The Witchhunter 3077: Born Again

[Toadkiller Dog]

(August 10, 2011)

...Critical Damage Received
Heart Rate Heightened
Internal Hemorrhaging...

...Multiple Breaches To Powersuit Exoskeleton
Some Mechanical Functions May Fail to Operate Properly
Life Support Systems Failing
Internal Armor plating Fractured...

...Cloaking Devices Disabled
...Lift Thrusters Disabled
...Strength Augmentation Modules Disabled
...Enhanced Vision Modules Disabled
...Adrenaline Supplementation Disabled
...^&$%*(#@@(!!... ... ..Disabl#)&^

.................
... ... ...
Heart Rate Slowing
Critical Damage Detected...

...Life Support Systems at 40% Capacity
Visual Processing Disabled
Respirators Failing
... ... ...

...Life Support Systems at 10% Capacity
Critical Blood Loss
Powersuit Auxiliary Power Enabled
..^))%^&*@!$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...
..... . .. ...Life Support Systems at %^ Capacity
:ife Support Systems Failing
Powersuit Auxiliary Power Failing
Respirators Disabled
... ... Life Support Systems Disabled
... Heart Rate Has Stopped. Attempting To Activate Emergency Resuscitation
Emerg#%&^ Resuscitation Has Encountered Multiple Errors...Disabled.

...Powersuit Auxiliary Power Disab.... .. ... .
_________________________________________________________________



(March 23, 3077)

Processing Neural Data From Host: Gerhardt Riviera
Processing Visual Data
Processing Audio Data
...

...
Activating Visual Modules
...
Activating Audio Modules
...

Checksum Ratio Process...
Life Support Systems Enabled At 100%
Power Levels At 100%


Bright light filtering into my retinas. Bright, too bright. I raise my arm to shield my eyes, but the limb that comes into my vision is made of metal, cold metal. I flex my fingers, listening to the low mechanical whine as they contort and contract.

My vision begins to sharpen, to accept the harsh, white light overhead. A corpse like face comes into view from above, presenting a smile filled with yellow-white teeth inset within decaying gums. The lips are stripped away. The eyes glow a vivid violet color with no pupils or retinas...just a blazing purple.

"I'm glad to see you're awake Gerhardt. I have to admit I wasn't sure if this would work, even with my level of scientific engineering genius. Your body was left in terribly grave shape after the building collapsed on it back in the past.

Oh, about the past. Don't worry, we're back home now. You were right about that cure too, I managed to cure the strain of the Nano-plague through a solar pulse blast down onto earth from your orbiting satellite. Effectively obliterating the virus strain before it could even begin to intrude into biological life forms.

As you can clearly see, I'm sure, so long as your visual processors are running...ahem, I wasn't entirely so lucky... The plague had already ravaged my body by the time you'd presented me with the cure in 2011. I'm no longer dying slowly, though I sometimes still feel like it. I guess I'll always get to look like a ripe carcass though...so it goes."

Checking a large display of monitors and readings he continued.
"Thing is, you're back now. Consider this payment for your cure in the past. This might take some adjustment, but I think you may actually function better than you did in your old body.

Yeah...about that, kinda slipped my mind..hehe. Your body, it's mostly cybernetic now, but you've gotta understand I did everything I could to keep what was left intact. Your mind, your brain is still very much real. It's hardwired now, but it's still biological matter...if that helps ease you a bit.

I took the notion to equip you with a plethora of tactical response systems that will provide a vast network of abilities and weapons with which you can continue your little caped crusader game."


I stared at the back of this fellow's head for a while, feeling a tugging sensation somewhere deep within my memories, struggling to recall who he was...and what all of this had to do with me.

"You may not remember a lot of this...hell any of it."
He stated, turning around to see the look of utter confusion upon my face.

"It will come with time, I've made sure of that. To sum it up though...we didn't start as buddies. You were playing the part of a super hero of sorts, I guess you'd say I was your nemesis, your villain. We both came from this time, 3077. We'd both had a reason to travel back in the past, and we both had the means to do so, both being rather exceptional mechanical engineers.

A plague tore through our time and you went back into the past to help prevent the cataclysmic events that began the chain reaction to create this plague. A terribly deadly thing, by the way. Corrodes living matter and utterly annihilates you at a cellular level if left unchecked.

Thing is, you got out while the getting was good. You left with your humanity. I wasn't quite as lucky and had already contacted the strain before traveling back in time, following your lead to make sure that you didn't blow it. We had some...run ins. But in the end you whipped up a shot that was able to stop the spreading of this disease. Of which I am of course gratefully thankful for. But then you went off and well...died. You had a hand in prevented the end of the world as we knew it in this time era. But you didn't quite finish the job, so I came back here to do it. "

He stopped, staring down at me with those glowing eyes of his. And then began to pace as he continued.
"But I felt bad, so I came back, came back right to before you expired the mortal coil. But I was still too late, as by the time we came back here, to my lab you'd already faded. This was my way of paying back the favor. One life for another, right?

