All's Fair In War

"Got any ciggies...?" He asked. I shook my head. "Shite." He said. The wind was biting at my fingers as I'd forgotten my gloves, and the rain was making holding onto my rifle some hell of difficult. I'd stepped in a huge puddle on the trek over, and my right foot was drenched right up to my bindings with brown water and mud. The grass felt like tiny icicles, and I dared not touch my trigger in case my hand froze.
                        "This is fuckin' shite." I observed, peering over the verge and onto the empty road. Nothing was coming either way, so I popped my head back down. Water was streaming off the peak of my cap, dripping down my front all over my coat, which had long since lost its wax. I checked my rifle again; the bolt was forward, ready.
                        "Rory..." he started "...when did he say they'd be here?"
                        I checked my watch. Eleven fourty-seven PM.
                        "Quarter to." I said, peering back over the verge. Still I could see nothing.
                        "There's still nothing." I said.
                        "Right. I'm off for a piss." He said, standing up and making his way behind a nearby bush. Whenever they turned up, I remember thinking, I was gonna slot that cunt O'Rourke. I knew he'd be at the front, with his daft mustache and his shiny Webley. It was him first, and then his boys. After all, this was war. No time for remorse.
                        I took another quick look over the verge. I could see lights away in the distance. "Seamus!" I hissed, as he came round the corner doing up his britches. I nodded down the road, and his eyes flicked toward the lights. We both lowered ourselves until our chests were resting in the sodden lumps of turf on the verge.
                        "Check your rifle." I ordered. He checked it, and the bolt was forward and the sight zeroed. We were ready. The horses approached, and we could hear the clop of hooves as they neared. We looked at each other for a moment and then back at the road.
                        "Here," I whispered, "the fucker with the tea strainer's mine." Seamus nodded, and we lay still and silent. I'd counted three horses, one pulling a Vickers. They couldn't have been more than fifty feet away now. I crossed myself for protection, and gripped my rifle. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten...
                        I tapped Seamus, and we finally stood to meet them, shouldering our rifles. They didn't even have time to draw sidearms. With a crack of gunfire and a couple of shouts, all three were unhorsed. Seamus ran to calm down the steed pulling the machine gun, and I made my way into the road to make sure they were dead. Shiny boots. Clean weapons. Badges and medals. Typical Regulars. They knew everything apart from how to win a war. O'Rourke was still alive, hacking his lifeblood all over the road.
                        "F...f...Fuckin' cowards!" he spat through a blood-stained mustache. "You'll swing for this, Murphy! Mark my words, you'll fucking swing, you hear?" I stood over him and put a foot on his chest as it wheezed in and out. I drew his bayonet from his belt, and looked him dead in the eye.
                         "This is for me brother." I said, through gritted teeth. I leaned in, and he braced his arms against me, pushing away in a pathetic attempt to save himself. I pinned one down with my knees, and the other with my free hand. I stuck him with the bayonet, pushed it right through his neck. His gaze never left mine until the last of the life deserted him. I stood once more when he'd stopped twitching, and spat on the corpse.
                         "Have that, you murderin' fucker." I took his prized Webley out of its holster, and pocketed the heavy piece. Seamus was stood next to me afterward.
                         "By God..." He said, the blood from the bayonet dripping onto the road. "I'll get the horses sorted." He finished, turning and briskly walking back to the transport. An evil bastard and godless heathen had died this night, and the Regulars had lost a commander. I'd even say it was easy.
                         I got onto O'Rourke's horse, and dumped his saddlebags at the side of the road, before spurring the horse onward into the blackness. It'd be a long ride home, but the deed was done.
                         "Rory..." Seamus said.
                         "Hmm?" I replied.
                         "...nothin'." He said.

