The Dark Tower (with Woof!)

It was one of those days that started on the wrong side of the bed. If that bed was a hot, uneven metal floor hammered, riveted and welded together haphazardly. Diana Mendoza had no recollection of anything, not even her name, where she was, or what she was doing here... though it had not yet occurred to her.

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, as all she could see were thick metal walls around her, a 5ft cube cell; but the bars of the cell were above her,  meaning she couldn't stand up fully. The metal made the cell hot, but there was air circulating... because more than half the floor was missing, and she had a wonderful view of a vast desert below. She had exactly 2 feet by 5 feet to lie down on in the cell, and of course, whatever sadist made these cells made the floor slope very slightly.

"GYAaaahah what the hell!" Diana promptly hugged her ledge for dear life.  

"STUDENT 11-15-2013! STAND AT ATTENTION!" A vicious, snarling growl of a voice accompanied a loud clanging of metal on metal. A man... some sort of man, clad in a mish-mash of leather coat, strips, and belts, dressed like they came out of Beyond Thunderdome... beat his piece of pipe on the cage, as it retracted.

"Who are you?" Diana, still in a daze, reached up, gesturing for assistance. She was abruptly pulled out and tossed into the central platform, landing in a rough roll. Ringing the platform were other cells, other... students.

"WHO AM I? I AM YOUR BABYSITTER, WHO ELSE?! AND YOU WILL SHOW ME PROPER RESPECT!" He yelled atop his breath through his metal mask.

A dark instinct arose in Diana when she was yelled at. At first she was afraid, but a much stronger voice compelled her instead. Get up.

Diana got to her feet. The metal masked man was frightening in of himself, with his muscles, his tattoos, his scars, his weapon... but Diana found swallowing her fear quick to do. Something about the man's movements communicated information to her. The man had a torn ligament in his leg that never healed. He was angry, unfocused. The slight gasp in his breath hinted at a previous illness. He had taken beatings in his life, making his muscles cramp. His right knuckles were bandaged, and they were red from dried blood. He was... slow.

Diana stood tall on both her feet. her body relaxed, joints slightly bent, and instinctive fighting tactics came to her. She raised her hands and slowly backed away, as if afraid.

"YOU'LL GROVEL IN MY PRESENCE, 11-15!" He lurched over, raising the pipe clumsily overhead, telegraphing himself, wanting to strike Diana across the temple. She let him come close, closer, closer... until he swung, and Diana sidestepped the pipe, delivering a rain of blows to his face while kicking the pipe away. "AAARGH!" He swung wide with wild strength, but Diana saw it and weaved with the blow, delivering a palm strike to his groin. "AAAAAA!" Diana showed him a whole new world of pain, but he manages to power through and catch Diana with a backhand.

"BITCH! IT'LL BE THE PITS FOR YOU!" He snarled and charged, only to be met with two flying knees to his face, considerate as he was to lunge at her in a crouched takedown. She sends him sprawling, bring her whole weight down on his head.

"FUUU- YOUR DAYS HERE ARE GOING TO BE HELL! I SWEAR IT! EVERY! DAY! YOU'LL SWEAT AND BLEED! YOU HEAR ME!!!" He rolled around and tried to fight, but to no avail.

Diana did not know who he was, but this man meant him terrible harm. Her natural reaction took over, fuming and angry. She knelt down to grasp the man by his head. "You won't." She callously and forcefully plunges her thumbs into his eyesockets, deep and sudden, and a terrible wail of pain came from his bloodied, toothless mouth. Blood poured from his nose and eye sockets as well. The man's world became dark forever.

The violent act fulfilled a deep satisfaction in Diana, as she saw the maimed jailor squirming in pain on the ground, clutching his bleeding face. His screams of pain filled her heart with a dark, twisted joy, a familiar and welcome feeling. Diana began dragging the man to her cell... But she couldn't shake off the feeling she was being watched.

The man realized where he was, and clung for dear life onto the ledge, wailing in pain and calling for help. "Man in Black! Man in Black! Damn you! DAMN YOU... please... mercy... mercy..." He begged, but no one answered. The cell bars closed, though this jailor would be going nowhere anytime soon.

She looked around and her mind began to conceive of where she was. Some kind of structure, high in the air, with the desert below, all around. There was no place to go at all. The man had come down to the cells on a lift from the ceiling, but it was too far up. This place was some kind of holding area.  She looked at the other cells, to see who else was here who might give her some idea of where they were.

