Riding Hood: Writer Vigilante's Black Hood Remix - Little Red, DT style!

[Doot]

Shuri I absolutely love this stuff! You have such a wonderful writing flare!

[Sperrit]

Doot's right. You've got style, man. Loads of it. That's awsome!

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[Shurikane]

06: Final Soundfest
UN Forced Pax - The Ground is Shaking

---

"You sure you'll make it?"



Hood was coughing uncontrollably. She tripped and almost broke her nose landing on the rocky ground, but at the cost of some of the skin on her palms.



Eber carefully helped her back up. The boy had been guiding her for a while through the rubble of New Orleans and the task was becoming harder every minute, as the closer they got to the bomb site, the more Hood felt ill.



Most of the United States had been nuked quite some years ago. In fact, it was exactly August 9, 2051 and the effects of the war were still very present. Most major cities had been vaporized by A-Bombs, and the Americans had responded with their own bombs, blowing up almost all of the countries involved in the conflict. Hood had miraculously survived by finding a safe spot within the CIA building and hiding in there. Although the bomb's blast had been almost deafening, she had escaped without a scratch.



Eber had asked her how she could find what she called 'safe spots', and she invariably replied with something around the lines of: "Survival instinct."



"Let's take a rest." He suddenly declared.



"No; I need to--"



"Let's take a rest! You're exhausted!"



Hood sighed. "All right, all right."



She sat against a wall, and closed her eyes. Eber scanned the area while she was stuck in her trance, but found nothing worth of interest. The city was absolutely lifeless. Even the wind was absent.



When Hood opened her eyes, she felt relieved. The wolf was in the city, but at the opposite end. She still had at least an hour to concoct a strategy.



"One hour..." She muttered.



"What?"



"I still have an hour to think of what to do."



"We need to run away." Eber immediately replied "He's going to kill you."



Hood could have pointed the obvious to him, but that would've been like insulting him... Instead, she fooled around with the machete attached at her side. Despite long searches, she hadn't found any suitable guns or rifles to help her into finishing this story. Besides, she had a sense of style too... If she was going to turn around and kill the wolf, she would do it in close combat, just as if she had always been the medieval girl she had started out as.



She passed a hand through her hair, which was dirty and rigid enough to resemble something like oozing dark honey. Her clothes weren't better either; all she had to cover herself was a ski coat, much too large for her.



Eber interrupted her thoughts.



"Listen... If he is going to kill you, well, before he does, will you tell me the secret of your survival instinct?"



Hood was silent for a while, pondering the idea. "Do you feel yourself worthy enough to know?" She finally queried.



"Oh yes ma'am! I am a brave soul, I swear to God, ma'am."



"Okay, then since you seem more pessimistic than me, I'll let you know of what I am. That survival instinct, I got it through more than a thousand years of training--"



"But you look like you're twenty-five!"



"Don't interrupt me. I was born in the middle ages, and my fate was that I would be devoured by a wolf who had entered my grandmother's home. I escaped my fate, by a hair. And since then, I was cursed with immortality, only able to find relief from killing the wolf, or being eaten. Since that day, I ran away from him. While I ran, the wolf tried all sorts of machiavellian strategies to find and get me, but each time I found a new way to escape him. When I had developed my sprints perfectly, when I had trained myself at running away so much I couldn't improve anymore, I began to research about other ways to escape from him. In time, I managed to develop powers of remote vision, foresight, auric vision, and receiving telepathy, all in order to sense his moves and get away before he made them. Every war, every major conflict happened because of him and me."



"Even this one?!"



"Yes, even this one. Because each time I gained a new ability, he also found a new plan to work around with. First, it was the inquisition, hoping my powers would be found by the Catholic church. Then he instigated the two World Wars, just to find me. He only led a small regiment of elite soldiers, but he also worked behind the scenes. He kept spreading rumors and news, and counseled the heads of the armies. His powers centered around pushing and forcing. It was his only way of appearing normal. Everywhere he went, he spread the conviction that a wolf dressed in human clothes and walking on his hind legs was a perfectly normal sight. He did all that because he too had been cursed with immortality, and he would only find relief by eating me. We don't age, but we can kill each other just like any person. The only reason I want to end it here and now is because I believe I can't run any more. I'm out of energy."



"So... That means I won't be able to learn your survival instinct? Not unless I live for a thousand years?"



"Oh, don't worry about that... My instinct was brought on by fear. And his was brought on by greed. You don't want to learn the survival instinct, at least not the ones we experience."



Eber hung his head, disappointed. "I see."



"Oh Lord!!"



She got up and ran before Eber knew what hit him. The wolf hopped over the boy's carcass and went on all fours to chase his prey.



She entered an old factory and made her way into a labyrinth of catwalks. At least she would have a chance of slowing him down. In a record amount of time, she jumped down from a raised platform and dashed for the exit, only to be collected by the wolf, who was patiently waiting outside.



He threw her into a wall opposite the exit. Her final escape was a major failure. She could have climbed the piles of rubble at each end of the alley, but she felt too weak to even move a finger. Out of breath, she let herself fall to the ground, her eyes half-closed, waiting for her death.



The wolf stood over her, blocking the sunlight. He still had that artificial shoulder from when she had shot him during the Renaissance. His fur was uncombed and dirty, as dirty as her own hair. Both of them, in fact, looked equally miserable.



"'Bout time!" A voice shouted.



The wolf turned to face the figure, who stayed hidden in a black cloak and hood.



"Get up, Karen." He had to repeat his order twice before she found the will to move. The wolf helped her up, and held her left arm tightly.



"Who are you?" She asked.



