I jumped into the outpost before the gates collapsed. I turned towards Shamrock, who was following my lead. "I recommend taking the airship to the air," I said, "just in case raiders or Spammers come." The Prince nodded his head and used a phone and sent the airship into the air. "Well, we'll know they're coming." Shamrock said as the airship zipped out of sight. "We need to get food and fuel, in the first instance. I estimate that without trouble, the ship'll go for half an hour on the current tankload; if we want to get anyway we need to fill her up."



I helped up both Shamrock and Emy, and we walked into the outpost. "First," I said, "we need to get the Captain's key. It unlocks the door to the supply hut." Shamrock lifted his eyebrow. "And where is this key?" he asked skeptically. I tried to remember, but I couldn't. The captain, who had the key, was absent when we stopped by the outpost. "We'd find the key, if we found the captain. So, unless you can pick locks, we're out of the game." "I might be able too," Shamrock said, and pulled out a hairpin and some skeleton keys. "Where's the door?" I didn't even hear what he said. He must've had pockets deeper than anything.



As we entered the outpost, we could see the damage. It was designed like the Alamo, and looked to have similar damage. Bomb damage, scorch marks, clawing, puddles of Spam, and the shadows of what was once a user. We could also see that other survivors were here. "Look at this," Emy said. She indicated a helmet- the helmet of the Captain. Other than that, there was no evidence of the captain. "They must've dragged him off."



As it came into sight, I had high hopes that we would finally get supplies. "The door is by that Spammer over there!" I said cheerfully. Then it sunk into me. The door was by a Spammer. I now knew what happened to the captain. "SPAMMER!!!" we exclaimed, all at once.

For those that skimmed the beginning of this account, I'll just put in a few words of what a Spammer technically is. A Spammer is a user filled to the brim with spam, the toxic waste of this land. Once the Spam fills up, the user has a 50/50 chance of having the Spam devour you and turn you into a Spammer. There is a chance that one of these infected went passed the Moderator's view, and caused the apocalypse.



However, how they came to be shouldn't be the question. What they are is more helpful to learn. Natural Spammers, or Spammers that filled up their spam rate, will look like a regular user, but more greenish-bluish and sadistic. However, there is a very, very tiny bit of humanity within them. New Spammers, meanwhile, are very gray, and make crackling sounds, like Rice Krispies. They also come with many speeds. Some are fast, some are slow, some do a slight jog.



Whether or not it was one of these two didn't really matter. There was a Spammer, for crying out loud! And it was blocking the way to the Storage. And the only way to get over there was also the path to us becoming one of them. "There's a Spammer," Emy whispered. I quietly muttered "Captain Obvious" before I spotted a revolver. Shiny and silver, it had a wooden butt (where I hold the gun) wrapped with leather. I picked it up and checked the ammo. It was full, all six shots.



Before I could fire a shot, the Prince held up a keychain. "Watch this," he said. I figured he would throw the keychain and distract him. I was wrong. There was some mysterious button, and he pressed it. One of the key's shot out a long red beam, stunning the Spammer. "Good stun," I said, stunned myself. "Thank you," he said, and took a bow. Before you could say "Stun," however, Emy then jumped out to the Spammer and hit it with the blunt of her katana numerous times. "And stay there!" She said furiously. The Spammer fell down. Now, to the Storage!

I stuffed the pistol in my pocket and cautiously walked over to the Spammer. Yep, this guy was new. He was crackling, and was less heavy than a slow, lumbering Natural. "See his skin color?" I indicated to my companions. "Most Spammer's are greenish-blue. This guy, he's gray." "There must be more," Emy said.



Whoops. The Spammer we stunned jumped back up and tackled me with almost inhuman speed. Before I could even react, it zipped over to Shamrock and tossed him to the ground. A second later, Emy became inanimate. I fought the urge to fall unconscious, and struggled to get back up. Before I could, the Spammer leapt back onto me. Up close and personal, I see.



Have you ever thought of what would happen to be attacked by a monster? To feel fear? To have that feeling that you were going to die? That was what I felt. The Spammer's breath was awful, and had the stench of spam. Not the text, I mean the ham. Of course, this was just one educational aspect of this ordeal. Contrary to belief, new Spammer's do, indeed, have eyes. Many claim that they are empty sockets, but they actually have eyes. They're reddish pupils are just non-existiant, however, and have black eyeballs.



The Spammer came closer to me. I hadn't eaten in three days, and I wasn't very strong. However, I managed to keep him away and hold back the inevitable vomit from the Spam. As I held him back, I remembered the gun. The gun! Why hadn't I thought about it? I quickly used the last of my strength to push off the monster and pull out the gun. It screamed, rushed at me, and...



BANG.



The Spammer fell over, releasing Spam. This cures the Spammer. Not this time. He looked at me even madder, and screeched. It jumped towards me. I decided to save my ammo and held back the monster with my crowbar. That gave Emy enough time to get back up and finish it once and for all with her katana. "Thank you," I said. I was weary, and I wanted to finish this soon. I walked over to Shamrock and revived him. We still had a job to do.
It took a while to recover. I mean, c'mon! We were attacked by a Spammer! After some time, we got back our wits and walked over to the Storage. The Storage wasn't like the Supplies, which were on the other side of the outpost. I didn't know what it was at the time, but I bet that it could've been where the Captain and his team would be at while Spammers attacked.



