A new novel by Cpl Crud
Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2016 9:36 am
by cpl_crud
Hello all.
I know that this isn't strictly KS-related, so let me start with this. Half of the profit from the sale of my novel will be donated to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF); which is where we asked you to donate money for Katawa Shoujo. So if you never made it around to donating, then please buy a copy of my book and I'll make the donation on your behalf.
Also, there are a number of milestones in the blog post that will trigger me to get off my backside and write more KS fanfiction, including the much-requested third part to A Runner's Afternoon.
So now, into the novel itself.
Here is a blog post going over the details, however this is a science-fiction novel that is set in a walled city, run by a central government and completely free of outside interference.
Each person has their life limited by their Clock.
The story focussed on Kate, a cybernetically enhanced soldier that has been sent undercover to rout a rebellion, but in the process she ends up doubting herself.
I'll say no more.
At the moment it is digital only (I'm waiting on proofs of the paperback). I'd really like to get enough attention on this to then take it to a publisher - I already have one that helped with the editing that said that they would push it if I can prove that there was a market. So a few sales and a couple of Amazon reviews would really help me out. Plus, you know, MSF.
For a direct link to the Amazon page please
click here. If there are any other platforms that you think I should use then please let me know.
Thanks for indulging me, and thanks for all the support you've given me as a community over the last 5 years. The continuing community support for KS really inspired me to strike it out on my own.
Cam "Cpl Crud" O'Neill
Augment Your Pre-Orders Now!
Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2016 11:38 pm
by LordDarknus
The snowy winds howl white and cold, whistling through the endless, moonlit darkness. In the middle of a vast barren, frozen landscape, there… in the distance, juts out a dark shape, rising to a formidable height, throwing a great shadow along the snow-covered ground. A man-made wall; incredibly tall, dreadfully imposing, and practically impenetrable. The city it's surrounding, a lifeless dystopia of moss-speckled concrete and frost-sheathed metal, is completely secured; its citizens utterly "protected" by their oppressors from tasting freedom, never able to even glimpse a world with a horizon, out of and beyond their clock-controlled lives… that is, until someone suddenly decided to blow a giant, smoking hole into the wall in the middle of the night.
The drones and military respond accordingly, swarming like insects to an intrusion of their precious hive. The mobilised soldiers congregate, the air patrols gather over the huge smoking gap, and someone from afar watches them, someone falling from a great height, shooting down like a black bullet into the street lamp-lit abyss of the dark city, before a parachute suddenly deploys and yanks the diver back just in time, slowing the rate of descent just enough for a safe landing. A pair of boots thud down and crack the frozen soil, the parachute harness is immediately unbuckled and dropped. A large magnum pistol is extracted from the figure's thigh, the slide racked. An oxygen mask is taken off and discarded, revealing a woman with fire in her cold, steely eyes.
"The prodigal daughter makes her return."
Former-Agent Kate, has landed.
She wastes no time reminiscing. She isn't here for long. Just to pick up some friends and get them out. She moves with a purpose. Relying on the updated maps her friends had sent her. Her former friends that she grew up with in school. The school that taught her how to stay in the shadows, quietly break into a secure building, and navigate cautiously to her objective. The same school that was training a new generation of E-Types, Enhanced Agents. Cyborg killers. Just like Kate.
She remembers especially those who failed, but didn't die. Those who had lost their limbs, like athletic Emi and artistic Rin. Those like pretty Lilly who had their sight taken by shrapnel from a poorly-thrown grenade, or a equipment malfunction exploding in her face like Hanako. And some so mentally-traumatised that they refuse to ever speak again, like gentle Shizune, and some who go slightly crazy and half-deaf from repeated blows to the head; Misha always spoke louder, and happier, than she should have to their Sergeant.
If Kate only knew what happened to them, those unlucky souls who were once just as likely as she was to get promoted, and "upgraded", into a killing machine. Classmates whose lives were brutally destroyed, close friends that she'll never see again…
Kate leaps back suddenly, narrowly avoiding a bullet to the head.
"Damn it," someone whispers, her quiet voice audible to Kate's enhanced ears. It sounds familiar to Kate, but the thought is pushed to the background of her mind as Kate retreats, she's composed but still alarmed that someone has eluded her senses and skills.
The unlit hallways rush by as Kate runs back and takes an alternate route, but someone's footsteps are echoing hers: the shooter is following her. No, the shooter is gaining on her.
Kate spins unexpectedly and fires a shot, catching the pursuer by surprise at a corner; the hallways light up repeatedly as Kate empties her pistol unchallenged.
