Scrapmetal (on hold)

Chapter 2 {Iridium}

I was running again, my 8 year old legs couldn't carry me any faster than it already was. Dodging bullets, cradling my 2 month old sister for dear life, my first memory that made me realize that what was supposed to be my perfect world was actually crumbling under the foot of Luxury's government. I could smell the oil oozing out of the bionics chops hitting the ground with a heated sizzle. The mechanical hell hounds were gaining along with their villainous owners yanking back on its chain, the only thing between me and death itself in the form of an electrical beast. they were gaining and I was short of breath. I could hear their pounding footsteps as loud as the beat of my heart one misstep and I was toast. That's when I heard the chain being released and felt my stomach drop along with the last small grasp of hope I had on living.

Then I woke up.

I woke up out of breath and sweating as if I just ran a marathon.

"At least you didn't scream this time," I rolled over to see Gaskett's piercing amber eyes glaring into my brown ones.

"I swear they get closer every time," My heart was threatening to race out of my chest and if you asked me if it was because of my dream or because of the fact that Gaskett was getting closer I couldn't tell you. I felt his hand caress the back of my head as he pulled me close. I buried my face into his chest, his heart was almost beating faster than mine, almost. Of course he was better at keeping his cool, as for me? Not so much. I've never been around let alone experienced love before but I bet this was as close as it gets. I opened my eyes expecting to see Gaskett's worn out looking leather jacket but instead came face to face with my watch. 8:13, I had two minutes to get to a place at least a mile away to evaluate a bunch of kids that think they've been to hell and back and know better than you or anyone else that comes along. Heh, sounds like my kind of crowd. I continued to look up past the already dozing Gaskett at the towering ceiling above us. There is an underground web of tunnels beneath our small helter-skelter city. The junk yard, home I guess. It always smelled like oil, sweat, grease, you know, the works. The noise was enough to wake a rock from its slumber and it was constant. Metal grinding, clanging and banging...This was definitely home. I wasn't one for explaining things so I decided to just mutter to myself

"crap,"

This reminiscence of my less than perfect home cost me another minute. A mile in a minute? No problem. I tumbled out of my makeshift bed made up of a cold row of pipes jutting out of the stone wall and used my quick (but not stealthy) reflexes to clutch onto another chilled pipe trailing down the wall. Following gravity's lead I slid down it's surface. 20 stories down.

Ei pelkoa, I thought to myself.

the terror got it's name not from what it brought, but from what the expressions looked like on those pitiful initiates faces. It might as well have been my what it looked like though, kind of like a ball of yarn but change the soft fabric surface into chains and barbed wire and your a lot closer to what this jagged piece of junk looked like. that cage almost blended in to our lame excuse for a so called arena. the "arena" was a half of a dome made up of whatever pieces of metal we could find that could be welded together....it was falling apart (of course).

"that's odd" i heard a familiar bulky voice, too tough for his poof of a mullet.

"what that you actually showed up on time brass?" I replied accusingly, heh like I had room to talk I just made it, at least before Iron will woke up, which in our case was all that mattered. He was the last of the three incredible founders and was looking a little rusty around the edges, Litterally that's what age does to you, his wirey gray hair always stuck out like it was constantly being electrocuted with small flakes of rust falling like dandruff and peeking out from the tufts of hair like mischievous children playing hide and seek. Just like the face of an etch n' sketch if you were to shake him his appearance might flake off as well. I visibly shuddered at the thought. My train of thought was graciously stopped when brass knuckles decided to talk again, ugh that mullet.

"no look....irid look, " my line of vision snapped from the annoying display of mullet when my so called "nickname" was said.

"what did u call me..." I quipped my eyes making stone cold daggers at him. All he did was smirk and make a bigger gesture toward whatever he was pointing at. He was right odd, there was a girl with an expression as fiery as her pigtails staring straight at me. She was a gun barrel pointing straight at me with pure intimidation. "I dont get why that is so shocking to you brass, I've gotten that look a lot,"

"no, not her, the kid a little to the left, he's got a shiner on his right eye," why would a kid with a black eye surprise me? It happens a lot more often than you think, once I laid eyes on him though the reason became very, very clear. Crystal you might say.