Emy quickly took guard while Shamrock entered Lock-Picking mode. He used the Fonz Keychain and started picking the lock. The lock was skeleton key proof, but hey, the Prince could do everything. "So," I began, after he reached the second blocker, "where did you get the keys?" I figured someone in a phone booth appeared, handed them over, and said, "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this." Of course, Shamrock's story was different.



"When the Spammers took the Capital, all the guards were occupied fighting." he started, "I figured that the Spammer shouldn' be allowed to take the treaures of the Palace, and, as the Prince, I have the means of opening the Vaults." He took a pause to change keys. "I took the most useful items and got out just in time to avoid being captured. I don't know what happened to the rest of my family or the servants." Why is it that this guy was essentially Chuck Norris, with all that treasure and awesome equipment?



He managed to get to the third and final blocker, and successfully unlocked it. I looked enviously at his Royal Keys, and quietly whispered, "Can I have some of those, by any chance?" He smiled and said, "You can have better than that." before he tossed me a set of keys. They came with a paper. "The keys each have a different coloured stripe on them, the paper says which is which." he explained. "There's a stun, regular laser, skeleton key for all basic doors, skeleton key for advanced doors, and one that shocks people when you press the tip to them. The activation buttons are on the bottom."



I thanked him. "Let's open the door!" Emy suggested. So we did. Emy quietly opened the door, to make sure there were no Spammers. However, how could we? It was pitch black. We both squinted. "Anybody got a flashlight?" Emy whispered. Almost like Alfred when Batman tosses his dirty laundry, Shamrock handed out three black torches, one to me, one to Emy, and one for him. "Here you go," he said. Then we opened the door all the way.



The Storage Closet was not what I expected it to be. The usual was there. Boxes. And more boxes. But there was also a desk, a table lamp, a crate of dehydrated fruit. There were also pictures and news clippings, some of the Apocalypse, disappearances, mysterious smashings (literal smashings), and photos of a man in some shadows. There was, of course, also a chest. I walked over to it and opened it up.



"Who's there?" the chest said as I began to open it up. Saying I nearly died of a heart attack is an understatement. All three of us regained our wits and slowly opened it up, my gun aiming through the crack. Halfway, the chest burst open, and we all fell to the ground. "Are you Spammers?" it said as I aimed at it. Only, it wasn't a chest that was talking. A man in a Captain's outfit climbed out of the chest. He was clearly malnourished, and wasn't looking to good. He wasn't a Spammer, however.



Shamrock, the first person to recover, walked over and said, "Who are you?" The man straightened. "I am Captain WaffleBoy. I was captain of this outpost when the Spammers came. We locked ourselves here after they breached the walls. My troops mutinied after a few days and locked me in here with one other person, who had my key- MY KEY! Where is it?" He passed out seconds after from little food.



The three of us looked around. Where was it? "Look around!" Emy said, swiftly followed by a discovery of something that felt like a key. I picked it up, but it was still dark. "Let's see if it's the key." I held up my torch over it, and saw something diabolical. "IT'S SOMEONE'S HAND!" I screamed, before I fainted.
Being unconscious in the Apocalypse is a big no-no. So much so, that I had very cold water spilled on me to keep me awake. Once I came back to my senses, I realized I was still clutching the hand. Probably the hand of the man the Captain was locked with. I got back up to my feet and dropped the hand. "Nasty..." I groaned. Shamrock was just as grossed out, and reluctantly held out the torch over the pale hand. "Uh...." he and Emy moaned in unison.



I went back to the hand. "Better pry it open. Get the key." Thanks to the (honestly shaky) light of the torch, I could pry it open. The hand was very stiff, but I managed to do it anyways. The moment it snapped open, I pulled away the key. Just a picosecond after my hand escaped the hand's trap, it snapped like a beartrap and rolled away. I mean, ROLLED AWAY. Into some of the crates. "That's creepy," Emy muttered. "That's spooky," Shamrock whispered. "Nasty, nasty," I said, because wasn't I the one who took the key?



Emy helped pick up the Captain. Shamrock took one last quick look at the papers and took a few pictures and papers, including a map. Me? I was holding the key. And found- guess what?- the sound of moaning behind the crates. This time, it seemed like only I heard it. "Guys," I whispered so only we could hear it, "did you hear that?" Shamrock turned towards me, and his eyes widened. Taking this as a cue, I grabbed my crowbar, turned around, and hit someone. Not a Spammer, not an Unspammer. It was someone who was halfway through the process. He must've been the guy the Captain was locked with.



"Oh, man." Emy said, and helped him up. Shamrock used one of his keys and examined the man. "Not a Spammer yet. He will be soon, however." To prevent this, Shamrock pulled out what looked like a pill and shoved it down his throat. "Spammer preservatives," he answered to my question of what they were. "They keep an Almost-Spammed unspammed."



