What I later found out had happened that New Year would be something one would think suicidal on the world, at least I and others who know about it would. The Chinese government thought setting off a nuke right on the New Madrid fault line would do the job nicely in the United States, shattering any metropolis in the ensuing earthquake and the riots that then followed.

“What Happened After”(aka “The Noise”)

Thank you to djkauf for the editing.

Prologue

All I remember is that horrid noise, my fucking head aching. I thought my head would split right down the middle with scrambled brains as the entree. The mother was burning for all I could see around.

I could tell you my name but I think I'll tell you the time. The year is a little before 2026 and it's New Year’s Day. It started with the media blackout. Left and right things went down like a stack of dominos. There were things heard before, the Chinese government making threats towards us, coming to collect on the debt and their terms and conditions. Their primary condition was for us to give up Taiwan. Some of the older members of the House and Senate fought hard but they ultimately gave up the ghost. Yes, some posturing was made that day like it was some real sort of deal but North Korea wasn't even given up. I think most of the people around the world knew this was the time we'd really rolled over for China in public. News came out months later that the Dalai Lama had been assassinated, with hundreds of Tibetans mowed down at the time. It was Tiananmen Square all over again, except on a grander scale. To add insult to injury it was made clear that Chinese would be the default language taught at the Tibetan schools and anyone teaching the children in Tibetan at the time would be beaten, imprisoned, or both for an indeterminate period of time. The only reason we even learned this was due to video smuggled out by members of the Swedish media at the time. American journalists were essentially persona non-grata in China and if they were caught the United States government looked the other way.

Later, what I found out had happened that New Year would be something one would think suicidal on the world, at least I and others who know about it would. The Chinese government thought setting off a nuke right on the New Madrid fault line would do the job nicely in the United States. Any Metropolis were shattered in the ensuing earthquake and the riots that followed. In the process they would be free to invade us, much of our factory machinery being dismantled and shipped over there in the first place.

What happened instead was the dimensional boundaries, perhaps you know it better as the Astral Plane, were ripped wide open over the United States. It really cracked right over Middle America. In the process some of us had a sort of merging/co-mingling with our spirit guides. All of you know about Shamanism, right? Well, all sorts of other supernatural beings joined the party too.

China still knew some of the old ways but when I talk about the tear, when it rains...well you know the rest. You see the dead don't exactly like being woken up and some were itching at the opportunity to get out and interact with the world.

Let's get some examples out there and I'll try to make them short and sweet. First we have possessions. I think you can guess along these lines, someone getting their body co-opted for whatever task the dead or evil spirit can think of. Not to say those who took over the body were all bad but most of the time for the person it was close to identity death. Chances were the person wasn't coming back. Any of the good old exorcism methods were ideal, be they from any culture, but we're talking a matter of days before the person got absorbed. Keep in mind we're talking about a tear which is why not months or years for this. If one's luck held out in that the person had an incredibly strong personality, maybe a week and a half.
Keep in mind there was no telling that if you got to them a little after the normal time period that there wouldn't be bleed over. I've seen sweet little girls almost have personalities resembling serial killers. The best some of them managed to hold it down to was something close to a snuff film. Some screw loose killers finding God and coming after
whoever made bad with a butcher knife.

The possessions could be real wild cards in this war and caused some definite chaos for both sides.
Next up we have Shamanism and the rest. This involves merging with a being from the Astral plane for all sorts of perks, namely those in the wake of the bomb got increased resistance to radiation. The perks involved some real physical changes: strength, dexterity, etc. Mental changes could also be on the table. Now those physical changes could include the ability for energy blasts or energy blast augments. If you want you can call the augments really short enchantments but I prefer augments. Augments involve lacing energy from the Astral plane into everything from bullets to swords. Some could create energy blades but the real punch was it tied into projectiles. Imagine if you could tie a stick of dynamite to a bullet and see it explode on impact.

Besides the United States, the Japanese also saw a marked increase in the number of merges, both Shamanism and Possessions. None of these were as close to the number as expected. We think the A-Bombings, while not creating an initial tear like in St. Louis, had enough background radiation still left from those events to create a few mini-tears, if only from the aftershocks. The tremors were very minor at best and only really effected those in Japan. Some of those still suffering from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi meltdown welcomed the merges given the increased resistance to radiation. In the process of such extensive damage to their genetic code they had deeper physical integrations then most. While they were still human, there was a definite animal side that could come out. You see, while these are supernatural creatures a lot of genetic information isn't so much crossed over to the physical plane to code in DNA. They use the “junk” DNA we have to draw from and some of this ends up being behavioral, just fixing some damage the radiation may have done to their brain.

