Story [Issue 18] The Base: Mirror squad gibberish

[Ilia.ArchangeI 6,785]

 
The small military outpost on the outskirts of the forest, affectionately dubbed “The Base”, was as always abuzz with activity. Soldiers could be seen running around the base, tripping over each other trying to performing timely chores. Interviewers sat quietly in their chambers, urgently scribbling down the last lines to their reports. Advisors walked around casually, with an understanding look and a readiness to lend a helping hand, though wearing a somewhat puzzling uniform, which had a giant question mark on the front, while the Peacekeepers kept a wary eagle’s eye on all the proceedings. Now and then a stray hooligan would manage to pull off a piece of “graffiti art” on a tank or building, or pin a silly picture onto the main billboard, but most got caught sooner than later and sent to the solitary confinement cell as punishment.
 
Most knew that just beyond the thick forest lay the Military Headquarters. The Headquarters was the place where everything originated, where all the commands came from, where the training was initiated, where all the events began, but few cared enough to venture over and see what was going on. Most were content, more or less, with what was going on at The Base; besides, soldiers at the HQ only spoke “gibberish”, as it was called, and only a handful knew how to speak gibberish.
 
Today was a special day - the Monthly Report was out. It wasn’t just a report of the last month, but had quite a few pieces of entertaining articles. A huge crowd of soldiers stood in front of the billboard, pushing and shoving, trying to get a better view of the newly created content. Val, one of the interviewers, sat slouched in front of his garage, distressed that his article was pinned in the top right corner, and nobody was tall enough to see it. Oh well, that’s just how things went. Hamster, the Interviewer responsible for layout, kept changing the billboard every month, which was very confusing. Not to mention that the high amount of dyslexic people would only see half the board at a time. Again, that’s just how things went. Archie watched helplessly as rotten fruit and vegetables were being thrown at him for the article he wrote, portraying a number of the soldiers in a funny way. Yeah, next time he’ll ask them first.
 
The thirty large conference halls were always bursting with conversation. Night and day - there was always someone there to talk with. Even the Peacekeepers were faced with a challenge, as there were not nearly enough of them to keep track of every hall at all times of the day (and night). “I wish I could cut myself into pieces!” one of them said once with a chuckle. Unbeknownst to him, half the soldiers around smirked and nodded at each other.
 
 

 
 
Micah sighed with satisfaction as he picked out the last piece of spinach stuck between his front teeth. He smiled at himself in the mirror, stretching his grin as far to the sides as he could to make sure there were no more pesky greens occupying his otherwise tidy mouth. He threw the toothpick on his desk, and watched it roll quietly towards the mirror, and then come to a stop as it collided with its own reflection. Micah raised his eyebrow and tilted his head for a better look, as the two chopsticks lay there on the counter, somehow resembling a train track. He chuckled at his wittiness, but then a thought hit him. “What if I create a room full of reflective illusions?”

 

It had taken Micah weeks to think of his project. All his friends had already set up their creative corners, with beautiful drawings and photographs of tanks, sculptures, paper models - you name it. But Micah had the hardest time coming up with what to put in his creative corner. Not that he was obliged to have one, but he really wanted one. And then one day, as he was walking through one of his friend’s exhibition, he found it - the most beautiful masterpiece of all time - a lonely tank, standing on a…. mirror. Yup, you heard me right, and not just any mirror - an old, scratched up mirror, filled with cracks of all shapes and sizes, and even a spot of rust, however that got there.
 
But for Micah it was the peak of artistic excellence, and so from that day on he spent every moment of free time, in between practicing and other chores, on fine tuning his creative corner, which he affectionately dubbed “My Reflections”. His days were filled with scouring the grounds of the Base for broken pieces of mirrors, even polished pieces of standard tank steel would do. Slowly but surely little monuments of tanks were erected in his garage, filled with Micah’s endless love and effort, even creativity a little bit… but art? Not so much.
 
Nevertheless people visited “My Reflections”, and seemed to quite like this extraordinary form of creativity. Many spent hours looking at a single tank, scratching their chin, and quietly mumbling “Wow, that’s deep” over and over. 
 
At long last, many months later, Micah’s passion for mirrors died down a little, and his thoughts wandered toward new, more “artistic” art forms. He looked around fondly at all is masterpieces, and silently said his farewells. With a sympathetic expression he turned towards the little green-tipped toothpick that was placed in its special spot at the center of his exhibition and smiled. “If it wasn’t for you, dear spinach…”
 
 

 
 
Sniper looked lovingly at the tree in front of him, right before banging his head into it as hard as he could.
 