Then, "Time to Fulton them," he said as we left for the Supplies.
I confessed my confusion when he spoke of Fultoning. What is it? He showed me it pretty clearly. First, we had to take our two friends out into a flat area. In this case, the Square of the outpost. Me and Emy then attached special balloons to their backs, while Shamrock picked out the correct key. Once that was finished, both me and Shamrock used our keys to activate the balloons, making them float eight feet in the sky. Shamrock then used a Master Key and made the airship fly overhead. It then used some vacuum mechanism and sucked the two into the ship, then zipped back into the sky. "That is awesome," I complimented. Now that the two were in the ship, it was time to head to the Supply Hut.



Using the Captain's Key, I carefully unlocked the door, all while listening to Shamrock rambling about supplies. "Let me see," he would begin, "we'll need fuel, food, water, extra medical supplies, and some blankets and stuff. Wait, what stuff?" Eventually, he stopped after the door opened. I took a very, very deep breath. "Here goes nothing." I swung the crowbar and hit a Spammer in the head. It instantaneously fell down. I flourished to the Prince. "After you," as I let the two enter, Shamrock pulling out a taser from his endless pockets.



It was a free-for-all. Using our lights, we scrambled all over each other, because there were food, clothes, sheets, water, first-aid, even a board game. However, because of the bundles and boxes, we couldn't find gasoline, which was critical to our survival. Fortunately, as we began to lose hope, Emy said the greatest thing one would say. "Hey, guys!" she exclaimed, "I found some fuel canisters over here!" I never saw Shamrock more happier in the three hours that I've known him."Gas canisters!" he exclaimed, and ran forward, me following. They were in the way back, and the whole hut was 19 ft by 16ft, so please note how tight it was to get to the back. However, we did. We rumaged through the many crates that were blocking us. There were 14 metal gas containers, 8 big gasoline canisters and 16 small gasoline bottles. "A-ha!" Shamrock said in glee.



I looked through, and realized that there was noway we could carry the containers, and while we could put the bottles in some bags, we couldn't put the canisters in them. While Shamrock put some of the bottles in the XXL plastic bags, me and Emy tried to move the containers. "How deep are your pockets?" I asked out of curiosity. Emy pointed to the backpack she'd been wearing. "We can use this if that's what you mean."



We put the 10 remaining bottles in three different backpacks, one for me, one for Emy, and one for Shamrock. We found eight duffle bags and put both weapons like golf clubs and a canister in them. Once, I had to shoot the Spammer I stunned after it recovered and attacked us. Shamrock knocked over one of the containers. "'We should use these big ones for refilling the tank," he suggested. "They're harder to transport. We can keep the small ones for the future, as they can be taken with us without too much diffculty.''



Over the course of two hours, we rolled the containers and carried the bags to the landing zone where the airship would be. It was grueling, difficult, and hard work, because around now it was 12:30, and the sun of the desert was basking us with it's deadly rays. A small sandstorm also caused some problems, but it didn't matter- Spammers wouldn't see us. After those two hours, we were down to three duffle bags. "Phew!" Emy sighed.



"Good work, everyone," Shamrock praised. "Now that we've got supplies, we can get outta here." However, as we turned to leave, we heard the door creak. I turned and yelled, because it sounded like a Spammer was breaking down the door.
Shamrock pulled out his taser and pressed himself on the wall next to the door. I pulled out my revolver and did the same, but on the opposite. "What is it?" Emy asked as she unsheathed her katana. I listened closely. "I think I hear a Spammer out there." I cringed in terror. After all this work, could it be possible that a horde of Spammers were out there. Fortunately, Shamrock put those fears away. "It's just one Spammer," he said as he looked through a hole in the wood. "We can take it."



So we did.



Breaking down the door, I looked around for a Spammer. The sandstorm was still well underway, but he was close enough for me to see him. About three inches in front of me. BANG. As the monster fell down, it was clear that we cleared the place out in the right time. We could hear the groans of Spammers everywhere. I could hear buildings crumble, the walls to the Outpost collapse.



I ran back and grabbed a duffle, yelled at the two to "Get to the airship!", turned towards Shamrock, yelled at him to "Call it in," and then ran back outside. The second Emy got her bag out, the whole hut collapsed. After six months of heavy damage from both erosion, natural storms, Spammers, and the looters, the outpost revealed that it was going to die. The Spammer Emy sliced with her katana was one potential example.



As we carried the bags, I could hear the crumbling of both buildings and the walls, the crunching of the wooden doors, the groaning and moaning of Spammers ever growing. Sight was a critical problem, but thanks to both our torches and the Keys, we managed to light our way out. "Why the heck is this sandstorm so bad?!" Emy yelled in frustration. The winds were extremely fast, and strong. But, as I mentioned, we got out.



We managed to get to the zone. The airship was already there, so all we had to do was roll our stuff inside. "Move it!" Shamrock commanded me. "Fill her up!" We put the canisters into the airship. Now came the tricky part: defend the ship from the Spammers.
As mentioned before, this story is set in the LMBs Apocalypse RP. So, to set up the background of our story, I well explain to readers out there what is happening.