Jake had no recollection of what had happened, what was happening. He only knew one thing, that it was both hot and breezy and that he felt tired. As he opened his eyes a little more he rolled to the side and felt the hot metal vanish as his body began to fall which immediately awoke the boy as he threw his arm back and caught a hold of the metal ledge, his fingers digging deep into the metal as he looked down to what could very possibly be his death. "The hell?" Jake said as he stared down at the desert ground, the far far away ground.

Climbing back up, Jake would make quick work of checking his surroundings, a small cell with the door on the roof. Half the floor was missing and... sloped, the walls made him feel cramped and he was too tall so he had to hunch to fit inside these cells. His clothes were.. "Oh no.." Jake's Suit was customized. He still had his mask but it was strapped to his head rather then the hood as the hood no longer existed along with the rest of the upper part of his suit, leaving a dirtied white singlet in it's place. His pants however were still his suit, the right leg still a patchwork along with a few holes here and there. He had his gloves to but was missing his shoes for some reason. "I hope this is the strangest.." As Jake was about to say dream. he heard a voice and lifted his head though the bars of his cell to see what was happening.

What he saw was not nice, a young Asian girl was taken out of a cell near his own and soon started a fight with the man who looked like something out of a Alice cooper performance or a really really bad Leather fetish. And by the end of the fight, Jake knew not to mess with that girl as she ruthlessly dragged the man back into her cell.

pulling his head back, Jake would try to pull the bars apart in an effort to escape but as soon as he began, the floor below him began to tilt even more, a warning that he wouldn't get far if he tried and so he stopped, letting the bars go and looking around outside for a escape. However as he looked his hope diminished as his surroundings were like that of a holding area and the only way out being possible death or somehow jumping really, really high. "Where the Blimin hell am I?" Jake would call out, seeing if anyone would respond.

Diana looked around, the landscape all below her was an endless stretch of desert. She walked to the edge of the rickety platforms, and saw a reddish sky, the hue coming from the large, swollen red sun, and the ruins of cosmic bodies lingering in the celestial sphere. The moon hung dangerously close to the world, a half-broken thing that drifted slowly across the horizon.

Disturbed, and having nowhere else to go, she saw lines on the floor, a circle that pulse with magical power. Being Dyslexic however, the letters were nothing more to her than scribbles.

She hears one other in the cells, and moves to where Jake was.  "You don't know where we are either?" Diana looked at him and offered him a simple deal. "Hey. I can get you out... but you must swear you are not my enemy."

Above them, a catwalk slowly descended all around. Soldiers clad in desert coats and scavenged helmets began to assemble swiftly. They carried makeshift rifles, and took aim at Diana and Jake.

"Wonderful, wonderful display. I expect nothing less of my future lieutenants."
A man in a flowing black cloak, with ornaments on him spoke to them. Clearly, he was someone important.

"Who are you?" Came the obvious question.

"I am the Man in Black. I am the ruler of this tower, the ruler of what remains of mankind."

Diana was a bit taken aback by the claim. What... what happened to the human race? "The... remains of mankind?"

"Yes. I oversee one of the largest, and probably last of humanity. Please, will you hear me? Our time is scarce, and we have much to do."

Diana looked at Jake, then at Black... then his squadron of riflemen who were ready to deal with their refusal. "You don't leave us much choice."

"No, but in time... you will understand why this was necessary. Refuse, you lose everything, here and now. Join me... and I give you everything."

Jake was okay with swearing to not be the enemy of a girl who knew how to fight, sadly, he did not get the chance to mull it over and say his answer as catwalks lowered and armed men came and aimed there rifles at the two, makeshift in appearance, there bullets might not be as powerful as a high powered assault rifle nor would there aim be as good as trained speedster hunting gun men but Jake was still worried for that was all wishful thinking on things he hoped as they could be just as back then... Or even better.

Finally, a third figure spoke, a man in black which made him different and different meant a few things. Here it meant he was someone people listened too. This was confirmed as the man and the girl spoke to each other, a talk that made Jake very.. Disbelieving. Humanity couldn't be... dead, how? He was home one day and now... Now he was here, with no memory of how and he was being told humanity was practically gone.

