My story isn't that impressive.  I survived the entire war with Sukebe, but I'd likely be dead if it weren't for a man I can't remember the name of.  Senility.  What a bitch.
	Anyway, the, uh, nickname I wound up giving this life-saving figure was not a pleasant one.  I picked a name that, at the time, I felt fit him.
	Yeah, I called him Fat Boy.
	If I were a bit smarter, I'd've said I was naming him after the atomic bomb, or that I loved the band "Fat Boy Slim", or something.
	Nah, at the time, I just said what I saw.
	Kinda stupid, I know, but shit, I was like fifteen.  When you're fifteen, you think you understand everything.
	I wished I'd bothered to write down his name or etch it into my memory.  Like I said, I owe him a lot.
	I lived in a town that got blitzed by the monster girls.  Bitches blew up my fucking house.  I know, it seems too stupid to have been caught flatfoot in my own fucking home, but the news was still running and said the monster girl outbreaks were quite a ways away.  I found out that the government officials just didn't want people to know how badly shit was going.
	Mom and Dad had called the night before to say things didn't seem that bad in Washington DC and that my sister, Annie, and I were to stay in the house.  If I'd known the same day my house blew up was the same day DC went to shit, I'd've taken my sister and left earlier.  Then again, it might've been better to just stay, since I met Fat Boy.
	Well, the monster girls kinda made that choice for me.
	Fat Boy was the first face I saw hauling me out of the rubble.  He was a brown-haired teen, looked kinda like a pear.  His eyes, though.  Fuck, blue as the deep ocean at times, but eletric like lightning, and light like blue sky.  When he looked at me and told me I was lucky to be alive, I believed every word.
	Fat Boy's voice was that of a scholar in my opinion.
	I had a few cuts, a fuck load of bruises and a nail sticking out of my forehead.  Thankfully, I found out it'd been sheared off and there was only enough to stick into the bone.  S'okay, a hot lady medic said it wasn't any big deal.
	With her smile, I felt alright.  Damn, I wanted to bang her so bad.  Thinking back, I almost think she might've been a monster girl or something, 'cause she was so fuckin' fine.
	I felt a lot better when Fat Boy hauled my little sister out of the rubble too.  She never looked so tiny before, but she looked more startled than hurt.
	That was when I blurted out, "ALL RIGHT, FAT BOY!"
	He glared at me, and told me his name.
	Of course I wouldn't dare call him Fat Boy if I'd remembered his actual name.  But I don't, so he remains 'Fat Boy'.  Seriously, I want to go back in time and kick my own ass for not remembering his name.
	Once I was cleared by the fine ass medic, I wanted to try and gather shit from my house, but Fat Boy told me it was a waste of time and most of what I wanted would likely be broken, torn, or melted.  I know now he probably figured that I wanted my CD player and computer, which I did.  When the war was over, I came back and Fat Boy was right.
	Fat Boy told me how shit was.  He was in charge of leading a group of refugees to one of the few strongholds down in Mexico.
	I know what you're thinking, but the Army, National Guard and Police were off fighting the monster girls.  Fat Boy was gathering up everyone who didn't want to try and make it on their own, but hadn't been able to get out right away.
	He had gotten some retired soldiers, a few medics and ambulance drivers, two taxi drivers, a hotel manager, seven hotel housekeepers, a few drugstore and convenience store clerks, some homemakers, kids, some people I can't remember, and about sixteen gangbangers.
	I still remember some of those gangbangers.  Jeffy was probably the biggest dick, always thinking he was bad ass, 'cause he'd gotten one of the earliest kills of his gang.  I didn't miss him when he died, I don't miss him now.
	This was actually Fat Boy's sixth trip.  He'd been shuttling people for a while now, but either people wouldn't listen to him until the next trip or shit kept falling apart.  Roads kept blowing up.  Attacks would fuck up routes.  Dickhead execs would think they were smarter than Fat Boy.  Occassionally some tree-up-his-ass type would try to take command, but Fat Boy set 'em all straight.  Once you see your house blow up REAL good, you tend to trust Fat Boy more than your own judgement.
	Fat Boy and the gangbangers were the only help that could be afforded, since the veterans were too old or banged up to be much help.  The medics were good people who'd volunteered to come, but they weren't going on any more trips.  Still, the medic who worked on me and the hotel manager lady had fine titties.
	E or F-cups easy.
	Anyway, I joined the 'defense force', partly 'cause I wanted to protect my little sister, but mostly 'cause I wanted to shoot a gun.
	Fat Boy trusted me with a semiautomatic pistol.
	Dude was fuckin' cool.
	Too bad I lost that thing in the fight that almost took my leg.
	Like I said earlier, shit kept blowing up.  Our trip to 'Fort Pine', a hastily built super-fortress, was a lot shorter and safer than I'd expected.  One of the ambulances blew a tire during an attack by some of the crazy fliers, but Fat Boy had it covered.  He had spare tires tied to the roofs of the cabs.