The LMBs had become a Wasteland. With no Moderators to bring order, and all the back-up admin bots down, Spammers had overtaken the world. The few survivors fled to where ever they could, be it a library, a prison, or a ballpark. Without a security force, the survivors had to make-do with whatever they could have.



Isolation and destruction plagued each and every survivor. Everywhere they went, Spam and ruins. The FF and BB, while still occupied, was now a place for survival, and looked more like an outhouse. Every forum was a complete wasteland. Not one of the once beautiful buildings were spared the destruction. The only safe place was the Hills, an area surrounding the LMBs that was Spam-proof. Only a small amount of people made it there.



Some survivors would travel as nomads in between the forums, or the Desert. Here, they could partake in activities once illegal, like Rank Racing. They would also trade with other survivors in exchange for any supplies they could get their hands on. Morality would vary with each survivor. Most were Good Samaritans, however.



Those that weren't neutral could join the many factions that emerged from the ruins. The Resistance was a movement that pledged to track down the source of the Spam and end it. They based at the FF. The Mechanists were a mechanical league that made contraptions to rebuild and protect the Wasteland. The Freedom Corps was made after a small army failed to defeat the Spammers, and currently act as the Wastelands' military. Think the Brotherhood of Steel.



"When the Spammers Came" is Spidey Freeman's account of what happens when you emerge from a vault into a wasteland. CR 101.1 and Gollymolly's newspaper chain would obtain recordings and publish it on the air and on paper, so those also in isolation could realize they weren't the only ones suffering.
Despite the hard times, people on the Wasteland do manage to have fun once in a while. Whether it be going to the LMB Hotel and auctioning for cucumbers (currently the only known cure for Spam) and eating Spam (the ham), or going to attend shows like Users Got Talent and the occasional Rank War. Like I said, they are in hard times, but there are some areas- mainly the Resistance's section of the CC- that still let users get to remember what life was like before the Spammers.



When I talked about cucumbers, I was dead serious. The LMB Hotel has gone to rot, but it is still a good place to go by if you are a wandering nomad. Skulduggery had hidden in the Hotel, and started the old Cucumber farm again, this time putting Spammy preservatives, meaning that you will be temporarily cured. You can go there, and assuming you get past the many Spammers in your way, you can auction off cucumbers. Depending on how many people are staying there, the price on a cucumber can rise to 10,000 Likes, the main currency.



One occupation that has taken hold of the Wasteland is Rank Racing. Back before the Apoca, the Mods had made Rank Racing illegal. Since the Mods are gone, a few former Racers decided to reinvigorate the races. The 1st Annual Rank Race was held a few months before WTSC, and had an attendence of 255 of the 925 known survivors, mainly nomads. Users would go around to each of the Forums, survive the Spammers, and find parts to make a good race car. If it is a primitive one, however, you'll be ranked Caveman. A high-flying plane, you shall be called Pilot. It is currently an infamous sport, as only 130 of the 255 users had returned to the Centerpiece, where the races start. It's also controversial, as people bet on racers. Applications for the races are not allowed in Resistance, but the Freedom Core and any newsstand has one.



Expect Rank Racing to play a role in When The Spammers Came. As a major recreation, it may play an important part in our heroes' adventures.
While Shamrock became fueling the ship with the first canister, me and Emy quickly set up a defense. We found two large boulders, which provided a good defense and offense. The sandstorm was beginning to die down, which helped us see more clearly. Unfortunately, that meant the same for the Spammers. I spotted a Spammer instantaneously, and opened fire. The bullet veered off course because of the storm, and it got right on to me. One strike with my crowbar, and it fell down. "C'mon, foul beasts! Come for us!" I screamed into the sandstorm.



What the heck did I just say?



A third Spammer emerged, followed by a fourth and fifth. We must've attracted an entire tribe. Did they have tribes? "Do Spammers have tribes or groups?" I asked Emy, who leapt onto the Airship with her pistol. "Just keep shooting!" she yelled at me. With only one bullet left, I decided not to risk a shot. Fortunately, I didn't need to. Shamrock had finished with the first canister, and rolled it over to a Spammer. It crushed it, and a big smear of Spam was the only remains. "There are too many Spammers!" he told us as he attached the second canister, "We'll have to fuel it in the air!" He quickly rolled in the third one.



As he did so, a Spammer raced up towards him. Emy was distracted, fending off the Spammers like the box art of the original DooM. I quickly raised my gun, didn't even aim, and fired. The bullet struck the Spammer, and Shamrock was safe, but at the cost of a bullet. "I'm all out!" I alerted the two. Then, as if a madness struck, Shamrock ran back to the Outpost. "I need to get the fourth canister! We left it!" he told me. He quickly tossed me a pistol and left us.



We watched as he ran into the storm, towards the inevitable horde of enemies, closer and closer to the ruins of the Outpost. And then he was gone.In the six-seven months since the Spammers came, the major population of the LMBs, whether it be Guests or Members, have fallen to a \miniscule number. An 825 of the 3,500 average (NOTE: On an average day, 4,000 people could be around on the Boards) had initially survived, but by now, only 520 of those are still surviving. How so?