"Guess it's about time you know the creator of your adventures, huh?" She knew he was grinning under his cloak. "I'm the Writer Vigilante, a lonesome justice maker sent here on a job to correct a chapter in history that's gone wrong. You see, the wolf was supposed to gobble you up, you know that, right? And you escaped that fate. Someone decided to rewrite the ending for some reason or another."



"So? It was fine by me, at least!!"



"Not by me. To me, a story that's changed from its final version isn't a good story. Therefore, I took it upon myself to restore the story back to its original and true ending. Unfortunately, you complicated things, and quite a lot. I expected you to live on until the Industrial Revolution, big maximum, but until now? I thought it was unthinkable! And look here, there you are!"



"Whoop-dee-fricking-doo. And so it ends, right?"



"Yep! The story's gone back to the ending it was supposed to have. Took a while, but the wolf is finally going to have the meal he deserved."



"This isn't fair!" That's all she had left to say. "I don't want to be eaten... I'm worthy of a better ending..."



"Okay, prove it."



Vigilante crossed his arms and listened. Hood went on describing her adventures, how she trained, how she always found ways to improve herself, how she was innocent, all the good she did to countries and all the help she gave to people. Her panic was going up and up each instant, because neither Vigilante nor the wolf seemed to be touched by her speech. Both of them were stone still.



At the end, she was crying, almost unable to finish. Her entire body ached from her pain and sadness, the perspective of a death she had tried to escape for a thousand years. A futile attempt, from beginning to end... Still seeing no emotion from Vigilante, she felt her speech had been useless too, and in desperation, she flashed.



Still nothing. The wolf carefully took her chin and forced her to face him. His hand reached for the machete in her hand, and she didn't react. He threw it away, only to take a pistol out of his pocket.



"I'll kill you right now, this way you'll suffer less than being eaten alive." He didn't mean these words at all. All he was looking for was an excuse to make her cry even more.



*BANG!*



Her face was covered by blood.

[Shurikane]

07: Cooldown
Epilogue

---

The wolf fell face first. Hood wiped the blood from her face using her sleeve. Vigilante put the gun back behind his cloak.



"What the..." Hood said while staring at the wolf's body. "What happened?"



Vigilante sighed, and undid the knot holding his cloak together. The cloth fell to the ground, revealing a tall man, somewhere in his late thirties, his hair of salt-and-pepper color was unevenly cut, some parts shoulder-length, others very short. He was unshaved, and his face was the settling grounds of several minor scars. Although his face looked dirty, he wore a perfectly clean black business suit.



"There are some things I haven't told the both of you yet. I didn't come here on my own will. In fact, I was sent by an inter-universal organization called Department Twisted. In your world, it's called Illuminati."



"The Freemasons?!"



"Exactly. DT works on genetics, paranormal activities, black market, fraud, and experiments on live subjects to make its science progress. I only know the president under the name Master, as this is what the Department has been calling him ever since he came to earth."



"But... What does it have to do with me?"



"You were an experiment. What would you say if I told you you were just a story character?"



"Me?!"



"Everything here is a pure fake. The only reason you exist, the only reason why this place exists is because I wrote about it in my book."



"Sounds like a game I used to play... It was called Myst."



"Yes, exactly. As I write, events take shape and allow me to influence the world. It's another invention of the Department. Everything I do is test, test and test. I killed five billion people only for the purpose of my story here."



He waved the book in front of her. She felt like strangling him, but she was also thankful for him keeping her alive. After much deliberation, she decided to wait.



"The wolf was rotten to the core." Vigilante commented. "You grew noble abilities. It was good. As for him, all he did was stir trouble. But I believed in my sense of justice, so I let him go ahead and do whatever the hell he wanted. And it all came down to this: a final meeting in an destroyed New Orleans, covered by radioactivity. The more I watched, the more I felt like this whole story was going nowhere, that it should have never been written, in fact. So this is why I decided to show up, and by some coincidence, the wolf caught you at the same time. That gave me the perfect opportunity to end the test. I would end the story, finish all that dirty job, submit my report to the Department, and then go home and take a rest, in the universe I belong to. The Department always wants its tests to go to full completion."



"So... You could have killed me right here... But why him?"



Vigilante looked off to the side for a moment. His right hand lightly tapped the gun in his pocket as he thought. He finally raised his eyebrows and smiled.



"The Department also has a slightly bad eyesight." He said with a wink.



That said, he turned around, climbed the pile of rubble, and vanished for good.



Hood kissed her palm, and blew that kiss towards where he had gone.



That is all.



Special thanks to my English teacher for inadvertently giving me the inspiration to this story with the following quote: "For homework, you'll have to read a short story, and I really don't like it. It has sex, and violence, and coarse language and all sorts of nasty stuff. The title is: Little Red Riding Hood."

[Doot]

God bless your teacher for inspiring you. That is a great story you have there. Absolutely amazing. Every time I see a new post I rush straight here to read it. Anymore you are going to venture to write?

[Shurikane]

So far, nothing really important. I'm considering making a sequel to Wicked Quest, where this time I'll deal with sci-fi, but I'm still pondering it. Right now my schedule is all upside-down, I'm loaded with work, and those nekkid pics of RL Rei might just get caught by the admin when he comes to check the server's history of requests (now why did I just say that?! Maybe because blue hair turns me on. Where's jello44 when you need him?!!)

Anyways... If anything I'll see if I can get any further in writing The Game of King of the Hill. I'm trying to make it as long as possible; instead of it just being a story, I'll extend the whole thing on and on and on until I feel the steam is all out. That might take a while.

[Sperrit]

Can't wait to see the next one, dude.
Oh, and you get MAJOR PROPS for the Myst reference. MAJOR.

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