BOOMER ZONE

Part 1 - Boomer Blood Bleeds Blue

From across the surrounding desert landscape, you'd think you were back at Auschwitz or Sobibor when you saw it. Electrified wire fences spanned the entire circumference of the concentration camp-like complex. As the blizzard of a sandstorm picked up speed, the towers in each corner of the centre were almost totally obscured by the vast amount of GM sand. Genetically modified to keep away intruders....and to keep in escapees. The burning ball of gas and dust known as the Sun was beginning to set on another weary day for all involved with the daily routine of the prison. Sweltering heat had already claimed one casualty and caused three workers to collapse. This wasn't enough to stop the guards though; forever driving high-voltage cattle prods into their kidneys, cracking the steel whip upon their backs, kicking dust in the eyes of the invalids. They had no chance of escape, they were doomed to stay locked inside forever. Every now and again, one prisoner would look up to the billboard that was keeping them under such a tight lock and key. Every day they hated those words more and more.....: Sonic the Comic Online.

Before very long, all Boomers were sound asleep in cramped, damp, musty quarters. Fortunately, the rooms were becoming tragically roomy since the 'departure' of several Boomers this week. Some were lucky, the chosen few lowly scrubs got a room of their own, Kintobor even got his own fridge! However, the majority of the unlucky were shoved into tiny spaces sparingly bigger than a toilet cubicle. The smear of faeces across 'Dave' and 'Stuntman15's' door could itself be mistaken for a toilet cubicle. Of course, the guards, or the 'moderators' as they liked to call themself, lived in habitats of luxury.

In a padded room to the south of the camp, a worringly-anime fox sat scared to move or touch his environment. The bandanna-clad Retrogamer had one day stumbled across a gypsy, but in his clumsiness, his mumbled wish of 'a wife and a shirt' had been misinterpreted as 'a life full of hurts'. Which was how Retro lived his life every day.

Further down the hallway was a room very easy to miss. Stealithily hidden among festering crates of Spam and tangled shoots of overgrown ivy were the quarters of Sin Scorpion. Brought up to follow the way of the ninja, Sin rarely left the safety of his own room. Photographs of martial-art experts and superheroes down the line of his family tree donned the walls while mementoes of a visit to North Korea were adorned on the absinthe table. Something was hidden deep in the past of this scorpion and as long as his dangerously spiky tail and his pincer hands were intact, he wasn't going to reveal it. From the large bay windows at the back of the complex, 'Super Sonic' Jim had the most magnificent view of them all. On late afternoons, the northener liked nothing more than to sit in his custom-built leather chair and polish his Über-cattle prod, gazing out as the sun set behind the Ancient Pyramids and randomly-placed sand dunes. Then again, he also liked to gaze out of his other window and chuckle menacingly at the scrapyard, especially built for expired robot creations and chargrilled Boomers.

Finally, the biggest room, at the very top of the enormous building, housed the ones known only as 'Ed' and 'Mike'. Together, they cooked up increasingly vile and torturous methods to punish the Boomers down below in the cesspit of STC-O. As he slept soundly, a chuckle came to Ed. A deep, chilling, yet sleepy chuckle that would involve every living member of this 'forum'.

Fortunately, not everyone in the location was trapped inside the prison camp of STC-O with no hope of escape or seeing desperately-missed loved ones again. High above Earth flew the 'Death Egg', a chilling reminder that a giant egg was flying through the sky. Aboard were what appeared to be a select bunch of the bravest, most couragest people to walk this world. They were, infact, a group of no-hopers that had stolen the Death Egg from a passing salesman and made their way through life by tapping off STC-O's digital TV. Regardless of that, they were Team Dark, underworld of Sonic the Comic Online. Leading the fight for 'good', Oz, an apathetic crocodile/hedgehog breed, was an inspirationally brave guy who would fight his way through mountains of projects to save the day. Unfortunately, he rarely got them done and he now found himself bundled into an STC prison cell with the other Team Darkers. All but one....

The corridors of STC-O were immaculatly clean tonight. Cleaner Hume 'Megashadow' had made an exceptional job of scrubbing the floors. Blood isn't the easiest thing to remove, after all. The only one outside of their quarters at present was Tomog, who had been forced to patrol in search of renegade Team Darkers. But he was alright. In the increasingly cold walkways, among the clichéd whislting wind and expected clanking of metal and metal, he was alone. Or so he thought.

Out of nowhere, a black fox with a ridiculously long fringe and odd socks came leaping at the 'petrified' armadillo, Tomog.

"Ha! Caught you unawares, haven't I!!" cackled Archeoleus Pike the fox as he clung mercilessly to his victim's shell.

"You appear to be irritating me," sighed Tomog, not bothering to wrestle his odd assailant off his back.

"Damn, right! There's more where that came from!!"

But before Arch could 'hurt' Tomog further, he felt a hand clasp his furry tail and squeeze. Hard. By the time he hit the floor in pain, he realised that he had just been whole-heartedly humiliated.

Arch stood up, unphased.

"I'd love to say I'm defeated but I was trained in the art of OPTIMISM!!" laughed Arch as he pulled out a dagger from absolutely nowhere.

"I-I...oh..."

With a display of dazzling fireworks, super-special martial arts and random cries in Japanese, Arch flung the dagger directly at Tomog. A grinding noise could be clearly gathered as the blade pierced Tomog's forehead firstly, followed by the crunching of a damaged skull and finally the large 'pop' that results from an exploding brain. Blood seeped out of every available hole of Tomog's head; the eyes, the ears, the scalp. Tomog collapsed to the floor and his head gave one last crunch as it crashed onto the cold, cold floor. Arch observed what he had done and he saw that it was good. Walking away, he chuckled to himself, startled that no-one had been awoken by the immense commotion.