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First Contact Second Wave - Chapter One-Hundred-Four (Vuxten)
[first] [prev] [First Appearance] [Last Appearance] [next] General Imak "Tic-Tak" Takilikakik put his hands on his hips, turning off his favorite wallpaper, and stared at the tall skinny General on his screen. General Altair glared back, surrounded by the command room of the orbital station the General ruled with an iron fist. "Who gave you authorization to override my command, General?" Tic-Tak asked, knowing that he had no change of getting that most excellent dominating growl that the Marines who had seen action were able to project into their voice, so just sticking with his normal speaking voice. "I'm in charge of ground operations on Telkan-1 and Telkan-2." "As the ranking military intelligence officer I have the power to assign missions without the oversight of ground officers," Altair snarled back. He buffed his East Point Officer's School ring on his dress tunic and examined it, obviously intending on reminding Tic-Tak who had been to officer's school at a prestigious university and who had attended it at a lowly out colony training camp. "The deployment of military forces from exo-atmospheric to planetary landing is, by regulations, under the authority of orbital command." "You are not orbital command, you are a joint services military intelligence hub. You overstepped your authority! You sent my men into a death trap, you pumped up popinjay!" Tic-Tak snarled. He didn't notice how many of his own troops turned around to look at him. "I don't give a fart in an empty narcobrew bottle about your sphere of authority, General, ground-side is like nothing I've ever seen before..." "Oh, with your extensive combat experience?" Altair sneered, shifting slightly to highlight his combat action badge. "No, over two centuries of putting shit back together after you line slime broke everything in sight, over two centuries of keeping you mouth breathing gun bunnies fed, watered, and bunked down in something more than a water filled ditch! Sixty planets and I've never seen anything like this, even after the Elven Queen Martek went mad!" Tic-Tak yelled back. "You sent a company of my best people, led by a Lieutenant who arrived with Tanluan Neural Worms and was down for the first two months he was here, into a city bombed out by atomics, overgrown by the biological warfare symbiotes, with a lockout only you can lift? You sent my men TO THEIR GODDAMN DEATHS!" "Calm yourself, General. V Corps landings will provide the necessary firepower to ensure that your men are just fine," Altair scoffed. "No need to get hysterical just because someone has to pull a few triggers. I understand you can't really comprehend what it actually means to be a Marine, having never fired your weapon, so you probably don't understand that casualties are to be expected for a major operation against enemy forces such as this." Tic-Tak stared at the other man in horror. He knew that Marines, even Civilians, could get killed during military operations but he had always tried to ensure that not a single life was ever wasted, that casualties were always kept to a minimum while achieving as many objectives as possible. But General Altair was acting as if his men were nothing more than game pieces to be disposed of as needed, like tokens to play a game for a high score. "Yes, General, hmph, Tic-Tak, Marines die during combat, not that I'd expect you to understand that," General Altair sneered. Major General Takilikakik (Two Stars) had always avoided real confrontation, ever since he was a small fat child on an outer rim colony. There were always ways around a fight, a way to avoid it, but this time, this time there was something different. "The amount of men that V Corps will be landing would far exceed any possible casualties that might be inflicted on your men by a factor of five, that's without taking into account their firepower and leadership," Lieutenant General (Three Stars) Altair stated with a shrug. "The craters are obvious landing areas. Even if your troops can't lay down beacons, they'll still be able to land on geographic points. Besides, we'll be doing orbital strikes on the craters to clear the area anyway." Besides, we don't even need you... went through Takilikakik's mind. "Then why did you send my men into those death zones?" Tic-Tak asked. His body had gone cold, an almost painful prickling up and down his spine. He tapped a message to his XO. "Why did you lock out their weapons?" "The Marine Corps always covers all possibilities," General Altair answered. During his explanation the holotank became filled with static, getting thicker and thicker. "You know as well as I do, by regulation, they don't need to use their weapons until they become engaged in combat. There's no reason to have them wandering about with hot weapons." "General, sir, spore level is rising, we're losing atmospheric communications," Tic-Tak's XO, Brigadier General (1-Star) Cormand called out after double-checking the message from General Takilikakik. "General, I'm losing you," Tic-Tak lied, watching the screen dissolve into static. Well, there goes my career, Tic-Tak thought to himself. It was nice while it lasted. Maybe I can get a job with Confederate Colony Administration? He turned to his XO. "Cormand, I want you to pack solid fuel rocket boosted graviton levitation drones with recode orders for all LZ scouts. Limited VI's, we're going to lose those drones. Max-speed max-bandwidth, cook them out of the nearest creation engines to the units. Get them in there. Get those units out of the cities, away from those craters, and have them put up alternate LZ's." "General Altair won't like that," the XO warned. "What that empty headed buffoon does and does not like is not my concern. My concern, my only concern was allowing the troops in my area of operations to flourish just as well as the civilians with what little logistics I possess, and throwing their lives away for something that had no realistic reason beyond self-gratification goes directly counter to everything I believe," Tic-Tak said, putting his hands behind his back and staring at the representation of the Telkan-1 and Telkan-2. "He sent the men, my men, into certain death because he is too stupid and pig-headed to believe our reports and he wanted his name on the V Corps relief deployment that will occur, thanks to his LZ sites, under fire, enabling him to gather up more blood stained gongs and ribbons." He turned away from the holotank. "If he spent less time wondering how to get his next medal and more time doing his job, our people wouldn't be fighting for their lives." --------------- The plants, deflated, under a thin layer of moss, suddenly burst up as liquid nutrients flooded their systems. All around the Marines plants erupted from the green carpet, petals and leaves