Off The Grid: A War With No End Book 1 Page 3

  Chapter 3

  I felt a certain kinship for bouncy balls. Getting bounced off hard surfaces while you’re pretty sure that someone bigger and stronger than you is laughing their head off at that very moment is really a bonding experience.

  I landed on top of Lilly with an unmanly whimper, and she threw me off. “What the heck did you do?” she hissed.

  “Calm down, you wuss. I finished the first part of using the Leap. We’re currently on another world. Now we just have to find the ruling body or person, somehow convince them to give us an army, and get the hell out of here.”

  Easiest thing in the world, right?

  “How do we communicate with the inhabitants of this world?” she questioned.

  “Hey, you asked something intelligent. This really is a strange world, isn’t it? Part of the Leap’s power is to allow us to speak the language of anyone we come across. I could have really used this a few years ago when I was trying to learn Erkian.”

  She rolled her eyes, and we both looked around. “Hey, is it just me, or are we about fifty feet away from the walls of a castle?” I asked, looking up at the massive white structure behind us.

  Lilly nodded mutely. This castle resembled the makeup of many other planets during their early times, but it was made from a strange white stone. Guns covered the tops, and I could scarcely identify them as high powered bullet shooting guns. There was some general commotion going on up there; someone had probably spotted us and wondered how we appeared out of nowhere.

  “Well, I’m getting the feeling we’re going to meet the leader pretty soon.” I muttered.

  Sure enough, the white walls shuddered, and a small piece dropped into the ground. Ten guards sprinted out from the hole, and surrounded us. They all pointed large guns in our direction. I groaned.

  “Here we go again.”

  “Put your hands in the air and drop all your weapons,” one growled in a deep voice.

  Lilly quickly pulled her laser pistol from its harness and blew his head off.

  “Blast it, you just brought the whole castle down on us, you idiot! How do you expect to get troops from people when you’re blowing their heads off?”

  In response, she blasted another dude before anyone could do anything. I sighed. I would have liked to say I had a good life, but that would have been a lie. I never got that poodle I was saving up for.

  The guards stared at Lilly in surprise for a moment, and then surprisingly, burst into laughter. We were both so confused Lilly stopped shooting them and I stopped thinking about that little poodle in the pet shop.

  “Huh?”

  The guards were still roaring with laughter. One held a hand up, and they all lowered their weapons. He slapped his knee a few times, and wiped a tear from his eye. “Oh, that was a good one, stranger. I have to tell the Lord King that one.” He chuckled a few more times, and then the remaining eight guards surrounded us.

  “Come along now, let’s go talk to the King.”

  I shrugged. “Lilly, I’m not sure what you did, but how about we don’t shoot any more people?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not promising.”

  We reluctantly followed the guards through the gate, and I looked back one last time to see the two dead guards. Somehow, I could almost feel that they were happy.

  The best way to describe the city inside the walls would be a cesspool. The houses were straw and wood from what I could tell, and not a single one was in good shape. We walked along the gravel pathways, and my nose wrinkled at the smell. I leaned in close to Lilly.

  “Do I smell blood?” I whispered.

  She pushed me away. “Whatever it is, it still smells better than you do.”

  Maybe I should leave her with the guards? They seem like her type. Stupid, ugly, and mean.

  As we wandered through the streets, someone ran in front of us and began shouting.

  “Down with the King! He has no right to the throne, and cares for nobody! If we destroy him, we can rebuild and be born anew! Fight back, do not let the bastard win!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.

  Another man ran forward, and wrapped his hands around the older one’s mouth. “Please do not listen to him; he has no idea what he is saying. He has grown senile with old age,” he begged.

  A guard next to us stepped up, aimed his gun, and blood painted the walls behind the two men. They both toppled backward, dead. The guard turned back to us, and for the briefest moment, I saw a deep sadness in his eyes. Then he burst into laughter, along with all the other guards.

  I felt a strong urge to throw up, but forced myself to laugh with them. Lilly didn’t have a problem with it either, causing me to question her sanity. The guards took us through the rest of the slums and into the large castle in the center of the city.

  The walls in front of the castle opened, and we entered. The first thing I noticed inside the walls of the castle was the ground. It was blood red. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that’s probably exactly what it was-blood. What sicko paints with blood?