Survivors in the Forums usually board themselves in wherever they can find protection. Some hide in alley ways and set up crude fences. Others hide in dumpsters, rarely coming out. Many, however, will lock themselves in a once-major landmark, such as the LMB Coffee Table and the Library. Barbed wire and wooden planks can be found and used to line the windows and doors of your defensive area.



Forum Survivors have plenty of good assets with them. Vending Machines still work, so stocking up on water bottles and potato chips is much easier. The many buildings are also home to Likes and clothing, which is useful when the many Unmoderated storms came around. The HQ's for the many factions are also home to vendors, stores, eat-in diners, and motels for those that have no place to go. Normally, the garb for a Forum survivor are jeans, a sweater, a backpack, a belt, and boots. The backpack is usually filled with supplies and weapons.



However, most of the survivors are nomads in the Wasteland, the area inbetween Forums. Nomads can't go anywhere, so they are forced to travel the dreaded Wasteland. They take whatever they can get, and their clothes consist of whatever they can find. They raid, steal, do whatever it takes to survive. Water and food is not abundant. When a nomad comes across another, it is morality that decides what someone does to the other: trade, help, or harm? Military outposts throughout the Wasteland is home to plenty of supplies, so it's not all that hard. Camels, horses, and mules are a popular way to travel.



The protags of the story will obviously come across several survivors, but trust is hard to come across in the Wasteland.
"BAD IDEA!" I called out to him as he vanished. "BAD! IDEA!" He probably didn't hear me, because the sounds of gunfire and moaning blocked out my screams. Oh, and the fact that the storm was so furious, that I didn't even see a Spammer behind me until it's squishy head rolled towards me. Suppressing a curse, I turned to see the shadow of what looked to be Emy sheathing her katana, pulling out a pistol, and vanishing under the storm.



Seconds after disappearing, two Spammers jumped from behind me, and I only had seconds to blast them off me. The storm mysteriously got stronger, and I wondered if a dragonshout had caused the storm. Luckily, it also seemed to be disorienting the Spammers. So much so that one walked straight pass me. Normally, I'd knock it to the ground and mess it up with a pickax, but I have no pickax.



I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and saw- guess what?- a Spammer. However, before I could pry it off, I could feel a strange heat behind me...towards the Outpost. This distraction ultimately made me lose my concentration, and the Spammer got a fatal grip on me. I knew my number was up. I didn't even hear Shamrock yell, "Run!" as the Spammer's fangs came closer towards me.



Then the Outpost exploded.



Bits of brick and wood showered onto us as the explosion grew higher and higher. The Spammer took the total force of the explosion, so I managed too only get a bruise. I couldn't say the same about Emy or Shamrock. Both of them were on the ground, near death. The canister Shamrock tried to get rolled into the airship, completely unharmed. "What were you thinking?!" I yelled at Shamrock, completely covered in debris.



As I watched, thinking Shamrock was going to die, I heard a loud noise. Thinking it was a Spammer, I hid behind a metal barrel. What I saw, however, wasn't a Spammer. A shadowy man, surrounded by Spammers, marched up to Shamrock's limp body, and looked at him. "Prince Shamrock," he growled, "I found you at last." I lay low, curious about this man. I didn't know if it was a storm or not, but he looked pretty mysterious. He had a long, dark cloak, ripped and torn from what looked like months or years of use. However, the cloak seemed to change colors depending on the angle or light that I saw it from. One angle, it was black. Another, it was purple. I guess it was one of those Angle Cloaks that have been getting into fashion. But there was one thing that bothered me.



He knew who Shamrock was.



The man leaned down towards Shamrock, I guess to feel his heartbeat. Because right now, I felt that it might be too late. "Now," he said, in a voice deeper than Andre the Giant, "Let's check your heartrate." As he checked his heartbeat, I saw a few Spammers come up behind him. I thought that they would bite him, grab him, maybe do some gory things that I must not say. Needless to say, they didn't do a thing. One could even say they might've been trying to protect him.



"You're alive," the Cloaked Man said silently. "It's one of those days, huh? Those days when you feel an accomplishment, and someone ruins it. Isn't it, Prince?" Shamrock glanced up at him, then collapsed, helpless. "Tell me. Did you? Did you feel an accomplishment?" The Prince didn't even move. Was it possible that the little life that the man found in him was gone.



The Man grabbed Shamrock by the face and pulled him up, three feet off the ground. This scared me a little bit more. If he could do this, what else could he do? He pulled Shamrock closer to him. "Did you really think you could evade me, Prince? Hm? Did you?" I could hear Shamrock mumble, but what he said was probably pretty bad, because the Man threw him at some rubble. "Ha!" he said in deep satisfaction. "You've evaded me for a long time, and for that, you'll feel Pain." He emphasized that last bit pretty well.


