[EVE:Vanguard One-Shot]
“My entire existence - That I can remember - can be summed up with the phrase ‘Send them back’… I lost track of all the times I was ‘Sent back in’. Not like I was paying for any of it. Extra lives paid and bought for by some mega corporation… Quafe! Quafe of all people hired us to die repeatedly over their property! If a soda company was gonna use us, you know damn well the empires were!
And they USED us! Ohhh we tore those low-security backwaters up under their orders… They wouldn’t stop sending us back in to plant their flags over bombed out patches of dirt.
Then, we got the idea we were gonna do that for ourselves. The Thukkers invited us into Molden Heath to control their pirste problem. And we flocked to that region to carve out a piece for US. We willingly sent ourselves back in for something we could call our own! Do things on our terms…
They didn’t like that one bit…It scared them to see us have something to build upwards from… All these institutions we broke our backs and minds for… Condemned us to damnation.”
- Anonymous Vanguard
“Stop trying to remember.”
September 9/18/ YC 127
HY4-B0, II, Crash site classified as ‘Aftermath’ - Scuttled starship hull along the perimeter of the A.O
< Fire crackling >
“…Hey!”
“…? Oh! What’s good with you friend!?”
“Are… Are you camping out here?”
“I… I mean if you call this scrap fire and torn metal heap towering above me a camp… Sure.”
“…You looking for something out here?”
“No… Just hanging out here. What? You on some expedition?”
“I was then… Forgot why I came down here to begin with.”
“Yeah, I do that too. Forget why. Just this time I… I remembered that I like sitting around a fire.”
“… Why?”
“Something was nice about it… Familiar.”
“…”
“Think I did it with others.”
“Uh-”
“-Nothing like that! Just… I guess enjoy the moment amongst equals?”
“Like a squad?"
“Precisely!”
“So you got a squad with you!”
“HeyHeyHey! Easy cowboy… I ain’t with nobody… Sounds like you ain’t either if you’re getting jumpy about numbers.”
“I can handle a squad-”
“-So you are alone?”
“…”
< Gunshots echoing in the wind >
“See? Whatever violence you’re expecting, is over there…”
“…”
“Relax… Just try it… Sit.”
“On what? That trash pile? That hull scrap?
“Yeah, honestly.”
“… What is your name?”
“Good question, I forgot my government name a long time ago.”
“W-What?”
“Does it really matter? I call myself some nonsense not worthy of mentioning… You probably do too…”
“I-”
“-We don’t care about names. If we did, we would’ve remembered them. Unless you do of course…”
“… No, I don’t.”
“Hey! Happens to the best of us!”
“…”
< Fire crackling >
< Repeated gunshots echoing in the air >
“Listen pal, what are you doing here? This is a warzone right now!”
“…I-I think I’m supposed to hand something to you.”
“Me?”
“Someome! I-I’m trying to remember… Trying so hard… I see myself handing you something!”
“You mean ‘someone’ else?”
“P-Play along! Take this!”
“H-Hey! I won’t turn down extra bullets!”
“…”
“You… Remember anything else?”
“…I’m drawing a blank.”
“Um… Did you want the ammo back?”
“No…No, all yours.”
“You sure? Heh, I mean… I’m gonna hand them out to all the Mordu rats scurrying around otherwise!”
“Or you can use them on me.”
“Nah! No way! You’re cool man!”
“Really? Second ago you had me at gunpoint over nothing.”
“… W-Well I just didn’t know.”
“No big deal! It’s how we’ve been conditioned… Our entire cycle has been to shoot first and ask questions later… Assuming we ever cared to ask questions in the first place… Nah it’s only ever been to kill the people not on your team, the people not employed by the same corporation…Those not of your tribe.
“…”
“And we did it for what? ISK? What is ISK? Why do I remember that loop of insanity of waging war for a number, but not my own name?”
“…”
“… How’s that Reaver holding up?”
“Oh! It’s badass! I’m running this chipset that just makes this baby feel perfect!”
“Bet it’s still no Gek-38.”
“Ahhh no way! Now that was a firearm! Sweep an entire room out with one mag! I’d be lucky to drop one person within two magazines sometimes…”
“See? That’s what I mean! We remember the tools we wielded for death. But we can’t remember the person behind the trigger… Ourselves. Ain’t that messed up?”
“I don’t ever think about it like that.”
“I didn’t until now either… You and I are self aware beings, but we suffer from some bankruptcy in our minds. A debt we’re paying for after the years of destruction we’ve caused.”
“I didn’t destroy anything I see here…”
“I’m talking about the past! This… This is the punishment for our sins… Purgatory in the darkest pits of this galaxy. Made only to remember our sins. Not who we were.”
“You sound like one of them Amarrians…”
“Maybe I was?”
“You being a smartass?”
“I genuinely do not know… It tires me out trying to remember. Maybe that’s why I wanted to stop and rest…”
“Stop trying to remember.”
“And do what? Continue the cycle? Murder and plunder for scraps? Under the command of another? Mindlessly?”
“All I’m saying is… I can’t let that slow me down. I gotta focus on the now. Focus on surviving.”
“Survive what? You’ll be back up in the sky screaming down onto the plant the moment a bullet goes through that visor… Death means nothing to us anymore. What is there to survive? Death is a temporary state of being for us… L-Like going to sleep!”
“… What if this is all a dream?”
“Now!… You’re asking the real questions my friend…”
“… Oh ■■■■.”
“Time to exfil…?”
“Yeah man! We gotta bail! I got an beacon ready if-”
“-Go on! Get out of here…I’m gonna go for a walk.”
“We got a small window to extract with our gear before they pull the plug on our clones! Whatever you didn’t get, you can do another deployment! Hey! We can even squad up!”
“Or we can be adversaries!.. Don’t worry about me, I’ll wake up in a bit… And we’ll cross paths again I’m sure… Purgatory is a lot smaller than they made it out to be!”
”Who would ‘they’ be?”
“… I don’t know. Maybe I’ll figure that out when I stretch my legs some.”
“Well, did you want the ammo back? Might run into some Mordu punks or other Vanguard out there trying to bail out!”
“Oh friend, I have a THOUSAND rounds on me!”
“… Yeah I do too actually.”
“Go on! Clock is running…”
“You still need to tell me your name!”
“Remember what yours was first.”
“…”
< Foot steps upon dirt and steel >