Josiah drove on the destroyed highway, skeletons both charred black by the nukes and bleached white by the sun crunched under the four x four truck as he drove through the wasteland the huge semi truck that drove below the pass was a target he'd been given to take out and retrieve the cargo on board, so he went for it, the truck roared as he took an off ramp to chase the massive truck, the truck's drive leaned out as and shot at his tires with the sawed off, though it was to far away to actually blow the tires. they ducked back into the cab of the car, Josiah aimed a colt revolver and fired though despite what movies would have you think, trying to shoot something that's moving while you're also moving while also having to focus on steering is anything and everything but easy. the bullet struck the cargo container, he drew closer hoping to get a better shot, he succeeded, only he was the one getting the better shot, the man popped back out of the window, and he briefly saw a young white haired girl holding the wheel steady while the driver fired, the driver blew his tires out, he flew forward and his body smashed against the steering wheel as his legs raised at an odd angle and snapped in half.
he'd forgotten his fucking seatbelt, he was suddenly and violently pushed backwards and his head hit the ceiling, hard, all he could see was white, then he realized it was the airbag, it had deployed and essentially catapulted him into the ceiling, He looked around and saw that the airbag wasn't the only thing that had thrown him to the roof, gravity decided to make his day worse by flipping the truck and frankly he was surprised he hadn't been launched from the window, speaking of which he watched the semi truck slow to a stop and the door open, he spotted the gleaming revolver, sitting not ten feet away from him, he crawled, broken glass and jagged metal cutting his clothes and stabbing into his skin as he did, he heard a thump as someone's boots hit the ground. "Hey Joe, how's seal team 5 doing?"
He stopped when he heard the voice and the clink of the barrels of his shotgun opened and ejected the shells. Josiah rolled over. "Frankly Jason they've seen better days, fuck man, if I'd have known this was your fucking delivery I wouldn't have taken that fucking job, and I certainly wouldn't have taken it if I knew the cargo was working cyborgs that's a good way to get robbed and killed." he said, gesturing to the two white haired people in the truck, one a boy the other a girl.
"Trust me I wasn't exactly thrilled about it either, but frankly the pay wasn't something I could turn down." Jason lit a pair of cigarettes and handed one to him, they shared a smoke as they watched the sun go lower.
Josiah watched a pair of mutated buzzards flew overhead, weeping sores and cancerous tumors grew on their already comparatively ugly heads. "Damn it all, Jasie just end it, my legs are fucked and frankly at the rate I'm going I'll never see the sea again, I'm giving up, but Jason, give em hell."
Jason sighed, placing the double barreled shotgun on Josiah's head and blew it off, unfortunate but frankly. "See you on the other side man."
Josiah watched him finish his smoke and loot his truck, Josiah wasn't mad, it's how things were, he looked down at his spectral not body and frowned, then he felt a hand fall onto his shoulder, he turned and saw the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, all of her hair was white, but he saw her hair gleaming a rainbow of colors when the light hit it, like a pearl or the inside of a seashell, it matched her pale skin and emerald green eyes. "Yeah, you'll do." She said, and waved a hand toward him.
He was suddenly trapped in what looked like a bubble. "Hey what the hell?"
And he suddenly went unconcious.
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He woke up in a white room, at first he thought he was in a hospital, then he looked around... since when do hospitals have marble and gold pillars? he sat up, blinking, he saw a cluster of thrones at the end of the room, a man or woman sat in each one. he stood up, trying to figure out what he was looking at, each of the people on their thrones were... for lack of a better word, gods, he could see their thrones just fine, one was made from from fire with blackened iron that held a large muscular man with obsidian skin and burning eyes. There were many other gods in different styled thrones but those three seemed the most powerful.
there was also a woman with pale skin and white shining mother of pearl hair that reflected light in different colors of pinks and blues and greens, She looked at him with teal eyes. she sat one a throne of rock covered in coral.