I was at a loss of words. Seriously, I completely lost my vocabulary for a few seconds. As I saw Shamrock being picked up from out of the rubble, I tried to figure out if my eyes were decieving me. Alright, so, we've got a bulked up Antimatter in one corner, he's controlling some Spammers, PICKING UP Shamrock while doing this- how'd you react? Aren't these things supposed to be mindless? I knew I had to stop these things. So...



BLAM!



I fired a round at one of the Spammers, striking him in the shoulder. Successfully, they let go of the Prince. Unsuccessfully, they dropped him on a rock. Ouch. Even more unsuccessfully, I was now grabbed. Successfully, Emy (who for all I knew was either Spammified, alive, or just decided to walk it off) might've been spared, as every Spammer was surrounding me. That was the unsuccessful part.



The potential archenemy of mine looked at me. "Who the heck are you?" he asked, but not in a vicious way. More in an, "excuse me, but you just dropped my dog off at the pound, and I'm gonna rip your face off" kind of vicious. Instead of answering, I nodded towards Shamrock and said, "I recommend you don't take him. He's got...rabies. Yeah, rabies, ebola, anything bacteria based." He was now looking at me like I had a third eye. "Before we go into detail on his diseases, who are you?"



Then, as if to impress me, he made the Spammer I got get up, by just a hand gesture. "If I told you, this would spoil the story. However, let's just say I have a...CONNECTION to the Royal Family which he's-" he kicked Shamrock roughly "-part of." I looked to my left and saw a flash of purple. "Now, since there are to be no witnesses (and to make me more mysterious)..." I knew precisely what that meant.



Before he could "off" me from the script, Shamrock jumped up and landed a hit on the cloaked man. "Good work, Sham!" I told him, partly in shock of his instant recovery. Then I realized all the Spammers were now angry. That's when I knew it was over with.
He turned towards the Spammers and told them, "Take him away." And before my shocked eyes, they began to obey his command. CLONK!!!



That sound echoed in my ears. "Wha-what the??" I stammered, because what was that? Shamrock, who looked like a sad sack of rice, also looked confused. Strangely, even the Spammers were. Were is emphasized, as three seconds later, they were each cut down, one by one, by a purple blur. We all know who that blur is, right?



"Thanks, Emy," Shamrock wheezed. Despite being injured, Emy helped up the even more wounded Shamrock up. "C'mon," she said, "we need to hurry." As she dragged the Prince away, I looked around the several puddles of Spam. As I walked away, I looked down and saw two rather interesting items: a camera and an MP3 player. Some would say, "who care's?" But this is a guy who idolizes Star Lord and Peter Parker, so....



After taking the camera and MP3 player, I ran to get into the airship, when I heard a growl behind me. We all turned, and saw the Cloaked Man growling, very angry that a weak, injured Prince managed to get his stomach a couple inches higher up his stomach. "How could you do this?!" "It was easy," Shamrock told him, "you looked away." There was an awkward silence as he began to consider why he did that. "Even so," he said after considering, "you couldn't have done that! There's no way you could've-"



I opened fire on the explosive barrel next to him.



As we boarded the airship, Emy helped Shamrock to the controls. "Are you strong enough to get us the heck out of here?" "Please?" we both said to him, forgetting that he had been covered in rubble. He was strong enough, however, and managed to power up the airship, zipping off into the skies. "Do you know a place where we can hide?" I asked him. After a moment, he said, " I know a place. And it's in the city." So, what happened next? You've probably guessed. We went to this "city" he spoke of. It was a rather small town, very rural. It was mainly just farms. "So," I began as we drifted over a silo, "where are we?" Emy turned towards me and said, "It's an old agricultural town called Service." What the...Emy probably saw my expression of confusion. "No idea why they named it that, but it's a short and simple name, so we use it. Shamrock can tell you more about it."



The Prince turned around in his swivling chair. He seemed to be recovering. "Yep, I've been here since I was young. It's only about a hundred miles from where I lived, so I traveled down here every now and then to give Royal Support. It's pretty much my second home. There are still some people living here, like over there, at the Wades'-" he pointing out a farm surrounded with barbed wire and rotting Spam. "I also have a little surprise down at Main Street."



There was no Main Street. Shamrock looked on the rear monitors. "Strange, there's nothing around here. Can't see where the old bunker is at." I looked out a window. "I think I know why they call it Service, now," I thought to myself. There were a bunch of old Main Street Service stations, filled with Spammers inside and outside. All flooding towards them. "I think we better get out of here, there are Spammers!" I told Shamrock.



He quickly turned towards the service stations. "That's where the Drop-Off was at," he mournfully said. "Oh well. I can't land the airship anywhere else safely but here." He turned towards us. "So, uh, should we have a vote? Risk Spammers getting us, or stopping?" It was unanimous, and we left. Looking back on it, we should've stayed and got supplies, helped the two in the med bay.



Oh, well. Still, those first few hours, they were exciting. An action-packed day. Set the stage for the rest of the game. And to think that it all happened when the Spammers came...



TO BE CONTINUED...
THREE MONTHS LATER...



