We've just started a Masks campaign. Our Halcyon City is London, in a world forever changed by an alien invasion. The Asterians are starfish-like, and attach themselves to people who then become their puppets. A treaty has been signed that means the Asterians have free rein over Britain but leave the rest of the world alone, and the whole world gets the benefit of the biomechanical tech the Asterians are building in their new factories. Turning Britian into an alien-controlled fascist police state was an acceptable compromise. But three young heroes have decided to fight back.
I don't like writing. But Abeni says it will help me, and Abeni's one of the few people I actually trust. So here we go.
My name used to be Melanie Gwyn, although nobody calls me that any more. I don't remember much before the change. I guess I had parents and shit. The important bit is that I ended up in a compound with a bunch of Welsh survivalists. I kind of get it, with all the Asterians around. They wanted to hide. Except they decided they needed a guardian, and instead of getting dogs like normal people they used me.
They had some sophisticated genetics lab stuff for making food, and people who knew how to use it. Where they got the honey badger DNA from I don't know, but that's what they spliced into me to turn me into the ultimate warrior. They seemed happy with the result. I'm strong, hard to injure, and I've got a nasty set of claws. None of them cared how much the transformation hurt.
All I could think about was escape. My first outburst of rage scared them enough that they kept me chained up most of the time, but I was getting stronger. At last I was strong enough to rip those chains right out of the wall and make a run for it. I had to get past the compound fences, but I had these handy chains to help me with the climbing.
Some hikers found me in the morning, when I was too tired to go any further. Then I was in the system, although the system didn't know what to do with me. Most of the options were for normal teens, not escaped genetics experiments. In the end I got a flat of my own and a social worker. Abeni.
She was the first person since the change who didn't seem to be scared of me. Even better, she didn't keep telling me what to do. Well, she told me not to swear, but I could tell she didn't mean it. She helped me get the flat sorted out, bought me some clothes, and took me out to the pub. It's called the Gull and Switchblade and I could tell the guys who run it know her. She said it would be a good way to meet new people and maybe make some friends.
I didn't think that was very likely, but if it was going to happen anywhere it was probably there. And it did.
One of the Asterian enforcers showed up at the pub one night. Yigirel. We all knew who he was. Everything he said wound me up and I was struggling to stay in control. But this time I wasn't alone. There were two other people around my age in the pub. Billy, who's got some kind of alien fish fused to his chest, and Balae, who's just some kind of alien. We looked at each other, and then we got up and kicked the shit out of Yigirel.
That's how we found out that if you beat the human host hard enough, the Asterian drops right off and you can stamp on the little fucker. Except now the guy Yigirel was piloting around is in a coma, being looked after in the back room of the pub. I don't know if that's better or worse than being puppeted by a mind controlling alien starfish. Oh, and Castor and Pollux were pissed off because we were fighting in the pub. They said something about 'don't shit where you eat' which I didn't understand because they only sell peanuts and crisps.
Anyway, Billy and Balae are my friends now. Billy can get a bit annoying, because he's super competitive and sometimes he tries to push me around, but he's alright really. And Balae's really sweet, and let me talk about what happened to me at the compound. When I'm with them, I feel like I fit in.
All my life I've had people trying to tell me what to do, but Abeni says I can make my own mind up about that. I'm not going to be the glorified guard dog I was created to be. I'm not going to be the victim that people act like I'm meant to be. I'm not going to be the troubled youth everyone thinks I am. I'm going to be a hero.
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