  The next thing I noticed was the excessive amount of guns pointing down at us and following our every move. These guys aren’t too trusting, are they? I carefully followed the guards deeper into the castle, and up to two large doors. They looked at each other.

  “Let us introduce these hilarious strangers to the Lord King,” the leader said.

  The others nodded, and they pushed the doors open. I frowned. All the other doors were part of the walls, but this one looked just like one back at Pisces Empire’s Council Hall. We entered to view a massive man sitting on a large throne, looking down at several people, presumably from the slums of the city considering their clothes.

  “Please Lord King, we need food! Our sector hasn’t received rations for almost two weeks now! You can surely afford such a meager thing, for your wealth is as great as a thousand seas!”

  The giant roared with laughter. “Indeed they are. If I willed it, you would be fed like nobles for the rest of your life!”

  The peasant looked up at the King with hope across his features.

  “Of course, if you want food, you will have to make me laugh.”

  I paled. By laugh, did he mean…

  A gun barked, and the peasant was thrown into the air. There were several more shots, and the man seemed to dance in the sky for a moment, suspended in the last moments before his death. The moment over, the man slammed into the floor. The giant roared with laughter, slamming his huge hands on the throne. “What a great show! Oh yes, that was amazing! Send his sector a crate of food, will you?” he told one of the guards standing behind him.

  The woman nodded, and hurried away. The giant, who I had decided must be the King, turned towards us. “Guards, what have we here? I never told you that I would be giving audiences to any random fool that waltzes my way!”

  The lead guard nodded. “Indeed, my Lord King. However, these newcomers are quite hilarious! After appearing out of nowhere, our guards went to…greet them. However, before we could do anything, the woman blew the heads clean off two of us!”

  The whole room roared with laughter, and I barely restrained myself from sticking a dagger in the guard’s back.

  The King was crying with mirth, and I stood there awkwardly, the only one not laughing in the whole room. A guard noticed, and narrowed his eyes. He raised his gun, and looked like he was about to shoot me. Desperately, I tried to think of something funny.

  “I bet I could make tons of hamburgers out of you, you fat cow,” I muttered, and chuckled at the thought. The guard lowered his weapon, and I restrained a sigh of relief.

  The King frowned. “What is a hamburger?” he suddenly asked.

  Crap, he had good hearing.

  “Ah, it's a mighty ruler in my land,” I blurted out.

  The King nodded sagely. “I am pleased that foreigners such as yourselves know the might of the Lord King. Since I am a kind King, I shall allow you to refer to me as you do to your own monarch. You shall c
all me Lord King Hamburger. Now, what is it you came here for?”

  Lilly pierced me with an angry glare, and I smirked at her.

  “Lord Hamburger, we come here seeking troops. Our people are engaged in a war with another land that is mightier than any we have ever seen. We come here seeking aid. We hope that you will be able to temporarily lend us ten thousand troops in preparation for the upcoming battle. We will, of course, return them when the battle is over, and we will be glad to repay you however you deem necessary. We assure you that we can win, so do not fear about losing your soldiers,” Lilly said.

  I smirked, and whispered ‘hamburger man’ under my breath. Lilly rolled her eyes at me, and we looked back to the King.

  He seemed to be thinking. “I find your request a large one to grant for no immediate repayment. However, I am willing to lend you a meager ten thousand troops in return for killing the rebels that trouble this mighty Kingdom. I would do it myself, but such a task is below me.”

  Lilly bowed to him. “Of course, we would be happy to do this task for you. Where are these rebels stationed?”

  The King waved someone over. A man walked up to us with a map. “We were about to hire some mercenaries to do it, but here you are.”

  Lilly unrolled the map, and it revealed a little white dot labeled ‘Ronsard Castle’, and another on a gray path leading from the castle to a small location marked ‘Rebel’s Hideout’.

  “We are to destroy the hideout?” Lilly asked.

  “Indeed you are. Now go, and do not return to the Lord King Hamburger’s sight until you have completed this task.”

  We both turned and strode out of the throne room.

  “Lilly, I don’t think we should be doing this. The people here seemed to be rebelling against that devil of a King! That man is a monster! We can’t help him mercilessly kill innocent people!”

  Lilly shrugged. “These people are irrelevant. We just need troops for the Pisces Empire, so nothing else matters.”

  The King’s voice suddenly boomed out from behind the doors. “And leave none alive!”