"Alright, so, your saying that rather than try to defend the supplies, you'd rather go Rambo on the Spammers?" "Well, isn't the point of this game being wiping out all the Spammers?" "No, it's a survival game. Play it right or burn your character sheet." "Why should I do that? Oh, and your Gerome guy's dead, Shamrock." Shamrock quickly rolled the dice.



Me, Emy, and Shamrock were playing a new, homemade roleplaying game to prepare for our next outpost raid. We had been playing since two months earlier, playing whenever the mood struck, or to figure out our strategy for the next raid. The horror stories of being unprepared and survivors becoming Spammer bait had been haunting me since we'd first entered Service.



Once we made it, we created characters and made the setting. Shamrock's was humorous, mainly because we dared him to name the guy Gerome and have a goatee. Emy's was a sniper who had gotten to level 24 after just six raids, mainly because she was a glory hog. Mine was Gordon, after the game character. He was a scientist.



Shamrock rolled the dice, and it landed on a five. "Alright!" he rejoiced. "I'm still alive!" The dice was handed to Emy, who rolled it. Her sniper character got a two. "No!" she exclaimed, because she didn't get a three+. Spammers had chomped on her. "Only one turn to change that," I said before rolling my dice. As it turned out, it was a 3+, so I managed to get some supplies.



The stress was on as we found out what happened next as a result. For Shamrock, he managed to survive a Spammer attack. For Emy, she had to use a Despammer or she'd become one. For me, Spammers were surrounding me from all sides. The tension was on as I prepared to roll the dice. As I began, "ATTENTION: SPAMMER HORDE SPOTTED NORTHWEST" boomed throughout the ship.



The dice landed on a 3-. It was all over now.
We ran up to the Bridge. For those uneducated, the bridge is where most of the commotion is. It's got the computers, the sights, and in Shamrock's case, a VR headset that could play movies in VR. (Warning: NEVER watch VR horror. So many sleepless nights.) For Shamrock, it was like Ronin's from Ninjago. In fact, the whole airship was like Ronin's, only a little bigger.



The man in control was Captain WaffleBoy. After we left Service, we managed to revive both him and the other guy, who we found out was his second-in-command, Phil. As it turned out, there was a mutiny as the Spammers closed in on their outpost, so their troops locked them up and tried to escape. As far as we could tell, none made it out. The Captain, despite recovering, was still pretty weak from the ordeal. Instead, he took on the role of the airship's second-in-command. Phil was still not out of the med bay.



"What's the problem?" Shamrock asked as we arrived. The Cap turned around and showed us a scanner. "There's a large horde dead ahead. It's shrinking, but it's still formidable. Should we take care of it?" Shamrock considered. "I say we should investigate it. Why would it be shrinking?" The second he said that, a loud, almost inhuman noise pierced the skies. Such earaches.



"What is that noise?" we said together. We looked out, and saw that the horde was like an ocean. Huge, and almost unending. It was much closer than we thought. Absolutely terrifying. What was scarier than that, however, was why. There were two survivors they were chasing after, throwing grenades and trying to hold them off with riot shields. Spammers were shrieking as they flew.



"What do you say we do?" Emy asked. Shamrock didn't hesitate this time: we would help the two survivors. "In that case," I announced, "I'll get my camera and crowbar ready."
I spend much of my day confused. When I'm not fiddling around with the VR console, practicing my Ocelot gun twirling, and taking selfies with Spammers, I stare out a window and daydream. That causes some issues. Sometimes I imagine that Shamrock is a candy cane. Other days, I mistook a rock for a hamster. I even had to rewatch the entire Voltron series from the start to make sure I wasn't hallucinating that the green paladin was a girl in Legendary Defender. So, yeah, you could say I'm insane.



That is the reason why taking photos of the horde made me confused. As I opened up the rear of the airship and snapped some photos, I realized that there wasn't any ocean in them, only a small horde of at least twenty-five. "What in the world?" I thought to myself. Maybe they were hiding. So, I pulled out my crowbar, hooked it to a small opening on the side of the airship, and hung under the airship. There wasn't anything there.



Was I hallucinating? Maybe, but everyone else saw the sea, so it's safe to assume that maybe the camera was acting up. After all, when I found it, it was attached to a dead Spammer, so maybe that was the reason? Even so, the camera was acting perfectly well, even after a huge piece of an Outpost's gate fell on it (long story short, it wasn't my fault, Emy's a klutz when it comes to grenades, so that's that). Maybe?....



I pulled out a remote control and tried to contact Emy. No luck. Shamrock, perhaps? Nope. Wait, maybe the batteries? Yep, no batteries. Terrif. I couldn't yell up at the turret ball Emy was in, either. Why? I was hanging off the edge of the airship, just inches away from the propellers that were keeping the ship in the air. So tell me, how, in the names of all, could she had heard me over the sound of airplane noises?



So, I did what anyone perfectly sane would NOT have done. I took a selfie, unhooked the crowbar, and fell 5,000 feet onto a Spammer. Another selfie with the Spammer. 15,000 Likes instantaneously on Outside social media. OK, OK, so what I did before was just weird, strange. How I survived, I'll never know. Either way, I did get to see up close and personal what we were up against. I somehow managed to pull myself up, despite numerous injuries from falling at 50mph from a height of 5,000 feet. Still, I did it. The people we were going to rescue were clearly surprised. So were the Spammers. Everyone was staring at me.



