Drifters
Chapter 1 - Captured
By: Senku Niola

It was a sunny day in the lush green forest of Ateon village; the sky was clear except for a few small dark clouds.

Senya; Senku’s six year old sister, stopped and bent over to catch her breath and exclaimed, "Senku wait up. I'm not as fast as you are!" Senku, ten years old replied back to her, "Well, you'll never be as fast as I am if you don't practice running instead of swimming all the time." Senya frowned at his remark and continued chasing him. Their father, Welton Niola stuck his head out of their front door and called to them, "Senku, Senya. Come inside." Senku stopped to a halt and called back to him "Ok dad!” Senya tagged him as he did. The two siblings ran for the door tagging each other along the way. Senku stumbled on some soft dirt, but caught himself: Senya continued into the house first. He followed in a few seconds after her. The house was dark, the lights were off; the door closed behind him. Senku took a few steps forward into the darkness; suddenly the lights came on in a flash. "Surprise!" yelled out the family to Senku who almost stumbled at the shock. "Happy Birthday big brother," said Senya. Senku started opening his presents; one was a pair of gold colored sunglasses with a silver colored rim, “Like them?” Welton asked, “They match your sword and outfit.” “Yeah, I do.” Senku replied, “Course you know one of my favorite colors is gold even if we aren’t rich.” Senku said to himself. Just as their mother, Trina was lighting the candles on the cake and Senku was tried on his new sunglasses the house started shaking along with a lot of rumbling and screams outside. “Whoa!” Senku said aloud while falling over. The Niola family quickly ran outside to see what the commotion was about.

Outside there were villagers running around in a panic as large robots were chasing and capturing them one by one, placing them in a hollowed out glass container in their abdomen. One of the robots was headed straight at the Niola family, "Stay away from my family!" Senku yelled as he pulled his gloves tighter on his hand and grabbed his sword; jumping at the robot. He slashed at it in midair: The robot moved out of the way and Senku fell to the ground; rolling due to the weight of the sword; he was not very experienced with it yet due to still being somewhat young and it being a large sword. Senku stood up and tried again to rush at the robot, this time he slashed at one of the left tread of the large robot; it sparked as the sword collided and seemed to do a bit of damage to it but barely if any. Another nearby robot, a bit more rusty and clearly being in service for too rolled over and smacked Senku at a nearby house. He slammed into the wall; “Ugh. I’m not strong enough.” Senku winced, falling to the ground limp and unconscious due to the fact that he was already weak from trying to battle the first robot and still young. Senya and Welton held Trina back as she was crying and trying to get to Senku. Welton explained in a firm tone, “You’ll get captured too if you try to save him.” The first robot went over to Senku, picking him up and tossing him within its glass casing. All of the robots started heading off up the ramp to a very large and wide tractor-trailer-like container vehicle which had brought the robots in. Welton and Senya tried to comfort Trina as they brought her back inside. Senya stopped in the doorway and looked back toward the forest clearing the vehicle left as it rolled away saying to herself worryingly, “Brother...” continuing into the house.



