Cloud Fire - The Sentinel Project

To Kill a Swine

For a brief moment night became day, as a crack of lightening split through the bleek and blackened sky far above the City of Iron. Far below, rancid smells wafted through the poluted streets and alleyways which crept between old and decrepit buildings. Overhead and under foot, countless brass pipes wrapped themselves like vines, spewing gasses and seeping oil all across the red bricked streets. Streets layden with infidelity and criminal scum.

"So... let me get this straight..." The fat and disgusting man began mockingly.  "You want us... The Creeps... The controllers of the secret world... to just... hand our supply route... over to you?"  He continued, holding back his laughter as he grunted like a pig at its slop.    "The most profitable market in the whole of Heron.   To you?"  
Without warning he burst out laughing, holding his belly with his hands as his entire body bobbed up and down with every wheezing breath.   Surrounding them in the damp and musky room, the other men began to laugh.    Each of them were large, powerful, mean and ugly.  They were like animals. Stains of food and blood blotches each of their shirts and teeth like raisins hung loosely from most of their mouths.

"No... you misunderstand." The girl began, leaning in keenly across the small table, to stare down the wale of a man.
"I want you... The Creeps... Aswell as all the criminal scum in Iron... to hand over control of the entire... supply route."  
The girls hazel eyes pierced through the man soullessly, as a strand from her red pony tail came loose and drifted infront of her face.

Slowly the mans hysteria lowered into a glare of disbelief. His mouth hung ajar as his fat cigar loomed smoke throughout the room.
"Sentinel... Your, Reign Foundation... struck a deal with the SCUM... of Iron.    You cannot change that bargain. Not without... consequence." He hissed confidently.
"The Reign will do whatever it sees fit to do." The girl sneared in response. 

Slowly, a girl, about the same age as the red headed Sentinel, speaking to the pig man, stirred beside the table.  Before her slight shift, she had been almost completely unnoticed. Her skin was sickly pale and her face hung lowly beneath layers of short, dirty blonde hair, tassled and strawy, like a foxes tail. Covered in cuts and bruises, her clothes dirty and worn, she sat there in chains. Moving only slightly, the girl re-adjusted her shackles.  
"BE STILL!!!"  The pig man suddenly screamed ragefully at the girl. Instantly, every muscle in her body clenched and she became motionless. All exept for a small shiver which seemed to stay constant throughout her entire body.   Through her spraying spikes of blonde hair, her eyes dilated in fear. In trauma. In hell.

"You speak of consiquenses... But yours do not compare to ours.   Allow the Reign to take the Trade Route... And we will allow the Creeps to continue their existence."  The girl with the crimson pony tail breathed in a freakish calm. She seemed mesmerized somehow. They all did.

The pig man, noticeably agitated, began to look for a place to vent his frustration. For the fear he had for the Reign Foundation was great. Especially for a man who was not use to being strong armed.

"The Reign... cannot take the Trade Route from the Creeps-"   He began to quicken his speech between short coughs and grumbles, as sweat gathered on his irritated forehead. Beside him, the shivering girl began to grow more and more unsettled, sensing the mans rising frustration as he tightened his grip around her chain.    "If the Reign takes the Supply Route then we will have nothing- You promised us this-" Quickly his voice began to raise as the girl grew more and more panicked by his side.
"And nOw yOU wAnT tO tAkE It aWAy- I SAID SIT STILL!!!!" Finally he cracked.

As the man screamed, he siezed the small hammer from the table infront of him and bashed it across the girls head. Once. Twice, he struck her. Like a helpless animal she cowered, raising her hands and squealing, the only two things she could do. Until the man struck at her one last time, and a loud metallic clank rang through the room.