The last man looked to have tan skin with hair of pure gold with eyes of glowing eyes of the sun. He sat in a white and gold throne and spoke first. "Hm, this is who you'd choose sister? he died in a car crash like a fool."
The woman shrugged. "the last five hundred people you tried to choose for me were either weak or biased toward you, this is my choice, deal with it."
The man in the flaming throne glared and spoke in a voice that echoed with fire. "You're a fool sister, we've been warring over this world for three hundred years and you want to choose someone from Midgard of all places? the humans there are weak, relying on technology to replace their strength."
she shook her head. "Just shut up, I've made my choice and I'm done watching as you two make my choices for me."
Josiah blinked not sure what the hell was happening he opened his mouth to speak but a crushing pressure forced him to his knees. he looked up at the man in the gold marble throne who was evidently watching him and got off on crushing beings lesser than him. "Don't look at me, lest I burn your eyes from your skull."
one of the gods from the other thrones, this one sat on an onyx throne scoffed, a large dragon slept behind it. "You think that you're worthy of looking at the sun king Grelorius? you presume too much mortal."
That caused mutters and jeers to be exchanged by the gods like stocks in Wallstreet.
The girl who had apparently... chosen him? rubbed her eyes and spoke. "Father above..."
The obsidian god spoke. "Don't say that he-"
She cut him off. "Abandoned us and left us to fend for ourself in this horrible cosmos, yes, I get it, now kindly shut up, all of you, I'm going to speak with my paragon." She snapped her fingers and the a whirlpool appeared under his feet, he yelped, and tried to run away from it but his feet were stuck in it. He struggled but it was like a riptide, nothing he did could stop himself from sinking deeper.
Before he knew it he was in a dark void, his eyes stung and he held his breath, he knew this feeling, he was under water, he felt a burning in the sides of his neck, he also heard something rumbling beneath him as he as he floated downward, he couldn't hold it much longer before he'd finished that thought he breathed in a breath, he... breathed... underwater. he blinked, his eyes seemed fine, no more burning and he could actually see a bit better, he saw a large tentacle big enough to fit his old home town on the tip of and still have enough room for a neighboring county next to it, and watched it stunned as it fell toward him like something out of a dream, it grabbed him and drug him deeper into the sea and he screamed, before he knew it he was face to face with a creature that was the size of a continent, it looked at him with the same sea green eyes he'd seen in the throne room, and he heard it's feminine voice in his mind. "You, you're mine, my newest treasure, and I take good care of my treasures... now, let's see what we can do here."
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He shouted as his arm's bones turned to dust and the flesh in his arm twisted and morphed, he gritted his teeth but couldn't help screaming. "Change is always painful my dear, now, just relax, this next part is taxing on the mind." she said like a concerned mother telling her son to take his medicine.
Before he knew it he was seeing flashes of something in his mind as tendrils dug into his skull. he passed out within seconds from the pain.
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An old fisherman sat at the bow as he untangled a large net of fish from the wooden crane, his white wispy beard grimaced as he saw the creature he fished up. "Got ourselves a Neshi cultist boys!" He shouted, unsheathing a cutlass backing up as he looked down to see the creature with white pearlescent hair and a large tentacle where his arm used to be bright glowing blue rings decorated the dark blue flesh and the fleshy slits of gills flapped open and closed as he breathed. "Fuck..." he coughed, sea water splashing onto the deck floor as he did.
"It speaks!" one of the crewmen said, the rest taking harpoons from a rack and started surrounding him.
He sat up seeing the situation he was in and raised his hands, and saw what his arm had become, he screamed. "What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!" he said scooting back as if he could distance himself from his own appendage. He also noticed he was naked as the day he was born, but he couldn't care less what had that THING done to him?
he looked up and one of the crew men lunged forward with the harpoon and it struck him in his tendril arm. "Ow! fuuuuck!" He yells tendril arm wrapping around the spear and the muscles snaps the wooden shaft. and he pushes his spear deeper in and pierces the head out of the other side, he pushes the spear through and moves to toss it aside then realized he was about to toss away his only weapon. he gripped it tighter, blue blood running along the spear head and stands up. "Are you fuckers sure you want to do this?!" He said in a raised voice.
