called 
superbeings, and more than once the army's might have fell short
to a bunch of disguised clowns, being other superhumans the ones
to stop the troublemakers. The phenomenon of supepowers is
something relatively new, dating to the second half of 20th
century, and it has brought with it a lot of changes in modern
society: fear, paranoia, and otherwise insecurity. Well, It's
not like every superhuman was a maniacal, world-conqueror-
wannabe freak; in fact, a lot of 'em are really good at heart 
but.. ¿Will we really be depending on them? Our only blessing 
is that they are still as rare as an honest man in the congress
(*). Still ¿Will that always be like this? If the superhuman 
population increases ¿How will the state hold its own? ¿How
good is a state that can't promise you security? If it's only
THEM that can provide that security then ¿How long until the
people rather turn to THEM for guidance and protection instead
of the government? Or worse, once these so-called superheroes' 
three marbles in their heads click together about the real 
situation ¿How long until THEY turn on the people they were
suposedly protecting? They already know themselves to be above
our laws: breaking and entering (I had to get into his lair to
find the villain's diabolical plans), physical violence (I had
to make him talk), that besides taking justice into their own
hands, and the fact that when collateral damage takes place
(and that's VERY often) there is NO ONE who takes 
responsibility for all the damage done (private and federal
property, innocent bystanders, etc) because it happens that
these guys are all MASKED and all their crimes "in the name
of justice" fade into anonymity.

(*.- In G.U.A.R.D.I.A.N's earth, so-called superheroes and/or
supervillains are still VERY rare [about 1/100 of Marvel's
population... wait, no, that's still as much as 2 mutants or
ortherwise not entirely humans per each normal human...well,
you get the idea]. By VERY rare I'm saying as few as 1 
superhuman per each five or seven cities. Superhero teams are
even MORE rare than that)

No more. Since Haven's father's discovery, all that would
change. As we all know, cyborgs are known for their superior
strenght, endurance, and weaponry. However, when the one-on-one
comes, superheroes always seem to win. After all, the strongest
cyborg can't beat in arm wrestling a super-strong mutant, nor
it can outrun a guy who can run at MACH-I. However.. ¿What if
a cyborg could make himself as fast, strong, or resilient as
the circunstances demanded?. That's when Dr. Haven's discovery
takes place. By complementing the cyborg's bionic structure
with a synthetic musculatory system made from special fibers 
that can alter its properties with the proper influx of energy,
Dr. Haven managed to reach the key to the ultimate robotic
weapon. Still, when he was reaching the end of his 
investigations, the government entered in recession and could
no longer finance the project. Dr. Haven was loosing all hope,
but as the army had special interests in this project, they
would not let it go easily, recurring even to deals with the
underworld in order to get the necesary funding.

Dr. Haven refused completely to be funded by the underworld.
A man of strong convictions, he would never accept "bloody
money". However, this project was too important and they
would not take a "no" for an answer, but when his sponsors
started exherting pressure, Dr. Haven took the prototype and
all his work with him and escaped with his son away from his
persecutors. Time and time again they were found by the 
underworld, and the second time, his son resulted mortally
wounded. In order to save his son's life, Dr. Haven was forced
to do the only thing he could in that situation: a bionic
conversion using his own prototype. When the army knew the
prototype has already been used, the response was swift,
resulting in the assasination of Dr. Haven... knowing now the
prototype works, the Doctor is no longer of importance.
Nevertheless, his son escaped from that assasination attemp...
and is still at large.

Charlie Haven is still at large, and having a drink.
Unfortunately, the brief moment of relaxation is interrupted
when Charlie identifies a familiar face in the bar. After
the bionic conversion, few gadgets have resulted as useful to
Charlie as the camera eye and the integrated computer. It's
quite difficult to get good workers these days, especially
thugs... and so, when you have a thug that survives even
after a cyborg has slammed both fists on his head, you're
likely to keep it around... too bad that makes them later
identifiable to someone with a camera eye.

Feeling in mood, Charlie decides to try his luck and get
closer to the thug. As Chuck got closer, the thug stood up
from his chair and started walking away and out of the bar.
Bad feeling about this, in the three times the underworld and
the army have found them, they use to be more direct.
Reconsidering the situation, Charlie decided it would be better
to change bar.

After a while and entered the highway, Chuck's radar is still
registering the same two dots, keeping exactly the same speed
as him, and both keeping the same distance from him since the
last 10 minutes. Charlie tries speeding up his motorcycle a
little to see the reaction of his potential followers, and as
expected, they speeded up too. The two dots seemed to have no
intention of leaving and as a yellow light appeared in the
traffic lights, Charlie tried a "chicken game" on his
persecutors.

Once the red light appeared, Charlie pushed the pedal like 
there was no tomorrow, and using the car in front of him as a
ramp, he jumped the avenue in a most faithful impression of
Knight Rider(r). However, as Chuck landed on the other side,
he found again the old good two dots on his radar, dodging
the incoming cars of the perpendicular avenue and quickly
catching up... hmmm, this guys are starting to prove game.
The chase continued and a little extra spice was added when
Chuck's persecutors drawed weapons and started opening fire.
Since his bionic conversion, Charlie Haven distinguishes
himself for his superior combat abilities; however, this
time, his agility and reflexes are limited by the physical
capabilities of the motorcycle he is riding and the thug's
aim is improving with each shot. Nevertheless, when one's
attention is focused on shooting a moving target while riding
a motorbike it can prove a real challenge to react should your
target decided to break suddenly and wait for you with a
stretched forearm... busted.