Even so, Jake did not dare speak out, he felt it better to keep quiet and mull over the facts that came as the man in black spoke before giving them a choice. Join or.. Lose everything. Jake knew he couldn't stay here, nor could he create a foe so early, not when he knew so little. And so he looked outside his cell bars to the men and sighed. "Better then rotting in here. What did you mean by Lieutenants and what you got planned for us?" Jake's muffled but Canadian accent returned, it was a thing of confidence and it helped to mask who he was so he decided to stick to it for the rest of the time he was stuck here, that was something he promised himself as he waited to see if his simple but needed question would be answered.

"I'll explain in due time." He said, and with that his bodyguards lowered their guns, while the lift came down to fetch them.

What followed next was a self-explanatory tour of the Dark Tower. They took the central lift and it offered a 360 degree view of its interior. Whatever purpose it once served, it was now but a shell of its former glory. Barely a fraction of its massive lower chambers were occupied with mechanics and greasers tending to improvised vehicles, while the immediate level above that were squads of young men, teenagers and boys stripped to shorts and boots jogging, one of their number carrying a tattered, colorful banner. They stopped here for the moment, in the tower's lowest levels, to speak in a viewing room that oversaw all of this.

Diana saw one boy fall behind the rest of his group, losing breath. Larger men much like the man who welcomed Diana came and started beating him with pipes for his failure. His group was made to watch; their trainer warned them of the price of weakness.

"You are training an army. Of children." She pointed out the obvious, staring long and hard at the men punishing the boy.

"I am making do with what we have, for the sake of survival..." The man in black noted Diana's unfavorable gaze toward his men. He may have felt them necessary, but he did not want to give Diana a reason to begin maiming his slave drivers. "...though I feel you might have a second opinion."

Jake was hating his situation more and more as time passed, as they explored the dark tower and all it's crooks and cranny's the overlord here would allow them to see. But still he followed, silent and waiting, he wanted to take all of these guys out and figure out how to get home but something told him that would not be a easy task, he was not going to get anywhere without knowing more and having allies and while martial art's chick wasn't a first choice it was his best choice. Maybe.. Soon enough they were brought into a observation platform which overlooked young men and boys, running, one child who had begun to fall back was soon converged on and beaten, inciting Jake's hateful glare as he imagined his palm sending the brutes flying.

"I have a good question, What sake of survival requires you to beat young children." Jake said in a very angry Canadian accent but he had another question which he wasn't too sure he wanted to ask, if the Asian girl here who was clearly a trained fighter was selected to train these kids, then where were the girls in these squads. "And... If we are Lieutenants... We working together or separate." Jake said as he looked to the girl and then the man in black, his tone returning to a level of curious but still retaining that anger from before, he really didn't like there situation.

"An army is not just its warriors. An army is its armorers, its weapon makers, its food and clothing provisioners. The workers who will build camps, and maintain supply lines, and so on. Those who are not fit to fight will support those who do." Diana explained something very fundamental but apparently lacking in the Man in Black.

"...As for those larger men, they should be fighting." The man in black listened to Diana's advice. Though she may have gotten it from the time of Sun Tzu and Miyamoto Mushashi, the principles held true regardless of the time or place.

"...I... see. Yes, yes... you are right." The Man in Black seceded. "You have a mind as effective as your fists. Very well. But know I will still lead the people as a whole. We are low on resources, and must go into the wastes soon."

"...That entirely depends what skillset you can bring. What can you do? What names shall I address you both?" The man asked Jake.

Jake grew more curious of the girl as she spoke, she was versed in tactics for war that sure, even he could have guessed if given time to think about it but she was able to just give it on the spot. Maybe she had time to think it or maybe not. He wouldn't know and right now he didn't have time to think too much on it. When the man in black spoke, he asked a question that made Jake think trice before answering. So far he hadn't seen anyone with powers, the cells he was in, he could easily break the metal, these men with guns, might not have been able to do anything to him. The only reason he didn't fight was because he lacked of knowing all these things, and thus he felt he should be as vague as possible, starting with a name. "You can address me as Zaap. And for what I bring to the table... I am strong and flexible. If I were to teach, I could teach the basics of Gymnastics. Allowing the children to grow strong, reflexive and coordinated." Jake's muffled voice reached out to the surrounding ears as he looked to his fellow inmate. "And as you already stated. She is one with a mind and dangerous fist. She can teach hand to hand combat and battle tactics. The former combined with my training would allow for skilled.... Warriors."

Jake didn't just say this because he felt like that was indeed, true but it meant that he and her would be able to stick together, have time alone to figure out what the hell was going on and what they were going to do. That and it meant that they could teach these kids how to be strong, to survive in what seemed like a harsh environment.