unfurling, catalysts building steam pressure from water. A Precursor wreck erupted in a swarm of insects the size of a basketball, that homed in on the big robot combat armors, shrieking as they bored in, got close enough for their antenna to sense the electrical currents, and exploded. The ring of biological explosive around their anus went off, the chitin at the rear of their abdomens held long enough for the explosive force to be directed through the their abdomen and thorax, hitting and inverted cones made up of thin layers of Precursor armor, and blew out their faces. The last thing to go through the bees primitive brains were their assholes. Individually the little copper EFP's weren't that dangerous. But thousands of bees exploded around each mech, each bee throwing out a dozen streams of liquefied Precursor armor. Vuxten put a 40mm HEDP (High Explosive Dual Purpose) grenade into a wasp next before the horror-creatures could swarm out of it. Another one into a bulb on the side of a Precursor wreck that would have vomited out Precursor superdense battery core acids. Another one into a bumblebee next that would have had drifting winged 'bumble bees' that would explode in a plasma burst powerful enough to knock down a warborg. A fourth into a nest of crabs, chitin and gore fountaining up. The fifth into a vein-bolt arc that was heading for an armored limo covered in moss, disrupting it. His last grenade he fired at his feet, blowing the moss and ferrocrete at his feet away, leaving him standing in a four inch deep crater ten feet wide. He put a rocket into the limo, seeing the whole thing lift up in agony as the caterpillar that had half-absorbed the limo, the armor plating its bulging flesh. Flesh and blood gouted out the far side. Another rocket into a harmless looking lump that stood up with a roar of agony as the rocket had blown half of its head away. The third into a hold in the building across from the CorpSec building that Vuxten remembered as being a diner where he'd sometimes eaten lunch. The last he turned and managed to get locked onto a twelve winged flatworm diving on his men. His magack stuttered, his smartlink running overtime. He could hear 417 firing his micro-rifle and knew that little greenie was keeping moths and butterflies off of him. "GET SOME! GET SOME!" one of the warborgs was bellowing, opening up with twin 20mm autocannons. All around the parking lot fire was erupting, beating back the crawly swarm. Two warborgs staggered as steam-driven spikes hammered into them at MACH-4, the layered cellulose striking sparks from the warsteel even as it left gouges. Another went down on knee, its weapons locked out, shielding its head as a giant insect heaved itself out of the moss and began smashing at the warbord with those huge limbs designed so the muscles pulled the limbs with such speed that the tips were moving supersonic. The night filled with the howl of Terran weaponry and the crack of crawler attacks. "VUXTEN! GET US A PATH!" Gunnery Sergeant Wentmark yelled out over the comlink. His systems were still dead, he was using his 'powered vegetation cutting bar - one each' in one fist, swinging it to clear apart the darting insects around him. "In or out?" Vuxten called back. "Tickle incoming, Gunny!" he leveled his magack at his NCO, dropped the accel down to minimum, overrode the safety, and fired around the NCO, bouncing the the metallic darts shaved off the solid block of metal in the magazine well off the other Marine's armor and firing around him, dissolving the cloud of insects. "Point Alpha, carry on with the mission. V Corps going to land in a world of hurt if we don't take the pressure off," Gunny snapped. "Thanks for the shower." "First Telkan, on me! Scout Formation Echo!" Vuxten called out. That put him up front, the two squads spread out in two 'bulged' outward lines, the Fidos at the compass points, a simba up with him, and the two other simbas in the middle with the fishbois for support. Vuxten took off running, shouldering a crawler twice his own size out of the way and gutting it with a burst from his magack. "All elements, follow the scouts! Break out! Break out! Break out!" Gunnery Sergeant Wentmark yelled, taking his own advice and hustling after Vuxten's men. "Go to cutting bars until the lockout is overridden." "On the gunny!" Shayshes called out. The robot combat armors were still on their feet, their battle-screens overloaded, armor covered with tiny divots. One had armored greenies working on the shoulder joint, which was spurting hydraulic fluid from a handful of bees had found a tiny gap in the armor. "Vuxten, Vuxten, answer me, dammit," Lieutenant Rogers snapped. "Reconfigure for incendiary, APERS, and HEDP," Vuxten said to the Gunnery Sergeant. "The man's working, sir. Try to get ahold of command and get our lockout stripped," Wentmark said, his voice pitched to be soothing. "Trust our Telkan scouts, they've been out here since it all started." "I can't believe it's only been eight days," Lieutenant Rogers said. "It looks like it's been growing for years." "Yes, sir," the Gunny said carefully. "Give the Scouts a hundred meters," Wentmark snapped. "Don't crowd them." The NCO knew it wasn't necessary for the majority of the troops, they'd do it out of habit formed over their careers, but sometimes it made the troops feel like everything was running normally if the NCO was giving out standard orders. Vuxten got his men out in front, following what they knew would be the path of least resistance. A vein bolt sucked all the nutrients from around it as well as pushed the pulse of nutrients from the souce, which meant that the plants around the vein bolt would be dormant, slow to react. "Mark 'em and pass 'em," Vuxten ordered. His men signaled assent. "Get a move on, we have two klicks to go and less than fifteen minutes to get there. Pick 'em up and put 'em down." He looked at his HUD twice in the next three blocks, noticing that the veining of the moss on the buildings was glowing by the time the heavy combat robots passed the area, that more and more glowing motes were filling the air. At the next block he stopped, checking both ways at the intersection. "Right," Vuxten guessed, turning and moving down the street. "Why are we diverting?" LT Rogers asked. "Those sphincters you see in the moss on that street?" LT Marxin answered. "Yeah, so?" LT Rogers asked. "The veins on the ground will transmit vibrations, causing those sphincters to rumble. The Telkans call them war-drums," Marxin said. "We go down that street it'll call some real big and real nasty ones out to play." "Why wasn't any of this included in the briefing? They said it was moss and light spore activity," LT Rogers swore. "There was enough crawler anti-air to knock down Peacock near one of the outer craters, much less that massive one in the middle." "I don't know, sir," Shayshes