The Origin of The Dark One

“...pornographic...” they called it. “... a travesty...” They said it would spoil children; rot their brains. I had a hard time explaining that it was neither for children, nor would it rot their brains. My creation was simple, a book that wasn't limited just by the story that it had in it, one in which the reader could observe the true original picture that the writer had imagined through brightly coloured illustration and cinema-style posturing of characters. They told me in all honesty,

“Mr Trebeck, your work (The Dark One) cannot be printed with the facility that even the world's finest publishers possess, as the presses will not allow it, and, truth be told, neither would I.

Good luck in future endeavours, although, don't give up your day job.

Regrettably, John C. Peter”

Well, I'll show them. Ten years work. A decade of my life. My family, gone without me, driven mad by my constant whinings that the work would never be finished, that we would have again to move to somewhere more prosperous where I could try again. Oh no, I am not by any means done. I have, in the midst of all of my writings and my drawings, become somewhat adept with the machinery used to wage war, of which I researched thoroughly whilst in London for the book. I have designed a number of devices intended only to show the publishers that what happens in my book is plausible; even realistic. They would not even take receipt of my full manuscript, nor even briefly scan upon the machinery. So, I put it to them, all those that have refused me, all those that have doubted and have fought against me, that I will have vengeance. I shall bide my time, wait until they are at their weakest, and then when the moment is right, I shall swoop from the shadows.

They have doubted for the last time. Tonight, I become what I have created, and tomorrow morning, I shall wake as “The Dark One”.

Woe be tied to he who stands in my way.

It livesssss!

Recently fixed my PC by replacing the utterly shit-canned motherboard (we're fans of silly overclocks like Bono is a fan of being a wanker, so quite fervently) and got back to playing old games, stuff that comes out on the cheap on Steam, and my enormous back-catalogue of neglected AAA tripe. I quickly realised that I was very happy with not playing on an xbox, not realising before how convenient it was to not have to drop out of my game even for a second to send a few quick messages and stick on another tune on youtube, and it occurred to me; I felt like an ass for being mean to my xbox. My first one was a present, I didn't even get a memory card with it. I played "Prey" from start to finish on day two, after realising the day before it had no hard drive and therefore no way of saving, and I loved it. I came home from school at dinner time just to spend 10 minutes on a bit of it I'd saved from the morning. Suffice it to say, I have happy memories.
            But then, it broke. Red ring of death. Whilst the towels kept it circling the drain a little while, (giving me enough time to do three missions on the first Assassin's Creed and one pitifully bad run through of Slowride on Guitar Hero 3) it eventually succumbed to its wounds, and drifted off into console heaven to join my tea-covered original PS2 and my gameboy colour which had fought a grand battle with the stairs and lost. I was pissed off, so I saved up from my job, and got my first PC, and the rest is history. Or so I thought, until I realised that the most complete racing game in current circulation was a console exclusive, and whilst I couldn't enjoy it with my steering wheel (like most things, not limited to cake and shagging), I had to have it. So I bought one for about £50 and played the shit out of Forza 3 and 4. It was good, so good in fact that rFactor and other racing sims in my life took a back seat. I was having a great time on a console that I thought had turned into an entertainment device for prepubescent whiners with a chronic masturbation problem and an addiction to shitty annual releases of sports/burly-white-dude-shooter-games. It hadn't, and even had a few 60fps adventures in store for me before I put the old girl out to pasture. I recently played (and had a good time playing) Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Injustice, Batman Arkham City, Forza Horizon and a bunch more stuff I wouldn't have bothered with otherwise  (seriously though guys, revengeance?! HA!)
                And so, after enjoying Assassins Creed 4 (notably at 19-24fps, grrrrrrr) on my xbox, and after unplugging it to make way for my newly-refurbished monster rig, I'll place it with warm fondness into a safe place in the cupboard, and I doubt that this will be the last that we'll see of her.

Unless it turns out I can trade it for its weight in marzipan or something... God that'd be good wouldn't it? Marzipan or an xbox... I'm going to leave this decision til I can figure out whether it's a fictional one I've made up in my head (again) or one of those supposedly 'important' real ones. Court order my arse...