Mutter photos on Flickr

"Why am I helping this idiot?" I muttered to myself as I stepped through the station airlock. I was doing my best to muster some false facsimile of anger. Truth be told, the larger the far flung refueling space station grew through the view-port of the transport shuttle, the more excited I became. Surely, in time, my aid to the Outsider would get me killed. I told myself this often, in the grumpy manner of the old veteran that I am. Yet I would give that aid without hesitation given a second chance.

When I 'retired' from service under the special operations branch of the Verta Home Guard, I told myself that taking a position in the Capital Protection Force was a great way to stay active and keep my restless soldier boots happy while staying close to home and family. Certainly my wife appreciated it. Yet despite the long shifts and the high importance of the work, CPF duty was dreary. It was a lot of paranoia, and a lot of pointless ceremony, all tangled up in a mess of protocol and etiquette. In short, it was a soldier's nightmare. I began to reflect longingly on my days in the service, stomping across barely inhabited planets hunting the galaxy's most dangerous for the good of the Verta homeworld.

Then came the Outsider. I suppose I was more ware than most - CPF channels were buzzing about it, though public media was not far behind. The appearance of a mysterious unregistered Kassian vessel drifting towards the Capital City docking district caused commotion in the populace, but did not directly impact the central district where I was stationed. The situation escalated when there was no response to communications hailing, as well as when cyberwarfare attempts failed to break into the computers of what appeared to be a simple freighter.

What happened next I did not learn until I was read into the situation later. The first major red flag came when, after finally cracking the ship's nav computer to force a landing, it was discovered that security protocols had isolated the nav computer from the rest of the ship's computers. This is common on large warships, not on commercial freighters. When the adjacent systems were finally cracked, the second major red flag went up. The layout of the ship on diagnostics was unorthodox and clearly militarized. As camera feeds began to be accessed, the third and most alarming red flag went up. It became clear that this vessel was in fact a Kassian laboratory ship, and that something had gone very wrong. None of the Kassian crew remained alive - there were several bodies, and no lifeboats remaining in the escape bays. Several bulkheads had been forced open. And something was on the ship - never on camera, but scans detected a clear heat signature onboard.

The distance at which this vessel had operated, and the speed at which the Outsider must have dispatched his captors, meant that the Kassian council staff in Council City never had time to react. The top-secret, black-on-black nature of this highly illegal operation meant that no one off the Kassian homeworld was read into it either. By the time they realized it was theirs, and that it needed contained, it was too late: CPF had it firmly under their control and were determined to not be interfered with. What followed unfolded quickly, and the details are unclear, but upon touchdown the Outsider rapidly disembarked and broke quarantine on the docking bay. A wild chase ensued. The Kassian diplomatic party nearly shrieked their insistence that the experiment be eradicated. To everyone's surprise, the experiment learned of this statement and proposed this matter go to court, shocking all parties with both its ability to communicate as well as its level-headed reasonability.

So it was settled. The Council would decide the fate of this experiment, this Kassian 'biological weapon' prototype, this Outsider. And I, as part of a detachment of CPF guardians, was stationed to protect and contain the subject.

The Outsider spoke well enough. Cerebral Information Implantation, an extreme and invasive procedure known to have severe psychological backlash, had gifted it an ability to speak and understand most common galactic languages and dialects. This was just one of many gifts that Kassian experimentation had imparted upon it, all of them extreme and illegal procedures with immense risk. The sanity of the Outsider became the most remarkable aspect of it - and this in full acknowledgement that the object in question was a living, breathing, super-weapon.

The Kassian's demanded the Outsider's destruction. At first, because it was their property. Then, on the grounds of the project's illegal nature, they demanded it on the basis of ethics. If the method was illegal, then the product cannot be ethically retained, they argued. When the sentience of the Outsider was raised, they argued that it was too dangerous, and most likely too unstable, to be safely kept. Factions opposed to the Kassians pressured for its rights, less from genuine care for the Outsider and more to seize an opportunity to spite the Kassians - whose arrogant reputation and proclivity for political manipulation made them few friends.

All the while I watched over it, and the it became a him. He was the Outsider, this name would forever follow him, but he asked to be called Xenos. Xenos, with his grasp of language and polite manners, quickly broke free of the Kassian's accusations by his conduct with us, his bodyguards. He was curious, taking in the world around him with awe. I began to realize that wherever the Kassian's had found him, he had no framework to have imagined the world he was now in. He thought, he learned, he spoke, he felt. Despite all he had been through, he showed keen empathy and emotional intelligence for those around him. My own sympathy for Xenos grew.

Then the Kassian's attacked. No, there was no hard proof - but the signs were there for those willing to see. Too impatient for the Council, they sought to dispose of the inconvenience Xenos posed to their reputation. In that moment, all of the adrenaline of the past came back to me. I was a soldier again. To his credit, Xenos restrained himself, only seeking to survive and not retaliate. In the aftermath, few of the CPF wished to remain on protection duty. Those who did were encouraged to put their own safety first. No one wanted to die for an outsider. I chose to stay. I even endeavored, to the extent that I could, to teach Xenos the way of our weapons.