said. "Maybe MILINT doesn't agree with our assessment of the ground conditions." Vuxten took a left, heading back toward the craters. He was thinking fast as he could without pulling his attention too far from what he could see. He'd ordered 417 to let him see on light amplification on low. Too many times the computer error-checking missed a section of moss or plant life, too many times the filters covered the wrong thing. Those craters were huge, a half-mile wide, full of irradiated water, and he'd seen active bioluminescent arteries leading either into or out of circular lakes, one big mat surrounded by three or four smaller ones, and the entire surface of the water covered in algae with mushrooms sprouting on it. They were a death trap, Vuxten just knew it. Vuxten was glad he'd removed the filters when he barely spotted the water in the next intersection. It was the crossing of a main boulevard, big enough to fit eight lanes of travel. The surface was trembling from the pounding of the war-mech's giant feet displacing their 500 tons of metal. "Stop," Vuxten said over the comlink, holding up his clenched fist and went down on one knee. Half of his men went to active camouflage, blending into the moss and their emissions vanishing. Something big was moving down the boulevard, coming from out of the city. As Vuxten watched it cleared the buildings and he saw the massive insect, like an armored pillbug, with grinding jaws on the underside, massive forward maw surrounded by tentacles, and spikes across the back. A dangerous one that required anti-tank weaponry to stop. The creature was... bulging. Groaning as it moved. As Vuxten watched it crawled into the water. Which started to hiss and bubble. As Vuxten watched the 'water' dissolved the massive insect in seconds, leaving nothing behind as the algae covered back up the water once the bubbling and roiling of the liquid calmed down. "Back. There's an alley, we'll cut down it," Vuxten said. All the icons on his HUD flashed in agreement. "If it melted that thing that fast I don't want to think what it'll do to our armor." The alley was close, claustrophic, and Vuxten didn't say anything about his men using their graviton assist to jump up the walls, leaping from point to point, doing their best to avoid the moss and fungus. One of the big robots brushed a fire scaffolding with a shoulder and the whole thing screamed and collapsed into the alley. Everyone froze. "Why don't you just blow trumpets and fire off flares?" One of the warborgs snarled. "Sorry," the pilot answered. "How's that override coming, sir?" LT Marxin asked. "I'm locked out of half of my command deck," LT Rogers cursed. "Hyperion-One keeps requesting updates. My queue is full of them but I can't answer, the cloud cover is too thick and every time I try to answer I get another ten sitrep requests which is bogging up my system because they've all got 'immediate answer required' on them." Vuxten popped a magnetic distortian bulb with a fist as he went by. "Sir, I've got an idea," LT Shayshes said. The flower Vuxten got near swelled at the base, the tip pulling back and Vuxten knew it was going to try to barf something gross and corrosive on him. He slit the bottom with his cutting bar and the acid poured out on the moss, browning it and leaving it smoking. "Go ahead," LT Roger said. The goodboi had switched to subsonic rounds for one of his secondary magacks and raked the barnacles off the sides of the mouth of the alley, shattering the chitin shells and spraying the street with chunks of tissue. "All of higher ranking than Vuxten drop out of the BATTACNET, purge our mission encryption and data. Vuxten reruns the encryption, then we join back up, hook into him, and our own BATTACNET should synch with his. He's scouts, which means that our suits will take our field update packs from him unless we have command packets," Shayshes said. Vuxten led two men out into the street, waving three more to get up high on the walls of the buildings, one to each side of the alley, one across the street. "That works?" The LT asked. "That doesn't seem right." "I've had to use it before," Shayshes admitted. "Bad drop through a particle sleet storm in the exosphere scrambled everyone's datafiles. Half of us had OEM QC files loaded." The LT was silent for a moment. "Do it." "Vuxten, you copy all that?" Westmark asked. "Roger," Vuxten flashed back, not wanting to speak. One by one everyone but the Telkan scouts dropped out of the Battle Tactical Network. A few minutes passed and Vuxten tabbed up a piece of gum to chew. His systems tossed up a picture of Navy Captain in a lounge chair, being fanned by ratings, drinking a fruit drink through a straw and reading a magazine marked "Theater Updates 3 or 60" with warborgs fighting giant insects around him. The caption read "LOCAL OFFICER TAKES OVER NEW COMMAND" was at the bottom. It was a dumb one but still made him snort as he chewed on the gum. He checked his stats. Everything optimal. His nanoforge was back down to 5% heat and no slush. One by one they all came back online and "UPDATING RELIEF FORCES" came across his visor. "ONLINE!" Marxin called out. The gestalt tossed up an image of Vuxten fighting with a couple dozen crabwalkers with the caption "LOCAL MAN RELIEVED TO FIND OUT EVERYTHING IS STILL ALL FUCKED UP". Another dumb one, which told Vuxten that there was a lot of high stress going on and the gestalts were working hard. Usually they took more time to craft morale and mental health memes, these felt like the pixels hadn't even dried. "Ugh," Trooper Estex grunted. "What?" Vuxten asked. "It threw up three old memes in row," Estex complained. "Bad ones, not even one of the good ones." "That's... odd..." Vuxten said. LT Rogers finally came up and Vuxten's armor transferred command to the LT Rogers's big heavy warmech. "OK, now what?" someone asked. His armor was still updating so it wasn't showing icons yet. "Continue on mission," LT Rogers said. "I've still got beacon files, so we should be good there." "Except the beacon was on Peacock," someone else said. "I can use my port PPC as a signal beacon if I need to," LT Rogers said. "I had 767 recalibrate it while we've been moving." "We need to move. We're attracting attention. You big boys are too warm to stay hidden from crawlies for long," Vuxten said. "You heard the man, let's go. Give the scouts a 100 meters, I want a skirmish line after that," LT Rogers said. They had to double-back twice, but they still got to the piles of rubble that had been buildings with five minutes to spare. They started up the two hundred foot tall piles of rubble, the Scouts flitting from cover to cover, the warborgs spreading out and moving in quick bursts, and the giant warmechs slowly crawling up the hills that had once been home to thousands of beings. Five minutes to spare would have been fine. Except for high in the sky, in