He saw a couple of them take a step back only to find the old man barking them back into form. he gritted his teeth. one of them rushed him and he smacked them away with his tendril arm another attacked him by throwing their barbed spear, which he promptly dodged. he slammed his broken spear shaft into the chest of the nearest sailor, and grabbed their not broken spear and used it to trip another man before grabbing the spear and slamming the spear into his chest, he used the stronger tentacle limb to rip it out along with what looked like half of their ribs and threw it at the old man, who to his surprise deflected the spear out of midair, he looked around and saw there were three other crew men left not including the old man.
he noticed the wound in his monstrous arm was gone, barely even a scar noticeable, he ducked a spear and grabbed the man by the arm with his monstrous appendage and squeezed and twisted, the bones snapping and he felt a strange feeling in the limb like he was flexing his fingers, he saw blood dripping from the sides of the tendril and he ripped his grip off, literally ripped off, the skin was torn by small claws that were in the suction hole things of the tendril, the man howled in pain and horrow as his arm was mangled beyond recognition. Josiah flung the skin and muscle aside and slid grabbing a spear and grab the spear, he slammed the spear through one of the men's head and ripped it out throwing it at the other man, all in all the fight between him and the sailors lasted about fifteen seconds, he turned to the captain and glared. God or... gods, he was glad for the first time he'd fought in the military.
He watched the old man glare at him his saber was clean and oiled. Josiah saw the old man leap at him and swing his sword, causing him to dash back dodging the sword, he swung his tendril and yelled as it was cut off, though he saw the tentacle growing back at a rather quick rate. he backed up grabbing a harpoon and stabbed it forward at the man, he dodged to the side, Josiah blocked the sword and hooked it with the large barb, he twisted and the sword didn't budge, apparently the man had a vice grip.
The old man spoke for the first time since they clashed. "You're doomed to hell sea demon!"
Josiah gritted his teeth. "You're the one who attacked me jackass."
He kicked the old man and he heard something pop. "Oh, Bastard." The old man said, getting up. "I was a commadore in the Holarian navy, you ain't shit boy."
Josiah wrought his harpoon and swung it in a wide arc and the old man dodged back and tried to rush in, he quickly turned stabbing his spear as he spun turning and the spear slammed into the old man's stomach. "You Neshi loving scum..."
He collapsed down, and raised his hand toward the sun. "Grelorious... Take..." His hand collapsed back to the deck before he could finish the sentence.
Josiah sat back on the deck, grabbing the saber. "This looks handy..."
He looked around and saw the sailor whose arm he mangled. "What the hell did you do?! You killed them all! Monster!" He screamed.
Josiah grabbed him by the throat. "I didn't want to do this, but you fucks made me, you attacked me, just remember that."
He dropped the man on his mangled arm which caused him to shriek more. "Fucking piece of shit! May the gods smite you! may you experience every smite from every angel in heaven and every torment from every demon in hell!"
He heard enough and threw him into the water, he wondered how much pain the salt water would cause to that wound. He blinked, where did that thought come from.
undressing the old man from the battered old uniform which had blood all over the chest, he'd have to clean it. He cleaned the uniform in the salt water and fastened the ragged old cloak around himself. he noticed as he bent down to clean the blood of a lock of long white hair fall, the same pearlescent shimmer to it with the rainbow-like shine like the inside of a sea shell. he grabbed it, looking at it. "Holy hell..." he dressed himself in the soaking clothes but the dampness didn't bother him much. he was glad to no longer be naked.
He grabbed a couple old blankets down from below deck and wrapped it around his tendril arm and fastened it around him like a cloak, his new sword looked rather decent, old but well taken care of. "Well, I've never sailed one of these before, perhaps I can get a crew? wait, forget knowing how to sail, where the fuck am I supposed to go?" He looked around and just barely saw the silhouette of land in the distance. "Land ho." He said without much joy in his voice.