The ride trough the intestate highway was quite smoothly,
well that is, if not for that third dot on the radar but,
marking a difference from the first two oponents, this one
was airborne. Even though Chuck tried to outrun this one,
the third persecutor proved to be just too fast and, in fact,
it crashed in front of Charlie releasing big explosion that
made him stop dead on his track, an explosion from which very
few things would be expected to still come out... and it seems
that Chuck's radar confirmed the fact that, right now, he was
in front of one of those few things. Chuck waited a few
seconds to see whatever his folks in the army had in store for
him this time, but he was a bit puzzled when he found out that
it was no robot, no fellow cyborg, not a bio-engineered monster
that came out of that explosion, but a 6 feet tall blond man in
white spandex.

"Good night Mr. Haven. I'd rather be straigth: ¿Will you
come on your own this time, or will you make it difficult?"

As a long silence was Charlie's only answer, the man in white
also added "You have made your choice Mr. Haven, and there's no
turning back now...". Having said that, he reached three
fingers from his right hand to his troat and tapped it three
times like he was tapping on a keyboard. What followed next
was the man in white stretching his arms up and forward and
a wave of life-like metal enveloping him that resulted in the
form of the stranger, now clad in what seemed like some kind
of powered armor. The torso was reinforced with a plated
shaped like a "V" and its red eyesight transpired menace.
Charles Haven wasn't someone easy to intimidate, and he let
his bike roar a couple of times before attempting a knockdown
on his armor-clad oponent. Chuck's bike is a well oiled machine
with a top-of-the-line motor. In fact, Chuck knows no one
besides himself capable of dodging a knockdown like the one he
is doing... until now. At a astonishing speed, the enemy
sidesteps the motorized bettering ram at the same time an
energy spear materializes in his right hand and right trough
the bike's front wheel. As Chuck jumps from his bike before it
crashes a few meters in the distance, the stranger walks in
his direction dissolving the energy spear in his hand. Chuck
gets on his feet and swiftly throws a punch at his adversary
who easily sidesteps him again and disdainfuly answers with a
backhand that, once dodged by Chuck, releases an energy blade
that reaches him, burning trough his synthetic skin. Charlie
gets away with a roll, definitely this guy wasn't an ordinary
military man... the agility bestowed on him by that power armor
matched his own, and his fighting technique was clearly
superior... still, where technique fails, raw might prevails.
Decided that, he waited for his oponent to do the next move
(which was another slash with his energy blade) and, taking
the impact, he lifted his oponent over his shoulder, slamming
him on the ground. Maintaining his grip on his prey, Charlie
lifted the armor-clad enemy, ready to smash him once more
when he suddenly felt the pain only high voltage gives.
The power armor pilot electrified its frame, forcing Charlie
to throw the source of its pain far from him. While still
airborne, the pilot managed to spin in mid air twice and land
in a half crouch, on his feet, and was summoning energy blade
and spear, ready for retaliation, when a loud laughting
interrupted the two combatants.

"Are we getting old Kodd?" was the sarcastical comment of the
stanger before the moonlight shedded some light on his form:
a seven feet tall, muscularly build man. Dark orange hair in a 
military haircut and a ponytal combining with plastic looking
gauntlets and boots of similar color. Black spandex, a
metallic shoulder plate on his left and, if not for the near
darkness of the place, one would swear his eyes had feline
pupils and his skin was light orange with stripes, not unlike
a tiger. Aproaching confident to the weapon-wielding pilot, he
added another comment:

"Listen up. We are five, you are one. We get the upper hand
and you go home... not that the kid seems in real need of our
help anyway" with that, the stranger laughted even louder than
before. Well, in fact Charlie's radar now detected three new
prescences that just a moment before were not in place. The
new situation stated, if not for that helmet, Charlie would
have seen the pilot glare at the weretiger lookalike just
before turning his back and fly away with concealed jets in
his feet and shoulders. With the pilot gone, the weretiger
now addressed Charlie.

"Now YOU listen up kid, he'll be back tomorrow and believe me,
six of that tin-bastards can be a real pain in the @ss. We've
been sent to offer you shelter, but I won't put a gun in
your head so it's your choice"

Though rude, the weretiger sounded honest. "¿What's the catch?"
was Charlie's reply, argument which the weretiger answered
straightfoward: "Your services kid, and I don't mean serving
your crooked government nor sh*t like that... I mean helping
were is REAL need. Look, we know about your story, we know
this is the fourth time they almost nail you and this time
they sent a real heavyweight. You may have not felt this
one that hard but believe me kid, give them the chance and
there will be no sixth time. We can't promise you much in
return, except keeping you safe from them and who knows,
give us some time and we may even dechiper for you that mess
you call body.... so, what's your choice? ¿Us or them?".

The accord was made almost without words. After that, the
weretiger raised the his left hand to his mouth's height,
and grabbing his thumb, he talked to the back of his hand.
"Ok, we're going... success. Over".

Upon finishing his transmition, a huge spacecraft raised from
the dirt below the interstate highway.

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feedback and flames to azalin1@lycos.com

Visit G.U.A.R.D.I.A.N's HQ at:

http://g-u-a-r-d-i-a-n.net

AND the Thrash's Official homepage can be found at:

http://www.blackbird.nu/thrash/

CYA!