Yes, Sniper was his name, and yes again - he was a sniper. In fact, he was the best sniper in the entire base, and his sharpshooting skills were bested by no one. He thought back on that day, just over a month ago, that he now regretted so much.
 
The day was perfect - the sun was high in the sky, the leaves had just finished turning green, and Sniper was relaxing at his favorite shooting range - practice was, of course, relaxing for him. It was as natural as breathing. But something just didn’t feel right. He’d always loved to come here and shoot. It would help him clear his mind, relax. But this time it felt empty. He wanted to do more, lots more. And just then an idea appeared. It was so sudden, compared to the silence of his surroundings, that he startled himself. He giggled at his “manliness”.
 
But the idea was perfect! He would put together his own squad! Sure, there were plenty of squads around the Base, but his would contain only the elite soldiers - those who spent hours every day on perfecting their skills, those who would never give up, those who would always win. He spun around, and headed back to base to find the initial members, whistling as he went. Little did he know.
 
The beginnings were mild, as usual. The squad would head off into the forest for practice. And here the troubles began. First one member complained that his foot had blisters. Another scratched his arm on a tree. A third stepped on his own shoelace and tripped, while the fourth managed to knock out the fifth member with his sniper, while spinning around to see what happened to the third. “And that’s my squad?” Sniper wondered. But he wasn’t about to give up.
 
Time for their first paintball battle came, and both teams were ready. Or as ready as they could be, to be precise. The squads lurched forward towards their opponents, howling like Indians as they did so, trying to sound cool. Sniper almost felt embarrassed, but since the only spectator was the opposing team, who were even more ridiculous, he didn’t have to worry. To his surprise his squad won that day.
 
At their next meeting they decided to discuss the flaws of their strategy. One shooter blamed the other for howling too loudly, while another one claimed it was the blisters on his foot that were at fault. A third said he hit the clock tower instead of an opponent because of his loose shoelace. Of course the fourth member shot the fifth in the buttox “by accident, because he was in the way”. Sniper watched his squad from the side in disdain. This was no way to go, and he could do this no longer. In desperation he looked around for something to channel his frustration into and saw the thick tree but a meter away. A godsend.
 
 

[I3loodShot 3,119]

The Base series is awesome :D

 

where am i? :huh: :p

 

[Meliora 1,652]

Ah... I preferred last issue's (not just because I was in it). I think the characters fitted more to their actual forum behaviour - eragon (even if it was offensive, it was true), Lhamster, and robbie and flae. Micah seems to be more busy than portrayed here, being a DJ and organising TOF as he does. I don't know who "Sniper" is - I doubt it's Snyper22.

Nice story, however, just look at the characters in more depth.

[Ilia.ArchangeI 6,785]

I don't know who "Sniper" is

Firingsniper and Team DES

[MisterGeneral 692]

Well written. 

[Valletta 834]

Another great episode of the Base, as usual ^_^

[Lhamster 4,081]

Epic as usual! :)

[Eragon 13,876]

At list you changed the name to Mich instead of eragon...

[Ilia.ArchangeI 6,785]

At list you changed the name to Mich instead of eragon...

Hmm? The second story was about Micah, our DJ

[Eragon 13,876]

Hmm? The second story was about Micah, our DJ

I know, I wonder which will be the 3rd guys name?

I give you permission to put my name there,  :D

[GoldRock 6,165]

This really is an exceptional series. Something that's going to remain very popular amongst the newspaper's readers, IMO ;) As for this particular article... great as always! Looking forward to the next one :P

 

One thing: "Peacekeepers"? :rolleyes:

[Ilia.ArchangeI 6,785]

One thing: "Peacekeepers"? :rolleyes:

Oh don't get me started :P

[GoldRock 6,165]

Oh don't get me started :P

Let the odds be ever in your favour :lol:

[sky128 327]

Nice Arch!

[Daniel898 327]

Cool.

[EatYourMeat 27]

Nice job arch! PS: gold reminded me of hunger games :D

[ishkhanbabayan 0]

Nice Arch!

geleralsimus

[Superlative 500]

Interesting to read. But the content you've written is not as long as it's written. The story should have an ending as well.

[Truthteller 4,204]

Very nice Arch