the lower orbitals, Admiral Howell's ships shifted, communicated with one another, and activated the fireplan laid in and approved by General Altair. Vuxten was down on one knee what 417 squealed out a warning, flashing the icon to 'assume blast position' even as his warning jumped to his fellow green mantids, all of whom flashed the icon to their own pilots. The clouds brightened, thickened, swirled as lightning began to arc away from the brighter area. The cloud was suddenly pierced by bright blue light with a white core that stabbed down into the lakes of each of the atomic craters across the entire planet. For Vuxten and his men, that meant six spots, all in front of them. All beams touched down, bent slightly by magnetic warping, to hit the giant mats of fibrous material square. Even as the thunderclap of displaced air rolled over the crouching warmechs and prone warborgs and Marines, the mat drank up the energy, lighting beginning to arc over the surface of the radioactive lakes. The energy released mixed with the crazed radiation as the lake heated up enough for steam to come off of it and it began to roil and simmer. The beams stabbed down, according to General Altair's plan, four more times, five for each crater, then the sky went dark and the clouds rushed back in as cool air collapsed the near-vacuum and the superheated air. Fog began to spread from the lakes. "Well, that was useful," LT Marxin said. "Wish we had atomics," Vuxten said softly. "I'd feel better stirring that soup up with about 250 kilotons." 417 flashed agreement. "Move up, slowly," LT Rogers ordered. "I don't like this, Corporal," Private Hukey said softly. "Reconfigure rockets for HEAP," Vuxten ordered, referring to High Explosive Armor Piercing, moving slowly toward to of the collapsed skyrakers, toward the lake where fog rolled off the heated water. Above them General Altair stared at his screens. The clouds had immediately rolled back to cover the planet before the energy pulses's distortion could clear enough to get a sitrep from the units that were supposed to be putting up beacons. To top it off, it had looked, for a moment, like nothing had even happened to the lakes even though he'd computed that the orbital fire had provided 10% more energy than should have been needed to evaporate all the water from the craters. This was General Takilikakik's fault, he knew it. Somehow 'Tic-Tak' had sabotaged his deployment plan. He was tempted to call off the elements of V Corps making for the planet, but was afraid of looking bad in front of General Nodra'ak. On the planet Vuxten had just reached the top of the hill when a creature burst from under the water. It was hundreds of feet long, over a hundred feet tall, covered in spines, thick leathery hide and chitin, with massive jaws that it opened up and let loose with an unearthly screech. The ear-rending noise was the signal for dozens, hundred of creatures to erupt from the shorelines, all grown to rapid maturity by the energy transfer. Blisters erupted, filling the air with spores that jammed everything, even lasers. "FIRST TELKAN! ROCKETS ON BIG MOMMA, GRENADES ON THE REST! STEADY WITHDRAWL!" Vuxten yelled, his brain processing it automatically. He let loose the rockets, the grenades chuffing out, even as he back up. The ground shook under his feet as he backed up. For its size, it moved fast. Vuxten was less than a quarter of the way down the hill when it rushed to the top of the hill, threw back its head, and roared. It lowered its head, spotted the retreating Marines, and lunged forward, its jaws open. The ground shook beneath Vuxten's feet like an earthquake. Vuxten stared right at it, 417 climbing on his shoulder and shooting his microrifle, the rocket launcher firing off 40mm rockets that hit with a loud crack but did little more than pinpricks to the giant monster. The ground was rumbling like he was in the way of a freight train as he fired his magack rifle. I'll be damned if I look away. The skyraker behind and to the left of Vuxten shattered as a massive bipedal figure, 75 meters high, crashed through the moss rotted ceramacrete, one fist drawn back, the other hand reaching forward. Less than twenty feet from Vuxten the giant figure grabbed the behemoth by the neck and smashed its fist down, impacting the skull of the giant creature, crushing it between a thick warsteel plated fist and the rubble. Vuxten saw it painted on the massive warbot's arm, the white stenciled paint scuffed and scraped. CMC PEACOCK submitted by /u/Ralts_Bloodthorne to r/HFY [link] [comments]
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reddit.com |
Ralts_Bloodthorne |
Apr 3, 2020 |
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[LF] Some remaining Japanese items, kitchen items(new or other colors), 50in tv, punching bag, boxing ring, any other cool furniture/wallpaper/flooring, bells [FST] Japanese items, kitchen items, basketball shoes, sofa, bed w/ desk under, DJ table, large panda/bear, toilet paper, sushi costume, cute
Have Bathroom Toilet paper!!, iron, shower set, bidet, washing machine, kitty litter Want - nice bathroom tile and wallpaper, anything else bathroom related I guess? Japanese - Imperial fence DIY, two japanese wallpapers, go set, imperial chest, futon, floor chair, partition, bidet, washing machine (pink), sushi costume, japanese character flag (marufukumaru - bounty. fishing boat flag) In my catalog only for now - low shelf, paper lantern, decorative shelves, rice cooker, kotatsu, paper tiger, incense, screen (plum, bamboo), bonsai, imperial dining, chairs, kimono stand, squat toilet Want - Imperial bed, imperial wall, imperial tile, (less priority => tatami bed, stuff in my catalog so I don't have to order) Kitchen - single door fridge (yellow), microwave (red, mint), green kettle, blue espresso machine, knife magnet, dish dry rack, spice rack, protein bottle, dinnerware, In my catalog only for now - double door (white), freezer, gas range (silver, blue), knife block, mixer(strawberry), mug, soup kettle, stovetop espresso, system kitchen, tea set(floral), utility sink, cream and sugar, cutting board(can't buy) brick over(can't buy) Want - brick oven, coconut juice diy, cutting board or diy, (less priority => stuff in my catalog so I don't have to order), anything I don't have or things in colors I don't have Sneakers - red, blue, light blue, green, I might be forgetting about one.. In my catalog only for now - purple pink, beige, orange want - Ripped jeans Boxing ring/fitness - Red corner, bell, speed bag, weight bench In my catalog only for now - neutral corner want - stuff in my catalog => neutral corner, blue corner, punching bag so I don't have to catalog. Bedroom - Bed with desk under, racecar bed Living room - Sofa (white), fireplace In my catalog - TV (50, 20), Sofa (leather) want matching bedroom or living room sets, full size mirror, stuff in my catalog so I don't have to order (tv) Random - ** DJ table, big bear/panda, iron board, kitty litter box, Marimba, acoustic guitar DIY, electric guitar, amp Cute - Vanity, clock, chair, music player ( don't want more cute set ) Clothings - Custom brand clothes, circle glasses, black privacy mask want - Ripped jeans. Any hype/cute/cool clothes. I'd love to catalog trade any of these for bells, wands, or any matching furniture that could help me finish my sets, or if you can think of any cool clothings/furniture you have that might interest me Edit 1: please no PMs. Too hard to keep track Edit 2: Anyone have some more Japanese stuff? I think I'm missing Imperial bed, dining table, chair, tatami bed (least priority lol), imperial wall, imperial tile submitted by /u/_Loading to r/ACTrade [link] [comments]
