Omega Zero: Iron Phantom

Episode 0: First But not the last

Episode One: the first. but not the last.

The cold winter air bites into his tan skin as a fugitives heavy feet stirr branches underneigth his hurried steps. thier aride and unbridled exlimations of frailty dont sound out alone, as dogs and sirens yards behind him yelp their suspicions as they persue with little to question.

Thick puffs of cotton condense and pass in front of his face like the billows of a dieing steam engine. neglected and rusted as its tired joints and un oiled parts, only help to eat away at its last stretch of momentum. Stopping only when confronted with an obsticle that its crushing weight isnt able to locamote itself past.

Defeated only as it comes apon the empty gaze of a sudden drop. Witch taunts its effort at the peek of a steep hill.

The path ahead of him looks vacant as he searches about the darkness for hard ground to support his unatural weight. Treating his next action with all the care that an elphant would, if it where walking on an unsteady stair case covered in egg shells.

Taking well into acount, the condition of the earth.loss dirt covered with decayed branches. he cant help but notice its resemblance to a path he was forced to take in the earlier years of his youth. taking the form once again as a dark void filled with infinite uncertianty. Thought at first to ad you in your path,only to fail you once your weight had aplied.

the scent of the pine trees do little to calm his nerves as he waerily steps foot into the unknown. it used be that long ago in times of imense stress he would often open his senses to a take in thier stoic scent of untaimed wilderness and freedom. but the quickly burning string of clues he leaves behind with everystep. also serves to make the seat of his calculated thinking unsafe from the relentless trail it blazes.

Like an infection they spread from a single point of origin, just as dilegent as any killer germ or antibody made to fight it. all of them seeking to keep a frail environment strong by controlling its major orgins, and functions. But not without the cost of taking what casualityies they will and doing what damage they must. Never faultering even at the cost of thier own lives. as attacks are frequent and condition them not to.

he looks up into the dark grey clouds hideen in the cloak of a moonless night, as he can sense thier stirr with the energies of a comeing storm. born in the wain of january, and the wax of an ill ploted escape.

he knows its only a matter of time before the body comes to reclaim one of its major orgins. that all that lies ahead of him is a vast wilderness filled with dangers he has faced a thousand times in confidence. but confidence comes easily when backed by the power of others. as the body knows, all to well.

His knees now bend like wooden struts placed underneigth the uneaven pressure of the earth. as he struggle to move them even an inch over the harsh uneven grind of the ground. created bye the limbs lost from the giagantic trees that stand about him, like giants of the clouds. Cruelly hopeing to hault the stuggles of progress with thier careless intervention.

Suddenly, he hears the metaliized growl of a mechanical dog. followed bye the bark of soldiers as kanine handlers deal out commands, putting them directly on his path. the young fugitive tries to turn in order to determine the distance between them and him, and like the hand of fate reaching up to from the wooded ground. His left ankle becomes cought inside the fork of a branch of a thick timber.

this only throws him off balance slightly at first, but like a the dominoe set-up of his frantic and exaused physical state, his inersiah and panic cause him to throw out the cuffed weight of his arms. exausted, his lack of bodily awareness causes his center to follow through. pulling him into the subsuquent tumble, down the egg shell staircase.