A small figure staggers from the trauma and injuries, drops her gun, leans against a wall, and slumps to the floor. The dying voice whispers, "Ibarazaki down… I'm down… Get her, Rin."
Kate turns her head to the sound of another enemy approaching from the corner, just as the lights suddenly come on and blind her. She holsters her empty pistol, and charges straight ahead with inhuman speed, unsheathing her short sword from her back and forcefully thrusting it into the waiting hands of… Rin. Agent Rin, whose augmented hands and arms had caught Kate's blade, and who effortlessly snaps it in two.
"RIN?" Kate asks in shock.
"Kate… I just want you to know… that I never asked for this."
Rin suddenly stabs at Kate with the broken blade, but Kate ducks back and the metal lodges into the wall with a few strands of her cut hair falling from the sharp edge. Kate backs up into a fighting stance, as Rin looks at her friend, Emi Ibarazaki, lying in a pool of blood. Rin looks at Kate, but without any malice or anger. Strangely enough, Rin doesn't assume a stance. Kate worries that Rin is going to just shoot instead of fight hand-to-hand, but her former friend seems oddly unfocused and unaware of the option. With her gun empty, Kate has no choice but to push her luck and take advantage of Rin's apparent confusion, she lunges suddenly to punch Rin, but Rin punches her back effortlessly, both robotic arms too fast for even Kate to react to.
Kate barely keeps her balance, her cybernetic systems automatically inject painkillers into her system. Kate tries again, and Rin hits her square in the stomach, three times in a row, knocking Kate back again. Through the burning pain, Kate coughs a mouthful of blood onto the floor.
Rin doesn't seem to notice.
Kate tries one last trick: she raises up her hand, and like in a martial arts movie, gestures for Rin to come at her.
Rin doesn't seem to notice it either. She just stands still.
Kate, feeling desperate, goads her into it. "Come on. Your turn."
Rin suddenly responds, "Oh… okay."
She steps forth towards Kate, onto the slippery blood on the floor, and before Rin realises her mistake, Kate is already upon her. In one swift motion, Kate knocks Rin off balance, her feet slipping on the blood, she pulls the broken blade out of the wall, and ends Rin's life with a single stab to the throat.
Kate watches another friend die before her eyes… at her own hands…
"God damn it… God damn it all…" she swears, instead of crying.
Realising this was all a set-up, Kate curses her own gullibility, and enacts her escape plan.
She exits the building, hot-wires an expensive-looking sedan, and drives away into the night. Towards the giant flaming hole in the wall.
Something flashes in her rearview mirror: a pair of headlights. A pursuer. But the headlights move away from each other and drive up to both sides of Kate's sedan. Two pursuers! On motorcycles!
Kate swerves to try and knock them down, but they regain control, and pull out their guns. Kate immediately brakes as bullets whizz past her head in bursts of broken glass. Kate pulls the handbrake and drastically whips her sedan around, then throttles full speed down a narrow alleyway. The motorcyclists expertly skid around and chase after her, relentlessly shooting as they do.
Kate removes a grenade from her belt, pulls the pin out with her teeth, opens her door and drops it.
The explosion engulfs the pursuers, gruesomely killing one of them as flesh and bone collide against metal and asphalt.
"Shicchan!" the surviving pursuer screams.
"Misha?" Kate says, recognising the voice.
"I'll kill you! I'LL KILL YOU!!" Misha shouts desperately. The crazed screaming gives way to gunfire, all aimed at Kate's head.
Kate's sedan barrels out of the alleyway and swerves, tires screeching violently as Misha hurtles out and skids wide, motorcycle engine roaring in the dark.
Kate readies her pistol, as Misha slowly gains on Kate in the sedan's slipstream.
"We don't have to do this, Misha," Kate begs, "please don't make me do this."
Misha fires relentlessly until her gun clicks empty. She holsters her pistol and tries to haphazardly reload as she steers, one hand gripping the throttle, the other fumbling to jam a magazine into her pistol.
Kate notices and hits the brakes, forcing Misha to swerve up to Kate's side. Misha successfully reloads and draws her gun on Kate's head, but Kate has already aimed at hers and pulled the trigger.
Misha's body topples over with her bike, crashing and twisting violently against the cold black road. Kate brings the sedan to a stop, and stares at the lifeless wreck in her mirror. … After a long pause, she floors the accelerator and continues her escape.
"…damn it."
A gush of tears accompanies her swearing.
Kate's sedan reaches the giant hole in the city's wall. And is accordingly greeted by the authorities. All guns lock on to the sedan and open fire.
Driving on through the hail of bullets, the sedan keeps going, ploughing through the dirt and snow. Someone fires a rocket at it, and the night is briefly illuminated by a flaming sedan sent flying through the air.