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reddit.com |
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Mar 27, 2020 |
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Girl I had a crush on in middle school bullied and mocked me for SIX YEARS. A decade later, VENGEANCE
Hi Reddit: This is a long story, and I hope you can bear with me. TL;DR at the end! When I was in seventh grade, I moved to a new town. My father was killed in a military accident, and my mom wanted to start fresh in a new place. We came from a small town and our new apartment was in a huge city. My mom grieved my dad for over two years, but after that got back into dating and eventually married my now-stepdad, with whom she is still happily married. He's always treated us well, and I love and respect him. They have their own daughter together, my half-sister. I didn't adjust very well. I was active and happy in my old town, but in my new town I was depressed and a loner. I entered school in the middle of the year when all the friend groups were already formed. I missed my dad a lot so just stayed home and ate and played video games. I got fat. Never obese, but I was chunky and out of shape compared to how I used to be. I liked this one girl who was in a few of my classes. I'll call her "Lindsay." Lindsay was pretty and popular and she was the first girl I really had a crush on. Being shy, I never tried to talk to her. As time went on, I made what I thought were friends with these two boys, who I will call Allan and Joey. All of us, including Lindsay, were in the seventh grade. I didn't hang out with Allan and Joey outside of school, but they'd let me hang out with them on campus. At least I didn't have to sit alone anymore. Allan and Joey were talking about which girls were cute, and who they had a crush on. I eventually admitted that I liked Lindsay, but told them not to tell her. Later that day, in math class which I shared with Lindsay, a note was passed to me. It was from Lindsay! My heart leapt, although I was nervous: did Allan and Joey tell her I liked her? When I opened the note, my heart fell to my feet. I get red when I'm nervous or sad. I was never more red than that day. Inside the note, Lindsay had written in block capital letters: I DON'T LIKE YOU, OP There was a little bit of giggling in the room. I was so embarrassed I asked the teacher if I could go to the nurse. There was loud laughter as I left. The nurse let me stay in her office until the end of the day, which was good since my mom couldn't leave work unless I was dying, and I wasn't allowed at that point to walk home the three quarters mile to our apartment, due to a recent spate of kidnapping stories in the news. I took the school bus home as usual. Kids laughed at me on the bus, too. Not two days later I get called into the principal's office and get lectured by the principal how a student complained that I was stalking her. I of course had no idea what happened but eventually I figured out that Allan and Joey told Lindsay, and Lindsay decided to make a big production about getting me into trouble. Soon everyone on campus started to call me the creepy stalker, the hillbilly, the White trash redneck, things like that. Lindsay got all sorts of positive attention for being brave enough to tell adults about kids who harassed her. Thing was, I was never officially reprimanded and my mom was never actually called in to talk to any adults about what I supposedly did. The principal just told me that stalking was bad and to leave Lindsay alone. I didn't really know what more I could do to leave her alone. I never even said one thing to her or tried to send any notes to her or stare at her. All I did was tell someone I thought was a friend that I liked her, and please don't tell her. I didn't tell my mom about it. But after Allan and Joey's betrayal, it was back to sitting by myself. In eighth grade I still went to the same school and it was more of the same. I was still known as the uneducated redneck creeper. Lindsay was still really popular and went out with the cool guys from our class. Allan and Joey were never in the cool kid group and I suspect that they both liked Lindsay too, and were trying to suck up to her. On Valentine's Day, I got one of those candygrams that students send to one another that they buy from student leadership at their school during holidays. Like, two dollars will get you a card and a candy bar, and a student aide will deliver it to the intended recipient, along with a sealed message. I at least got a candy bar out of it. The message wasn't so nice. It said, STOP STALKING ME, FREAK Thanks, Lindsay. By high school, I really hit my growth spurt and eventually grew to be 6'5." I eventually got quite skinny so I began pumping a lot of iron starting in tenth grade. I became really ripped. Allan grew up to be a b*tchy little runt and he never messed with me again. Especially after Allan, the one who asked me who I had a crush on in seventh grade, was whispering something to someone in a class we had together in eleventh grade, and looking at me and laughing. I said really loud, "Yo, Allan you little ****, you have something to say you say it to my face like a man, don't go whispering like a little ****." Everyone laughed and even the teacher didn't call me out or send me to the office. I think she was sick of the little punk, too. I didn't really care to date in high school because, even though I was big and strong now, I was still awkward around girls. Joey actually came around, though. In eleventh grade he approached me and apologized for how he treated me in middle school. He said that Allan was the one who told Lindsay that I liked her. He told me that Allan had a crush on Lindsay, too, and was trying to score points with her. I thanked him, and although we were never really friends after that in school, I wasn't mean to him, and he wasn't mean to me. We were "fist bump" acquaintances. Lindsay was still really popular in high school. Not quite as popular as in middle school, because in high school there was more "hot girl" competition. But she still held her own. I didn't lack for attention from other girls, but more often than not the girl would tell me that Lindsay told them I was a stalker, and harassed her in middle school. Lots of girl accused me of that in high school, especially the ones I rejected. Eventually, since I was rejecting a lot of girls, some of whom were in the popular group (and Lindsay was still in the cool kid group at this time) people spread rumors saying I was homosexual. I don't happen to be gay. Nothing wrong with being gay, but the way these people were throwing it around, it was as if being gay was an insult. Really disappointing, considering this was a huge, progressive city. I might have thought such attitudes were common in my old home town, but it was surprising, here. I'd sometimes find notes in my locker calling me [homophobic expletive]. Of course, no one, especially any guys would own up to it, because by this time I was huge, not just in height but I was also really jacked. Side note about that. I asked the custodian, a really chill dude especially if you slip him a twenty, if I could look at the surveillance videos of the halls that he had on his office computer. It actually pinpointed who was putting notes in my locker. It wasn't Allan. I would have loved if it was Allan because I would cave his face in. It was actually this wannabe gangbanger who walked around in sunglasses and baggy pants and flannel shirts buttoned to the top. Looked like a total toolbag. So I caught him in the parking lot one day with his girlfriend and said he forgot something. Then I showed him six or seven notes that he had put in my locker. He tried to act like he didn't know what I was talking about but I slapped him in front of his girlfriend and said next time I find a note in my locker I'm going to make you look like a weak **** in front of the whole school, not just your ****. I never got a note from him after that. But before he drove off like a deflated White cholo balloon, he admitted that Lindsay and her crew were behind it. Nowadays, and especially if my kid were the victim, I'd want him or her to tell an adult, but back then I had this "snitches get stiches" mentality, and decided to just suck it up. Right around this time, social media was really starting to take off, especially that website where you had your own personal space, and could have a "top five friend" row, could use HTLM to switch out music, and have personalized wallpaper. Looking back, I think I preferred this space of mine to that boring book of faces. Most of my online friends were older than me and from all over the place. I liked having online friends because at least you could delete them, just like that, if you decided they suck. Unlike high school, where people you've mentally cancelled were still on campus every day. Joey was my online friend (still is) and he pointed me to a page he found on that website. It was a bogus one, that had stolen pictures from my real account, and was using my whole name. It was full of hateful, homophobic slurs and accusing me of being a stalker. By tracing this fake profile's "friends," I could tell it had originated from the Lindsay group. I flagged the account and it was soon taken down. To this day, I don't get why Lindsay found it so necessary to hate me so much that she had to try to ruin my middle and high school years, just because I happened to like her a little bit in seventh grade. Anyway, in high school, I wasn't a loner anymore. I was on the basketball team and track team and swim team, so I had friends, but I was never in the very top-tier popularity group. Lindsay was in that top group, though she was mostly one of the hangers-on of the most popular girls in school. Like, she was in that group, but was never Beyonce. And though I had my share of fun with girls in high school (never dated, just hooked up), I could never shake the reputation that I had "stalked" Lindsay. Well, I graduated and moved on. I went to college for accounting, and eventually became a CPA. I still work out every day, and so I stayed in really good shape. I also continued to play sports in college, though I never had the desire (or talent, really) to make it my profession. With the help of my awesome stepdad, who's an accountant, too, we opened our own small financial service with a dozen employees. We're doing alright! Eventually, a man comes in, looking for a job as an accountant. Lo and behold, it's Joey! Haven't seen him in years. Still looks the same, maybe a little balder but otherwise pretty good. We catch up, and since he's gone to school for accounting himself and has a good resume, we hire him. He does fine for a couple of years, and we've actually become good friends. We've put the past behind us. I went to his wedding. He went to mine. I went to his son's baptism, and he went to my daughter's. We're friends on social media, and neither of us keep in touch with people from middle and high school. Bygones are bygones. And time passes. One day Joey asks me if I got a letter in the mail inviting us to our ten year high school reunion. I tell him no, and remember that the school doesn't have any of my updated addresses, since my mom and stepdad moved a couple of times since I graduated, and anyway I don't live with them anymore. Joey is taking care of his sick mother, so his wife and child moved in with his mom in his childhood home. He shows me the letter. Typical stuff, except hey now! Lindsay is on the reunion committee. It has her email address and everything. I haven't thought about her in years. Since I'm in front of my computer, I look up her email address on Face-libro, and it leads right to her since her privacy settings are minimal. Her current photos don't do her any favors. She's aged badly. It looks like she had a couple of kids and was married once, but is now a single mom, and sharing custody with her ex husband. She gained a lot of weight and doesn't look like she used to. Really, I wonder if it's even her. But the name matches up, and the school history matches up. I was thinking how LOL it would be if her ex husband was Allan, but it wasn't. Allan WAS on her friends list, though. Clicking on him, it doesn't look like he amounted to anything. Never attended college, but that's okay if he does other productive things. But he doesn't. It seems he washed out of the army, and has worked a series of menial jobs and now lives in another state far away. Seems like he's obsessed with just smoking weed and trying to date teenagers these days. Per Lindsay, from her updates it looks like she is big on the dating scene, but hasn't found Mr. Right, and it's frustrating her because she has "so much to offer." Like her crushing student debt that she complains about in one post, for her super cool and useful almost-degree in fashion design, that she never quite earned because she "fell in love" and got married with some loser from high school. Or how her children don't respect her in another post. Or how she has several go-gimme-funds just to raise the rent on her crap studio apartment. Or her amazing, exciting career as a junior shift supervisor at that popular coffee shop, Galacticbucks. Holy cow. I think life got my revenge on her, for me. But I think this b*tch needs a little nudge. I tell Joey no, I'm not going to the reunion, are you? He says he will, because he wants to see if any of his favorite teachers are still around. And he tells me, "don't you want to show off to people how successful you are now?" LoL. We're boring accountants, not Navy SEALS or hedgefunders over here. So, I tell him no, but if you're going, say hi to people for me. Will do! The reunion is still a couple of months away. For what I'm going to do, I need my wife's permission. After I explain how Lindsay treated me in middle and high school, about all the stalker and anti-gay stuff, my wife tells me, mid breast-feed, to destroy, with prejudice, and in detail. Thanks, dear. I look completely different in the face compared to high school. Still, I don't want to use my own photos. So, instead, I gather lots of stock photos of a particular male model. Sorry dude, I hope you don't mind! Anyway I'm sure lots of catfish use you as their hook, Mr. Inoffensive, Conventionally Handsome Buff German Guy. And then I make a profile on that awesome dating site, AcceptableCupid, after I learn on the Libro de Face that Lindsay is on there. The idiot actually doxes her own username, she's that thirsty for attention. Right when I launch my profile I get a few spam emails and desperate cat calls from lonely women. I ignore those and go right for the kill. I send a message to Lindsay telling her how amazing and interesting she is. Since she's such an unattractive person in every way, I don't think there's a long line of suitors vying for her attention, and I'm right. Within minutes, I get her reply. We begin a message-exchange on the site, and I gradually gain her confidence, mostly by flattering her. She doesn't tell me she's a mom, even after several days of messaging, which is odd. She implies strongly that she's a career person and artist. Haha okay, relax there, Lindsay. Eventually I share a pic with her, and she fawns over how gorgeous I am (thanks, innocent German model!) I am glad she can't hear me laughing when I type that she is beautiful. As days pass, she begs me to give her permission to share my photos to her book of the face, where she is bragging about me. I tell her that there is a time for that. Soon she can share my pic and I will share hers. I lull her into thinking I'm respectful and want to take time in figuring out "us." Throughout this whole time, I keep giving her opportunities to tell me she's a mom. I get her to say that "for the right guy, I'll make my existence only about him and me. Everything else is second place." I also get her to say that she "can't stand" kids. This is already a long story, so I'll try to at least shorten it a little here. Eventually, she invites me to her high school reunion. I tell her how much I'd love to go, but that I live in another state and can't get time off from my highly paid executive job (LOL) until a date a few days after. But I promise her that we will have a date at a VERY expensive restaurant. She's bragging all over her social media that she has a new hot guy online, and has a date with him. Of course her friends are begging her to share his pics, but she doesn't, to her credit. She does brag about how this will teach her ex a lesson, that she can still pull the hottest dudes. Everyone online in her friend group (I was not shocked to see that most of her friends were other losers from school, and how she never seemed to grow up) was cheerleading her, telling her how much she deserved this. You sure do, Lindsay! I don't tell Joey what I'm doing a few desks away from him at work. Every spare moment I have from my job, I devote to messing with Lindsay. Sending her messages about how beautiful she is, how I will take her on trips. Eventually I learn her phone number. I hit the convenience store, let's call it "seven hundred and eleven," and buy a cheap cellphone with minutes-card. I begin texting Lindsay about how I think she's so amazing, refreshing, so real. Just to see if she's still a hateful B-word, I tell her about how during my online dating, sometimes guys will try to chat with me. She immediately laments how [homophobic expletives] need to stay away from straights. Okay, Lindsay, you're trash. I text her back that I don't mind when guys message me because I have my acceptable cupid account set for "friends" in addition to romantic partners. She immediately backpedals when she sees that gay guys don't offend me. Whatever, Lindsay, I know what you are. Anyway Joey goes to the reunion with his wife. His mother is ill, but well enough to watch his son for a few hours. The high school is about twenty miles from our place of business. Joey tells me that all the expected people were there. He was sad to learn that one of the popular teachers had passed away, but most of the others were still working there. He saw a lot of the former popular kids. He texted me some of their selfies together. Too bad Allan didn't make it. Probably still chasing a statutory charge in his new home state. With few exceptions, most of our former classmates looked like they peaked in high school. Sad, considering we're all still under thirty. I didn't ask him about her or try to coach him on anything to say, but Joey told me that Lindsay, one of the officers in charge of the reunion committee, was bragging to everyone about this hot guy she was messaging online, and how she had a date with him. According to Joey, people were marveling about how unbelievably handsome the guy was, "like a model!" I'm glad that Lindsay was never the sharpest tool in the shed, otherwise a simple reverse image search would reveal that the photos were of a very famous European model. Joey told me that Lindsay was bragging about how the guy online was in love with her, and how they had a date next week, and how he was a rich CEO of some mysterious, never named company. Joey told me that a lot of the girls were encouraging Lindsay to "marry him and his money!" Although I appreciated Joey's updates, they weren't actually necessary since Lindsay flooded her book of the face with tons of photos from that night, as did her crappy friends. Eventually I spoke to Lindsay on the phone. Amazing. In middle school and high school, I never once really talked to her. I only told one d*ckbag in seventh grade that I liked Lindsay, and after that, it was all just gossip and rumors that she started. This was the first time I really heard her voice, and I wasn't even me, I was "Herr Deutsche Model." She told me how "sexy" my voice was. Really, Lindsay? Because I was pinching my nose and trying to sound different, not that she knew what I sounded like for real anyway. I told her I couldn't wait for our date, and told her which restaurant it would be. I also told her I was staying at a certain five star hotel. I said that we could go there after dinner, which is of course polite talk for "we will f*ck on date number one." I made sure this particular exchange was on the acceptable cupid site. I could tell she was falling hard for me, especially the way she plastered her social media with updates on her dreamboat. Hey, Lindsay, you've got two kids and you never post ANYTHING about them on social media. Are you ashamed of your children? Meanwhile she's telling the world she's going to f*ck some stranger she's never met. Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay... A truly trash human. Over the following few days she never did own up to having kids, but she did admit she worked at Spacebucks Coffee as a "side thing," for fun in addition to all of the art she said she did, and having her own business. I assume she's talking about her online store at 3tsy that she brags about on the book of mugshots where she sells really crappy beaded jewelry that only drunk ravers might find appealing. By this time she's given me her full name and I've given her my made up name. She says that her job at LunarBucks is a total joke, her coworkers are idiots, her manager is mentally deficient, and that she often takes home pastries at the end of the night, supposedly to give to the poor (nah, Lindsay. I've seen your pics. You clearly be eating them scones personally). According to Lindsay, she's supposed to "mark out" expired pastries and dispose of them for various city code reasons. But she goes all SJW with me and tells me that "why should all that perfectly good food go to waste? It's truly an evil company." Yeah, whatever Lindsay, you racist, elitist homophobe. Anyway, fast forward to our date. The restaurant is only a couple of miles from my business, and I scheduled our date for shortly after we closed for the evening. I scheduled everything in such a way that I wouldn't miss my wife's famous lasagna later for dinner. I parked not far from the window, in a parking lot adjacent from the restaurant. I couldn't park at the restaurant itself, as it was an extremely expensive place that had valet parking only. As scheduled, I see Lindsay waddle into the front door, coming out of her rideshare. I had instructed her to give her name to the host, and be seated at a specific table. I happen to know, because she said so on the libro of the face, that she was ashamed of her beat up 2001 Chevy Cavalier. I assume she expected her hot date to drive her home after an amazing night of what I can only assume is--with her--vomit-inducing, and malodorous love-making. I told her I would be arriving in a Maserati. I see her sit at the table I arranged earlier. I see her playing with her phone. Probably bragging about our date to whoever. After twenty minutes of stringing her along, I see my courrier arrive on a red Vespa, just as he told me he would. The courrier I scheduled to arrive at a certain time, twenty minutes after Lindsay's arrival. He wouldn't bring the item unless I texted the go-ahead, which I did. He texted me, "here!" And I saw him take the bear out of his backpack. His task was to ride to a certain gift store I never really frequented, and pick up a small, stuffed bear whose arms could surround anything from a bouquet of roses to a box of candy to an envelope with a million dollar check in it. The courrier was then supposed to bring the bear to the restaurant host. The host would then of course bring the bear to Lindsay. The courrier handed the bear to the host. I didn't see the handoff because that part of the restaurant was out of my vision, but I did see the courrier ride away after I received a text saying "done!" I DID see the host give the bear to Lindsay, which was the important part. I was parked close enough to see her face as she read the note I had typed and placed inside the envelope I had the bear holding, next to a fancy chocolate bar. I DON'T LIKE YOU, LINDSAY Her face. HER FACE! OMG. She looked like she was going to die, right there. I received a WTF? Text from her. I started driving home. Text after confused text. Twenty or more. She never knows when to drop it. Finally, I pull into my driveway. Wife and daughter at home. I hear their laughter. The good kind. I smell the lasagna, and my wife kisses me. She asks me if I had a good day. I tell her yes, most definitely! And then, before I take the phone's battery out and break the cellphone into a hundred pieces before throwing it in the garbage, I send Lindsay one more text: STOP STALKING ME, FREAK The next day, I couldn't help it. I looked at Lindsay's social media. Set to private! I'm wondering if her narcissistic ass knew that it was ME that played her. Especially since the mascot for our middle and high schools was a bear, that didn't look too different from the stuffed one I had given her. I don't really care. All I know, is that now I have closure. Especially after I sent the screen captures of our alrighty-cupid messages (my own user name and fake photo blocked out) to CPS, where Lindsay bragged about hating kids and told me what she thought about being a mom. And said she was going to be screwing a strange man on the first day meeting him. Maybe ex-hubby will get full custody, and give those children the attention they deserve. Her boss at Galaxybucks was certainly interested in my recording of her calling him "a retard" and that she stole pastries that she was supposed to mark out at the end of the night and that her company was an evil corporation and that they were a "joke." Random call to her store a few weeks later. "Is Lindsay there?" "Oh, she no longer works here." Damn right she doesn't, LMAO! Go to Hell, Lindsay. Hey, at least you got a candy bar out of it. Thanks for reading! PS: A few days ago, my wife asked me whatever happened to that revenge I had planned on that mean girl from middle school. I told her I've moved on, that it was too long ago, and that I needn't be petty. She told me how much she admired me for my restraint. "If it were me, I would have cut a b*tch." One day, I think I'll confess. Maybe one of those deathbed things. About how I kicked a loser when she was already down and laughed while doing so. Oh well. TL;DR: Girl wrongfully accused me of stalking when we were in middle school, and bullied me in middle and high school. Years later, fat, alone, and defeated by life, time had given me revenge. Still, I felt like beating a dead horse. submitted by /u/OpenFaceClubSammich to r/ProRevenge [link] [comments]
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reddit.com |
OpenFaceClubSammich |
Jun 18, 2019 |
Canada