Eventually, after a few more assassination attempts, the Council would be forced to make a rapid decision - who knew bureaucracy could move so fast! - to end the violence. The Outsider was granted galactic citizenship, as if such a thing repaid all the injustice he had been subjected to. The Council, unwilling to directly accuse one of its most powerful council member states, cleared the Kassians of guilt provided all data related to the project was destroyed. As a token gesture to wash their hands of the Outsider's death, they gave him permission to defend himself. It was not then realized that this was all that Xenos needed.

I like to think I helped. After the ruling, knowing that the Kassian's would come for him all the harder now that they knew they wouldn't be held accountable, I helped Xenos sneak off-planet. I could not protect him - CPF protection was recalled - but I could send him in the right direction. I gave him the contact information of a former friend from special operations, one now involved in... less legal business. And I gave him a weapon, an Iskar Generation 14 Projector. It was a gift given to me by Ixon Special Forces after a joint operation. It was the nicest weapon I ever owned. I like to think that, with my training, my direction, and my weapon, I set the Outsider on his path to becoming legend.

This act would eventually send me to a desk job in the CPF as punishment. But it made it all the easier to leave when I received the message from Xenos asking for my help. My help in training a band of rebels he freed from a Taran labor camp, hiding out on a refueling space station. Xenos may have been the Outsider, but he was also an idiot sometimes. And idiot that was my friend.

://END-ENTRY//.

(Comments and notes are very welcome, on both story and weapon)

Deine Mutter by txmx 2

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Ghost Rider: MU Oneshot by Superior Idiot

15 1

October 31st, All Hallow’s Eve, Halloween, a day to most that celebrate it, however, for someone like Johnny Blaze, it’s hunting season.

“Police are still investigating the disappearance of Carol Alvarado, who was abducted three days ago, which continues the alarming stream of disappearances since the first of this month. The last sighting of her was i-” The motorcyclist turned off the radio before stopping at a nearby church. He let out a sigh, muttering out.

“Business as usual.” Before stopping at the front gate of a graveyard. Without even three steps in, he heard a yell.

“O magnum Doroman! Suscipe meæ in futurum praevident quae in gaudio!” A man in robes exclaimed with a young girl chained to a gravestone.

“Typical cultists, never subtle.” Blaze shrugs,

“Whatever makes my job easier.”

“Hey buddy,” He yells out, catching the attention of the man and girl.

“I’d recommend surrendering, otherwise you’re gonna have to deal wi-” He feels a sharp sting in his chest before seeing blood pour down. He looks back up to see smoke eminating from the man’s gun that he pulls out.

“Come on! I just bought this ja-” A giant hand grabs him by the throat and slams him into the ground before shoving him into a gravestone. He looks up to see a large gray demon who’s face is only inches from his own snarling at him, trying to smell his fear.

“What are you waiting for? Kill him!” The man yells out.

“I know this smell.. Zarathos” It shudders out.

“I prefer Ghost Rider.” Blaze remarks before his eyes turn into a glowing yellowish orange and punches it hard enough to send it flying across the graveyard. Blaze got up as his head started burning, only to have his skull remaining, with fire leaking out of his skull.

“My turn.” Blaze whispered out as he ran at the demon only for it to backhand him and fly into the air. Blaze let out a roar which somehow summoned chains to tangle around the demon as it continues flying. Blaze notices the gate, which he uses as support and with a pull that would move even a semi, forces the demon to slam into the sharp bar edges of the gate, destroying said gate, but heavily weakened. It shrieks in pain, struggling to do anything to avoid Blaze, but it is fortunately unsuccessful. Blaze grabs a broken bar of the gate and stabs the demon in its head, it lets out a short, but painful scream before it turns to ash.

“Well, now that that’s over with, now back to-” He feels a few bullets hit him, but they do little to nothing to him. He turns to see the man with his arm around the girl’s neck and his gun pointed at him.

“Ho-how are you still…” The man whispers out.

“Listen pal-”

“D-don’t move!” He yells out, now pointing his gun at the girl.

“You take one step, a-and I’ll kill her.” He glances at the girl, tears streaming down her cheeks. It reminds him of.. He takes one step.

“I’ll do it! Believe me man, I-I’ll do it!” He takes another, and another, and another.

“I swear to god! I’ll do it!” The man’s finger nearly pulls the trigger when in an instant, the rider rushes at him with great speed and slams his throat against the wall. The man struggles to move.

“No, you won’t.” The rider finally speaks out. He stares while the man struggles to break free, he just keeps staring until the man finally looks back and is horrified, he feels the pain that his sacrifices the demon inflicted on those children, he keeps staring until he’s nothing. The rider lets go of the empty husk of a man and he looks back at the girl crying. He approaches her, she closes her eyes, expecting the worst, but he breaks the chains and rips the duct tape off her mouth.

“Go.” The rider says, looking away from the girl. The only thing he could hear from her was.

“Th-thank you.” before she ran into the night. Within a few moments, the flames rescinded and the rider became Blaze once more into what he was. Blaze stares at the corpse.

“Yep, business as usual. As it always is.”

Mutter und Kind by peterphot

20

Frankenberg,Schilfteich

Mutter... by Mario Viertel

22 11

Mutter by alaniz

18 13

Mutter by epha

6 11

14. Januar 2011, HAU2, Berlin-Kreuzberg

Mutters Rosenbusch by Richard Kralicek