And well here we are. See, bringing you back wasn't so easy as just licking your wounds and giving your ticker a jump start. You'd been crushed, quite literally, as I briefly mentioned before. I had to reconstruct a good 70% or more of your body, luckily I had the technology as well as the mental capability to do so.

So here you are, Witchhunter, that's what they called you. You're alive again. Gerhardt Riviera lives once more. Your real name, you may not recall that now, but as I stated it will come.

I'm Johan Malkin, otherwise known as Grevious. Again, you'll recall all of this soon, I promise. Now then, let's get you up and moving and test out your new body to ensure everything went smoothly in your operation. Don't be afraid, you'll get used to it all, you may even begin to prefer it to your old body. One things for sure, it's better than this shell of a corpse I'm tottering around in..."

He began to slowly raise the table from which I lay on, it folded up to bring me to a near sitting position. I sat there in a near daze at everything that had just been told to me. I looked down at my mechanical arms again, dark, black metal trimmed in dull gold. My feet touched the floor with a slight clang, comprised of the same metal I noticed looking down.

Oddly enough I still had some sort of sense of feeling in them.

"Now then, let us begin, Gerhardt."
Johan said, gently taking me by the arm into a chamber that resembled an obstacle course.










-To Be Continued

[Sindaiin]

Kickass. While reading this the Deus Ex Human Revolution trailer popped into my head a few times -with a little Frankenstein as well. Extremely well-written and looking forward to more.

[Toadkiller Dog]

I feel bad that I posted this without having posted the original tales of this character. But I'd have to edit and even flat out rewrite some parts of the originals to post them here. This was freshly written last night, a fragment to carry things forward in the future.

The Witchhunter is an anti-hero/vigilante I created in the past. He is, as this briefly mentioned a fairly average man hailing from the future of the year 3077, his only real abilities come in his knowledge of mechanical and scientific engineering. He created a time manipulation device, worn on a belt buckle, powered through cellular fusion cells hidden within the belt itself. With this he accidentally transported himself into the very distant past, the dark ages where he was regarded as a sort of miracle worker for the advanced technology he slipped into the past with on him.

He was also of course regarded as a warlock infused with black magick, seeing as how the level of his tech was absolutely unfathomable to the people of this time era. To clear his name he set out to rid the small village he'd found himself in of a great evil presence which loomed over them nightly, a powerful sorceress, a witch.

No easy task, but made possible by the high powered side-arm he carried everywhere with him. Upon completing this task his time manipulation belt had recharged itself several hours previously and he was able to traverse back to his own time era, now having mostly figured out how to properly utilize the device. But he began to think of that adventure in the dark ages of exciting, so after some physical training he decided to return, this time coming more prepared in combat armor and decked with gadgetry and weapons. Making a name for himself as simply "The Witchhunter".

He'd visit back and fourth to his actual era between adventures and returned later to find that earth's population had been severely dropped due to a strange, alien nano-machine based plague. Tracking it's source via an orbiting satellite he traced the events to spark the spreading and creation of this plague to 2011.

He decided to try and intervene in hopes of stopping the plague from ever having been generated in the first place. His research lead him to learn that a group of tremendously powerful "super villains", actually alien beings that had invaded Earth's atmosphere were behind the plague's generation. And they had a large following from Earth, a following that was tearing the world apart through explosive rioting and chaos.

Knowing he was ill-equipped to deal with such things he decided to go back into the past far enough to give himself time to train his body, to hone himself into a weapon. He'd fashioned himself a self powered "power suit" to aid in this task. A second-skin like exoskeleton armed to the gills with defensive measures and tools to assist in his war against crime to come in 2011.

And this is the final outcome of his efforts, picking up literally right after his final battle with the alien beings in 2011.

[Vio]

Vio covers his eyes and ears to the last post.
I do not want to know the back stories!
I want to learn about them as the story progresses and not before!
Besides the world seems bigger-the less you know about it.
Other then the narrative which I thought was hinted at more then was being said, I liked the fact that it started in the middle of things-a sequel without an original-which makes my feel like an amnesiac reading it.
I enjoyed hearing G's side of the story and couldn't help wondering if he had some ulterior motives in reviving W. Which is likely, considering that he tricked her body out with some new weapons and they are about to undergo some training. Otherwise just resuscitation is good enough. Which I hope she is clumsy in her new body and makes plenty of mistakes since that will mean that she has somewhere to grow later on (if she is already a badass - then she can only go badass-er? I'm looking at you DBZ).
Two things worry me though, I hope there won't be an info dump later, and the second... I forgot. hmm
Oh yes, Time travel. It's so tricky due to paradoxes and the branching off of multiple time-lines, but as long as the narrative sets its own rules for its 4th dimension, and then plays by them, then we should be okay.
That said, I couldn't stand the Time Travel in Palahniuk's Rant.

[Toadkiller Dog]

Thanks for the comment Vio. But just to clarify, Gerhardt is most certainly a man. And he was indeed a badass before this operation. I know you didn't want to delve into the back story, but he trained his body for multiple years in order to fight crime. This on top of using a power suit to augment his abilities.