In this whole scenario the Japanese were looking at the Chinese getting more and more brazen and were fed up. Their hands were tied however, given the power in the Chinese hands at the time. While the Chinese didn't exactly leave the front door unguarded, the Japanese figured this was a great chance at a pincer attack of sorts given our attacks had done a real surprise number on them given how forcibly de-militarized we were. You can read about this specifically right below.

The notable people we had in this regard we call Engineers. As I said above, most of the people who augment lace the bullets and a lot, if not, most of them only can do a sustained charge on one bullet and it's bullet by bullet. I know of maybe two in the “Corp.” that can rapidly renew it on a full round and of those, one that can do it on a machine gun. Last, there is ONE in the entire “Corp.” that can do it on a few other guns(two rifles or ONE machine gun). We cover his tracks like he was never there and he is only referred to by his first initial. He doesn't cover his face or anything but we take precautions on him getting shot. The first thing is everyone pats each other before a battle with rifle or machine gun in hand. The effect is truly not noticed until battle and it lasts for only 15 minutes. After this he's ferried around to the next battle and that is done randomly. We always keep a couple of dummies around to help make it impossible to find out who he might be.

But I'm sure you're wondering what I am. I'm under the Shaman aspect, specifically I'm a strength, stealth and energizer combo. My energizer ability is weak though, it takes me at least a couple of hours to refresh on projectiles and that's one bullet. I work better on energy swords as the tactile touch isn't a drain on my energizing ability. If I want I can make it explode on contact but it usually works better with me slicing through the metal of a tank like hot butter. I joined the “Corp.” a few months after my merge. You're probably wondering about my spirit animal or what came to merge with me. At first, I thought “No fucking way am I accepting that.” but I was near dying from radiation sickness, the fallout from the bomb being so close. She surprised the shit out of me, letting me know when she merged with me that she would take absolutely no shit. I don't say “brook” or anything like that as I want you to clearly know how tough she appears. Of course you remember me mentioning possession, well, while I had some mental changes they were minor and we blended very well actually. Instead, on the physical end, I jumped the gender line and became female. I am still White, with red bunny ears and fur covering my chest along with a cotton tail.

Changing sex was minor as I knew some perfectly confident females and figured I wouldn't be some lilting rose. Even though I knew she was confident, et al, it still took me some private time to finally take myself seriously being a rabbit. My voice wasn't perfect but she helped show me how to take charge. After a few times she let me take the reins and I slowly got used to it.

Now, I can't exactly go behind the lines like others in the front, I stand out. Instead I can shadow a public asset like no one else and I've been an acclaimed battle line asset, destroying 50 tanks in my name. We have a Kitsune that can hide her physical aspect to look human with a little bit of shape shifting abilities. I specifically call her a Kitsune as well as Gumiho, instead of fox because she has mythological abilities more in line with the Japanese and Korean myths. She is limited to long term excursions as her shape changing can be incredibly painful. This isn't just some shifting of body as if she's made of clay or water. Her bones shift, shrink, fatten, lengthen and this includes her skull. It takes a week during which she's like someone who has brittle bone disease. At the beginning for the first 48 hours she has to stay in a bathtub with tons of ready protein, fats and carbs on hand, which she gorges on to forge the rebuilding. Even after that and walking she eats like a horse though she doesn't lift anything heavy of course. She largely just clears the shelves with her arms, dumping goods into the cart. The only restriction is the transformation is limited to humans and gender. She's great for going behind the front lines because so far none of the Chinese have shown a manifestation.

As for my name I'm sure you're curious. Well my name was originally Leslie so I could get away with or even keep it no questions asked. After I got more confident I decided to name myself Bunny. Yeah I've got that kind of a sense of humor.

My role model and mentor in terms of actually using my stealth effectively is named Julie Ortega. She's a gorilla manifest with a physical minor, but it's still there. Somehow she just manages to blend in like you'd never expect, as a gorilla would be one of the least obvious creatures you'd expect to be able to be stealthy. I've tried to pick up her tricks as much as possible and I hope I've done an admirable job. Julie has given me the nickname of “Kunnoichi”, which, after looking it up, I was incredibly flattered.

Julie is a wonderful cook besides all this. Her dishes would be wonderful at any five star restaurant; if you saw and tasted them, the ideas, the blends. Also, she is a very accomplished author, so prolific and I don't know how she does it.
Anyway, this is just the start of my tale.

Thank you to all the people whose stories I've loved on here and other places. Maggie Finson, EnemyOfFun, Lilith Langtree, The Last Boy Scout, Morpheus, TheProfessor, Jodie Anderson, Dimelza Cassidy, Diane Castle, Heather, Twilight Void and anyone else I may have forgotten(immense apologies to them).

copyright 2012 of Sarang. Must give appropriate credit to the author(me) who post on other websites. recent edit: 10/1/2016. A few corrections needed to be made.