Golgotha, Ares Shield Season 2 - Episode 1

[Ares Shield]

Somewhere

Bare feet slapped against the dirty concrete of the nearly abandoned shuttle-launch, leaving a trail of blood brighter but no less sinister than the path of fairy-tale children. Above the whirling feet and through the shadows, stumbled the blasted form of a naked man, as he struggled to extend his shuffle to a full-fledged run. With one orb obscured by swelling, only one ice blue eye focused on the landing strip before him and the shuttle at its end.

“Faster, my love, they’re coming!”, his angel warned.

With a violent crash, his footing failed him, and the tortured man’s flesh ripped and split, as he fell to the ground nearly a hundred yards from the shuttle.

“You must run!!! Get up and run!!!”

Like a beast before the storm, he took to all fours…his pain forgotten. Each desperate pant flecked his lips with fresh blood…each movement left more of him behind, but still he moved...still he raged.

Over the thunder of his taxed heart, the hunted man heard his pursuers close…he wasn’t going to make it.

His angel warned him a beat later,
“You need to ready yourself, my love…they are going to catch you…we must fight our way free.”

"Till we are one," the man pledged with every fragment of his shattered soul.

Together, Lieutenant Karlov Womack and Scarlet spun and launched themselves at the first of a dozen guards.




Fade to Black



Welcome to The Ares Shield Season Two Episode One : Golgotha!

Cue to music



<<I will be setting up general posting with a plot progress and several NPC posts over the coming days...dust off your characters...times come to finish this. PM me with any questions>>

[Lord Byron Kipling]

A club in Londinium's Circus Maximus


Drum beats born from the meteoric impacts of the band’s seismic percussionist and heavy vibrations of nearly physical guitar riffs wafted over Lord Byron Kipling, as he entered the dance floor of The Womb in Londinium’s Circus Maximus. The club like so many others catered not to the pseudo chic or the phony pop-cultured but instead to the true sycophants of music and sensuality. Everywhere bodies grinded against one another and the music…the music was everlasting.

Dressed against the norm of radical hair, tattoos and color, Byron instead wore a simple plain dark t-shirt, a pair of heavy boots and dark denim pants, but what he lacked in peacocking he made up for in sheer beauty. Men and women alike marked his path and jealous eyes simultaneously lusted after and despised his inclusion in the carnal carnival of The Womb.

While nothing could compare to Silko’s Mass, Londinium’s nightlife provided the Lord with enough prey to keep his appetites appropriately satisfied…it just required a bit more work on his part.

Moving into the space before the stage, Kipling stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the throng, awaiting the next journey of the club’s primal musical act. As the rest of the band switched out instruments or made slight tuning adjustments, a new lead singer emerged from the shadows of the rear of the stage, wearing a hooded cloak of the deepest black.

The crowd quieted into deep pants and electric stares, orgasmically awaiting what they prayed was a song befitting their evening’s desires. Suddenly the stage lights went dark and a strobe light exploded, casting the band into a slide-show of theatre. Guitar and drum led the way, smashing the crowd into hysterics. The sea carried Byron into it’s wave of punching fists and bellowing want.

The lead singer grabbed the mic and sounding eerily reminiscent to the ancient carnival barker, he began; his voice a singsong against the crowd’s lust,
"Ladies and gentleman, please
Would you bring your attention to me?
For a feast for your eyes to see
An explosion of catastrophe."

The guitars revved behind his words and the shaman/singer raised his cloaked arms as if bestowing a blessing to his subjects,
"Like nothing you’ve ever seen before
Watch closely as I open this door
Your jaws will be on the floor
After this you’ll be begging for more"

At the proverbial fever pitch, the audience swelled with kinetic insanity, and the singer’s voice transformed from speech to song,
"Welcome to the show
Please come inside
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!!”

With the scream, the singer removed his robe revealing a body completely canvassed with tattoos and piercings. Leather pants covered his thin legs and a dark beard and spiked head of black hair complimented his deep blue eyes and colorful body art, but the man’s real attraction was his violent voice…a voice filled with battlefields and scourge,
"BOOM
Do you want it?
BOOM
Do you need it?
BOOM
Let me hear it
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!!"

Suddenly a beautiful woman appeared beside Byron slamming her tight body against his and beginning a courtship that could be consummated in any number of dark corners. Kipling raised his arms and rolled his sculpted abdomen into hers, thrusting against her with a look that spoke of only one possible outcome to their shared evening.

However the singer’s voice caused the Lord to cast one glance back at the stage, there his eyes settled on the largest of the man’s tattoos and inwardly he wondered why anyone would get ‘Mr Universe is my master now’ imprinted on their flesh.

<<Hold for General Posting>>

[GrimJack]

Believe it or not this is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life, but effective immediately, I will be closing The Dancer and The Ares Shield. Administrative differences and personal time constraints are prompting this decision.

To everyone here, I have absolutely loved being a part of the characters and the stories we’ve told. I wanted to grow old with The Dancers but sometimes life has a different plan for us.

Specifically, I’d like to thank Jeth, Dave, Jax, oath, Tao, Pain, Charlie and Ertia for being the biggest damn heroes and partners with which I’ve ever worked. The characters you all created will live within me forever and like the crew of Serenity, they will continue to adventure and love.

I will stop in and continue to read the exploits of all the other wonderful ships on this board, and though I ‘never say never’, I feel that my boats are best left to memory. I ask that everyone respect the GMing of the characters I’m leaving behind, but I do understand that some of you will need to extract your characters from the threads in question.

Sorry to leave you all in a lurch, but with a three year old ‘Not so much a Baby’ Jayne and a new child on the way, this seems like a good time.

Enough with the speeches, GrimJack!

I love you guys…till the end of it all,

Greg