It crashes violently and topples over, carving a flaming trail of debris over the white road.
A group of soldiers immediately approach to investigate. They surround the wreckage. One of them kicks open the door: but no one is in the driver's seat. A rod on the steering wheel and a brick on the throttle was used to keep the car going.
As they report the incident, a slow, heavy-duty assault helicopter flies overhead and out over the wall, breaking its holding pattern and leaving the city.
Kate is at the helm, and she ignores the commands over the radio, demanding that she follow orders and turn back.
"Go f*ck yourself," she replies.
She turns the lumbering helicopter around as they start to give chase. And unleashes a barrage of bullets and missiles, destroying her pursuers before they even have a chance to return fire.
Kate leaves the city behind in the distance, keeping her course steady through the howling night.
A pair of fighter jets suddenly appear on the helicopter's radar. Both of them lock on, and fire every missile they have at her, forcing Kate to just abandon her stolen aircraft and grab a parachute as she jumps out.
She puts on her parachute as she falls, the helicopter exploding into pieces overhead. She pulls her chute open, and is snatched up by the strong winds, tossing her violently through the air, narrowly missing pieces of burning helicopter wreckage.
But an unlucky gust of wind sends her higher up into the air, closer and closer to the path of the oncoming jet. Kate immediately unbuckles from her parachute, and falls into the freezing darkness, watching as the parachute is sucked into the jet's engine and destroys it, sending the aircraft into a rapid descent of smoke and flames.
Kate's world fades to black as she drops further down into the cold void.
Sunrise…
Kate opens her eyes, and appreciates the sight.
Her head is upon a small pool of frozen blood, but her systems indicate the bleeding has stopped.
She gets up, feeling her entire body bruised and sore. Pain wracking her every movement.
"Another dawn, another day; clock be damned," she tells herself.
She barely feels it, but in the frozen, still air, she definitely hears the clear crack of a sniper rifle suddenly lodging a bullet into her shoulder, throwing her back onto the pristine snow.
Kate grits her teeth and struggles to get off her back, forcing herself to crawl away. Towards the sunrise. There is no real cover for her out here in the snowy wastes, she should know. Instead, her best chance is to hope that the sun will rise high enough to blind the sniper. She just needs to be in-between the sun and the sniper at the right angle. It'll force them to move. And when they do. Kate will spot them, using her own sniper-scope attachment on her pistol. And it'll be an eye for an eye.
Two snipers lie still on the snow. Their clothes, equipment and rifles all painted snowy white. They both see what Kate is trying to do: stay low, and use the sun against them.
Hanako, the sniper with long black hair and a scarred face, fires another shot, sending a puff of snow bursting up near Kate's head.
Lilly, with long blonde hair and cybernetic eyes, keeps her reticle steady, and refuses to shoot without a clear shot.
"Steady, Hanako," Lilly whispers to her partner.
Hanako furrows her brow slightly. "The sun is rising. We have to shoot now before we can't see at all."
"It will only be a brief window."
"She'll use it to escape."
"I shot her. She's bleeding. She's not going far."
Hanako agrees tacitly.
So they both wait. The sun rises and effectively blinds them for a brief moment, but they don't move. They wait.
They wait patiently for the sun to rise higher over the freezing wastes.
Minutes later, they can see again. But Kate has disappeared.
They search, they look for a trail of blood, or disturbed snow, or anything.
But they find nothing.
"I can't see her," Hanako says.
Lilly doesn't reply.
"Did she move?" Hanako asks.
"Fire a shot," Lilly commands.
"Where?"
"Where she last was."
Hanako does so. But hits nothing but snow.
"Should we wait for backup? Or move in closer?" Hanako asks.
Lilly considers her options, and answers, "Let's move up. Go ahead of me."
Efficiently and with speed, Hanako crawls forth from her position, followed closely by Lilly.
It isn't long before they reach higher ground and Hanako peers over the ridge. From below, Kate snipes her in the head before she can react.
"HANAKO!" Lilly yells and stands up, aiming down at where she knows Kate is now.
Lilly inches forth, her finger twitching with rage.
Something darts up and Lilly shoots at it, causing it to explode: A flash-bang grenade.
Lilly's ears ring in deafness, but her cybernetic eyes recover quickly, just in time to realise that Kate has already shot her twice, sending her tumbling onto her back.
Lilly stares up at the bright blue sky, her thoughts and emotions oddly at peace with the world.
Kate staggers into view, covered in snow, looking half-dead and severely wounded. "I'm sorry," she says to Lilly, begging for forgiveness.
Lilly simply smiles as her world ends abruptly.
