Scratch's War: Introduction (And Explanation)

I have decided to attempt something a little, different with what I'm going to do with this story starting now, to whenever I finish it...

I'm titling all chapters after this "Scratch's War" (it'll make sense at the end). The story is now, for the most part, being told from the POV of J-Pop. There is a reason for this (that most people probably won't figure out till the very end)...

Without further adieu, here's the introduction to the first chapter of "Scratch's War" (again, told from by J-Pop)...

The climate of the world behind The Colony’s walls was oppressively cool. It always had been though. Whether under the tyrannical rule of Marcus, Gatekeeper, or Durai and Scratch and the rest of The Mallers. The lives of the Colonists seemed to be forever in the hands of ever changing tyrants. But the oppression itself never really changed unless you consider getting progressively worse change. Marcus was the first. He also set up the general structure of The Colony’s society that, even after every last volatile change of dictator, had been the one and only thing that was seemingly sure to survive through all of The Colony’s trials and tribulations. Gatekeeper and his coup came second. His short and bloody takeover not only cost valuable lives, but also happened during the time that The Colony’s stock of munitions was stolen. The few and far between armed force among the Colonists was left with whatever ammunition they had in their weapons after the theft. This is probably the sole reason why The Mallers takeover happened without so much as a shot being fired. The quality of life in The Colony seemed to decline with each change of oppressor; or, at least that’s how it was.

Marcus actually believed that forcing people to labor was doing more good than harm for the people he forced to work at gunpoint. Gatekeeper didn’t see people at all. He only saw “workers”. And then came The Mallers, who had openly called the situation slavery which was more than they could have hoped for considering they had slaves before their takeover. The Mallers used the Colonists to augment their numbers exponentially. The number of slaves greatly increased. The armed Colonists were melded into The Mallers and quickly became indistinguishable from them. Scratch, Durai’s second in command, was only a menace to those who did not bend to her will. After Scratch made “examples” of the few Colonists that caused her problems for her, everyone else fell inline. Durai began looking at the plans for certain expansions and improvements that had been planned by the others who came before him; such as Marcus’s construction operation that would restore plumbing to The Colony. He also devised a series of his own plans and put them into action. His plans revolved around one main and continuous goal. Militarization and waging open conflict against the creatures. Scratch helped bring Durai’s plots into reality. But her reasons for going along with what Durai wanted were completely different from his. She wanted revenge against the woman that had killed her brother and the group that the woman belonged to which was responsible for starting a costly battle which lead to the downfall of more than half of the original Mallers numbers. As far as Scratch was concerned, she was fighting a full on war against said group.

Scratch came to the realization that The Colony would not be able to fight her war to it’s fullest extent if they risked losing everything to a slave revolt every time the armed Colonists/Mallers left to fight. This realization lead Scratch to institute a large scale proposition to the enslaved. “Earn your freedom by putting a gun in your hands. Or remain a slave.”; of course the entirety of the enslaved populace took this offer. Some came over sooner than others but in a short amount of time Scratch had successfully abolished the slavery and and more than tripled her ranks. Some of the former slaves attempted to go against their former oppressors. But the overwhelming number of people in favor of Durai’s direction and Scratch’s lead was enough to convince the descenters to either assimilate or at the very least act as if they had assimilated. Scratch even went out of her way to make peace with former slaves.

This rapid increase in the number of people that needed guns in their hands immediately lead to the rise of various logistical problems. One of the most obvious being the outfitting of these new soldiers. The Mallers had brought everything with them when they came to The Colony; including their reserve of arms and ammunition. This reserve was quickly depleted as the weapons were divided up among the newly outfitted fighters. Conserving ammo was an immediate issue; because there isn't much of a point in having soldiers armed with weapons they don’t know how to use. There also isn't a point in having guns with no ammo for them. The solution to this problem was fairly simple. Someone, one of the original Colonists if I’m not mistaken, suggested using higher end airsoft toys, pellet and BB guns, etc. There were other, more easily implemented ideas for training; these various ideas were implemented whilst people went on scavenging missions in search of anything that might be useful (and resourcefully conservative) for weapons training.

In all the commotion I began to worry that everyone else had forgotten all about the fact that we still had people being held captive by paramilitary cops at Eastern Bay. Little did I know at the time, Scratch never let it slip from her mind for a second; she was just waiting for a time where it would be most useful to her...