Looking around, I could see that the sea of Spammers wasn't there anymore. Must've been an aerial illusion, or something scientific like that. There weren't even fifteen. At worst, twelve, two tackling a survivor with riot gear, another inches away from one in an awesome leather jacket. They all froze. Did time stop? I glared across all of them. "Good evening, gents. Allow me to introduce myself."



I unholstered my revolver and began doing tricks with it. Have you ever heard of Revolver Ocelot and his gun tricks? After months of practice, I finally managed to perfect both it and how to fire the weapon during them. I twirled the gun around, swapping hands, going over the shoulder to the other hand, twirled it above my head. The Spammers didn't do anything. Rapid, speedy movements confused them, and put them in almost an inactive state. Even when I shot about six of them during the tricks, they didn't do anything.



That gave the survivors enough time to finish them off.



"The name is Freeman," I said as the last Spammer was down. I took a bow. The two looked nervously at me. The riot gear held a gun up at me. "He's crazy," I heard him whisper to the other guy, "don't trust him." "Are you sure? He has some sweet moves." "He took a selfie and twirled a gun around!" After a brief, not-so-silent arguement, they introduced themselves.



"I'm Tom Rogers," the man in riot gear said, "and this here is a fellow wanderer, Ian Cameron." Ian waved. As he finished, I heard a rumble from the skies. The airship was landing. "Welcome aboard the Shamrock," I told them as I lured them in.
"What were you thinking, Freeman?" Shamrock groaned as I entered the airship by a rope ladder. "Nothing," I said, "though I did take some sweet selfies! Look!" He looked at my photos, then groaned again, "You need mental help," then he turned towards the two wanderers. "So! Tom Rogers and Ian Cameron are your names, correct?" The two nodded. Shamrock was silent for a moment. "Follow me."



Shamrock led the two through a corridor, him in the front, the two in the middle, me in the back. After some nauseating twists and turns, we arrived near an artillery room, where all of our long-range heavy weapons were. Emy was finishing up with a scanning of the ground area using a Scanner Shell Cannon. She turned towards us as we approached. "There's nothing there, according to the scan," she reported. Me and the Prince nodded. "Figured/Knew that already." She then turned and looked at the two survivors. "Who are they?"



I introduced them. "This armored punk is Tom Rogers, and this less cool guy is Ian Cameron." They clearly didn't like my introduction of them, but hey. It didn't seem to bother Emy, anyways, because it seemed like she knew at least one of them. "Tom Rogers? The Mechanist?" Tom nodded. "Yep, a Mechanist." "Oh, I know you!" Emy exclaimed. "It's me, Emy Caprean! We met over at the Capital a few months back!" "What's a Mechanist?" I asked. They completely ignored me, rambling about how surprising this was. "What's a Mechanist?" I asked again. It seems I'm more forgettable than Kellam.



I sighed, then turned towards Ian. "While they're jabbering, why not I give you a tour of the place?" Ian thought about it. "Sure thing." He wasn't very talkative. Either way. Shamrock was trapped in between the two talkers, who were talking about when they "blew up that dojo" or something they did. So it seemed like a good thing to show Ian around before we dropped them off at the safest town. First, let me just say, even though the layout of the airship is similar to Ronin's, it's still different. It's more streamlined, and has metal plating in/on the hull, to protect against damage. The engines use a hybrid-powered model, focusing on using wind power while on the move and electricity to use in battle. It isn't much bigger than Ronin's, but it is slightly bigger, having a cargo hold and cell block near the bottom of the ship, an engine and control room in the back, residence and living in the front, and "working areas" in the middle. Near the top is the bridge, which has a 360 degree screen with which we can see what's happening all around the ship. Did you get all that? "Nope, not at all." I just stared at him. "Still, it's pretty cool."



We were exiting the bridge, which was still in command of the Captain (who was trying to see if a Spam cloud cause hallucinations), when I noticed a door in the living area open. "Why's it open?" I turned towards him. "Come with me and see." We entered the door, and entered an area similar to where the biplane from The Last Crusade was at. This was the emergency hangar, which also acted as a semi-museum for aerial vehicles prior to the Apocalypse. However, this wasn't the time to look at flying tanks and pilotable Tomahawk missiles. No, we needed to go to a lower Freezer area.



"What would happen if we fell?" Ian asked as we balanced on a metal beam, a foot-wide beam being the only thing holding up a heavy replica of a Y-Wing Bomber. "If you fell, you'll survive. After all, this whole place is lined with pillows to protect the vehicles if something were to happen. Even so, it's dark in here, not to mention 34 degrees in the night. Because of that, if you were to fall, it would take us about 13 hours to find your broken body." He looked at me oddly. I ignored him. "We're here." I turned to him. "Never, EVER, tell anyone about what you see in this room." Nod. "Alright." I opened the door. "BEHOLD: THE FREEZER!"

This is.... intresting...