Drifters
Chapter 1 Part 2 - Escape
By: Senku Niola

Senku woke up in a small room; above him was a bright light. He sat up rubbing his head and looked around. "Where am I?" The only thing he was wearing was his underwear and a hospital jonnie. He quickly noticed in a mirror across the table; the left part of his face, left arm and right leg were replaced with robotic counterparts, "What did they do to me?!" Senku said to himself as he looked down to his lap tear falling from his eyes. After a few seconds of grieving, “He told himself “…There's no time for what I look like, I’ve got to get out of here." Wiping the tears from his eyes and looking up he noticed a locker across the room. “My stuff is probably in there,” he thought to himself as he quickly hopped off the table. Without thinking Senku smashed the locker door with his metal fist breaking the lock. “I may be stronger now, but I still don’t like this,” he swung the door open; quickly threw off the gown and put on his clothes and placed his sunglasses over his eyes. "It seems these sunglasses have more than one use now...” he said to himself as he turned toward the door. He tried pushing and pulling it, but it wouldn’t budge. “Locked,” he said as he put his ear against it, "Maybe I should think of another way out of here anyways." He said to himself as he heard voices on the opposite side of the door. He looked around and saw a vent high on wall on the other side of the room. "That will probably work," he told himself.  He ran over to the wall and kicked off the corner of the walls and grabbed the bars of the vent cover; he struggled to pull the covering off eventually pulling it down with him and landing on the ground abruptly. “Owww…” he said to himself standing back up. Climbing back up the wall he pulled himself into the vent. Just then the speakers throughout the area echoed, "Subject number 427 has escaped, sound the alarms and send out all security drones." "Oh crap, I really need to get out of here now," he told himself climbing through the vents as fast as he can to find an exit. He climbed out of the vent to a hallway not to find a soul around, but to find alarms going off in flashes of red light. “Where is everyone?” He asked himself. Sneaking through the hallways he ran into a few barred off passageways. Senku thought in his mind, "This place sure is hard to find an exit in with practically every hallway barred off, heck why are there even bars like this in a place like this?" After finding more barred off hallways, locked doors, and backtracking he finally found an unlocked door and walked in. Inside was a computer with an image that looked like him. "Is that me?" Senku said as he read a paper taped below the image. "Bio-Merge Project; what is that? Am I supposed to be an experiment…?" he thought, looking around "There’s got to be somewhere I can go to get out of this place...” a few seconds later he spotted another vent above the computer. "Vents might be a way out of here too." He climbed onto the computer, onto a nearby shelf; pulled the barred cover off the vent and climb on in. "After this I'm sure going to hate small spaces," he thought to himself, "These vents are like a maze." Upon coming from dead end to dead end he found a vent opening above a hallway and dropped down. Landing on the floor, this hallway was also red and had alarms so he continued along searching for an exit. This hallway seemed to be a square figure 8 with a barred off passage and a hallway that led to an open door so he headed for that door being the only one that seemed useful. Inside was a big window; outside it there was a very large room with a conveyor passing nearby the window; it had robots similar to the ones from the village, but smaller, to the lower left were a bunch capsules with what appeared to be humans of some sort in them and the ceiling had plenty of lights, just then he saw a dark figure rush through the back end of the room after an explosion. Senku turned around and then noticed two cameras on the ceiling looking at him. "Oh crap, this can't be good..." He looked around seeing another vent near the floor. "I’m getting tired of vents." He climbed on in. Upon getting in and turning a few corners he noticed a ventilation fan up ahead pushing him back. "Ugh, this wind is annoying." He thought as he slowly pushed through, coming up to yet another fan, but this one was part of the floor of the vent; the wind got caught in his jacket helped him as he climbed up the vent. Senku continued but stopped for a second at a barred cover; it was stuck tightly and there were scientists outside it so he just kept on his way. He stopped again, at yet another vent cover, but he didn't get close due to seeing a scientist what he guessed was eating his lunch at the time, though he wasn’t sure seeing as he hadn’t seen any clocks in the building yet. "Eating at a time like this?" All of a sudden the lights in the room went out and there was a scream. Senku backed off quickly and continued down the vent. He slowed down after hearing some creaking, just then the vent collapsed below him, he landed in a room; similar to one he started off in. “Ugh, I’m really not liking this place.” he told himself. Luckily the door wasn't locked like most of the other doors were. He looked around in this hallway and found an elevator, due to there being nowhere else to go he pressed the button and waited. The panel above the doors slowly went up from 2 to 5, dinged then doors opened. Senku walked inside and looked at all the buttons, most of them saying "Identification required" when he pressed them; the only one without it was the Storage Basement floor, so he pressed it. As the elevator lowered there was rumbling, Senku jumped for a moment due to it. The elevator dinged and the doors opened, Senku exited the elevator. The elevator doors closed and it sounded like it went back up.  He walked around in this damp room wondering why an elevator would go here. He turned quickly after hearing a noise; it was one of the robots from the conveyor. Senku ran at it with his sword "I'm not going to lose this time." he said as the robot attacked him. Senku dodged it and slashed at it, it only grazed the arm of it. He turned quickly and slashed again, the robot blocked it this time, but Senku slashed at it again and cut off one of its hands. He ran around it trying to find a weak spot and thinking to himself, "The glass looks somewhat weak; maybe that’s a way to beat it." Jumping right at it he stabbed through the glass and slashed in a horizontal direction. The glass shattered and flew all over the place, middle of the robot was cut in two and the robot's abdomen fell in on itself. The robot powered down and sparked. "That's more like it." Senku said as he spotted an emergency exit, he ran toward it, pushed the door open and ran off into the rainy forest night. "What should I do now, I have no clue where I am, and even if I find the village they would never accept me like this..."