Corporate Cataclysm
From the earliest days of the industry takeover, when companies had only just begun to be swallowed up by larger corporations, springs a legend. This story is the one that fuels all hope for seizing power back from the industrial monopolies, it burns sometimes harshly in the heart of every rebel, it lingers as a small torch hidden quietly away in the breast pocket of those rebellious faction leaders, and scorches the minds of those who lead the very companies being revolted against and chars them until only ashes of fear remain.
The legend is that of the Scorpion and the Crab. As most stories go when creatures who have no normal dealings with one another go, the two end up doing battle to the death. The insults and slights that must have surely led to such a conflict have been lost through the centuries as the story is spread at first across Internet servers and then through the more ancestral means of storytelling: from mouth to ear and then to mouth again. The key stand the test of time mostly preserved, and to this day the legend is still murmured in pre-battle shadows and over dim fires lit against the biting cold of the streets.
During the course of the battle both the Scorpion and the Crab have their mettle truly tested as they slowly pick each other apart. One has to keep in mind that this isn't some altercation between a normal-sized crab or scorpion that one's memory will conjure up. No, these creatures were on a level playing ground since they were similarly proportion--or so the story goes. The Scorpion, via a few deft movements with it's stinger is able to prick the Crab's fleshy underbelly. Poison flooding it's system the Crab retaliates shrewdly and shears off the Scorpion's most-valued asset with a great pinch from a mighty claw. As payback in kind the Scorpion also manages to detach one of the Crab's claws, possibly crippled into weakness by the poison. Out of sheer combative skill the Scorpion also achieves in poisoning the sea-dweller further by injecting the remaining poison from its detached tail into the Crab's open wound. In the end, both die.
Obviously, this tale is meant to be uplifting and spark the volts and cause gears to turn in those would-be heroes; also somehow buried in the root of the story is a totally apparent instruction manual on how each and every revolution must be carried out regardless of if one wants to succeed against an industry leader or medium-sized corporation of evil proportions. People have figured out some of the parameters that prove to be key ingredients in the recipe for rebellion.
Such as how one there can be only one "Crab" who is chosen per rebellion and that the industry's true weakness must be designated prior to battle--good luck figuring that out--or else one risks that the industry will not fall. The most important thing to take away from the whole myth is that both the Scorpion and the Crab will absolutely most certainly die; other losses will probably be accumulated along the way as well.
To all of this I say, "Forget the mythical bullshit and let's do what we came to do-burn this place into the ground." As I chamber a round into my sidearm. The rest of my team grunts in agreement and like debris we scatter, forgotten, unwanted, unnoticed, to carry out plans predetermined-not by a legend-at a prior debriefing.
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Arc I: {Caelius}
Same shit, different day; a mantra once publicized by some scream-fest writer of centuries past from the U.S.A. whose aim in life was to scare his audiences and upon that failing, gross them out until the book was shuddering due to their intensely quivering hands. Same shit, different day; it has a nice ring to it I think as I shoulder my book bag and head towards the front door of my family's home. The quiet of the early morning is empty and slightly eerie, the silence foreshadowing the noise that will greet me when I return later. Hateful shouts, the random same dish is thrown across the kitchen, always the same one, and yet it miraculously never breaks...I've lost count of how many times it has clattered to the floor shortly after being narrowly dodged. Perhaps, I'll get a call that will dictate that I sneak out for the night; I wouldn't bet on it, but there's a strong possibility that the company might need us for a few hours' time tonight with these thoughts in mind I call out back into the entryway "I'm leaving now"; like usual no sounds follows me out the door and I begin my morning trek to my school.