	Watching Fat Boy yell out commands was like watching a storm roll in on super fast-forward, only more organized.  Fat Boy had most of the people in our little convoy whipped into shape, despite not knowing most of them for more than a few days, but he could have them doing what he needed them to do, when he needed them to do it.
	Jeffy and his four punkass friends were the only problems.  Jeffy seemed to think the whole fucking war was more like a game of "Steppin'".
	I think Jeffy mighta being doing cocaine or something, even if it would've been impossible to maintain a supply, 'cause sometimes, he'd walk up to the monster girls asking them if they were "steppin'".  When most of them ran, he'd call them "punkass bitches" and shoot his shotgun after them, even after Fat Boy told him six times that ammo was limited and it was only that scattershot shit that's used for hunting when someone's got piss poor aim.  That stuff was only able to really fuck some of the monster girls, and only up at close range.
	Finally, Fat Boy stopped warning him and Jeffy got into some deep shit with a turtle-girl who'd been running.  When he shot her in the shell, the scattershot bounced off her back.
	Once she heard the empty click of Jeffy's shotgun, though, she seemed to take that as a sign that it was time to turn the tables, spitting a geyser of water like a fire hydrant.  Jeffy's wet ass slammed against a cab door and shit would've gone downhill from there if Fat Boy hadn't stepped up to the plate.
	Even after, I still can't think of a word that best fits Fat Boy when he brought the thunder.  Maybe he was like an atomic bomb, 'cause when he was done, the turtle girl's face looked like a bomb went off right in front of her.
	Fat Boy's moves were PHAT.  Fast like lightning, smooth like butter, hard like titanium, brutal like a chainsaw, deadly like a nuke... Fat Boy's moves were all that and a building stuffed with chips.
	Soon as Jeffy hit the cab, Fat Boy was on Turtle Girl.  His open palm hit her in the chest and time seemed to slow down, 'cause Turtle Girl's eyes seemed to take six seconds to widen before Fat Boy brought out his favorite sword.
	Fat Boy had six swords.  His favorite one was a real katana, stainless steel with a wicked ass dragon handle.  I think it was fuckin' magic or something, 'cause the next thing I saw was Fat Boy walking back back to the convoy and Turtle Girl starting to fall.  There was a line from the top of her right shoulder to her left hip and the part above that line fell forward while the rest fell back.
	Fat Boy must've given Jeffy a look on the way back. 'cause I saw Fat Boy turn his head away and continue back to the convoy and Jeffy started shaking bad.  From what I could tell, Fat Boy just gave Jeffy one of those looks that tells you how much you've fucked up without saying a word.
	Thank god I was never on the receiving end of one of Fat Boy's glares, 'cause Jeffy looked like he was ready to shit himself.
	I should probably mention that Fat Boy was never good looking.  Dude looked like he hadn't slept for five years and he always had at least ten scars visible, even in a t-shirt and jeans.  Sometimes, we'd get paired up with some dumbshit and I'd catch Fat Boy glaring at that douche and they'd just stop talking.  The few times I saw him mad, he had some of the scariest psycho looks I've ever seen.  Fat Boy's glare was one of a kind and damn if it wasn't powerful.
	On the other hand, Fat Boy had two kinds of smiles.  One was kinda of a happy and relaxed smile that made Fat Boy look old, like someone who was seventy years old just meeting their great-grandkids.  I only saw that smile when we saved people or when we got to Fort Pine.  The other was a wicked one where he'd show his fangs just before tearing shit apart.  It was almost as scary as his glare, but with his smile, he was having fun, so he might let the person on the receiving end live.  When he gave his glare, everything in his path had just forfeit their lives.
	Oh, Fort Pine didn't last the war, if you're wondering.  It got breached when I wasn't there, but Annie and most of the civilians made it out.  Fucking monster girls blew that thing to the ground just a week before the Langoud launched.
	But the first time we got to Fort Pine, I was fuckin' impressed.  Goddamn thing was like a castle and a prison had a baby that was twenty times bigger than both.  Guard Towers were like, every fifteen feet and the range of fire overlapped.  Army was responsible for keeping it safe.  Police were inside, coordinating evacuated people to the new living quarters.  There were a lot of people crying and very few reunions.  Chances were, if you weren't with your loved ones when you showed up, you weren't going to ever see them again.  I think one in every hundred people minus a family member managed to see them again.
	As soon as Fat Boy, me and the gangbangers made sure everyone was inside the Fort, a colonel who was missing his right leg from the knee down and had clunky metal replacement, Colonel Renmark, if I recall correctly, came up to Fat Boy and asked if any of us wanted to do more runs.
	Some of the gangbangers didn't wanna do any more.  They thought there were no more people to save.
	Fat Boy knew better, he knew there were more people out there.  He refused to believe that everyone had gotten out.  I probably should've asked about Washington DC then, but I didn't.  I didn't care.  Fat Boy needed people who could watch his back.
	People like me.
	Jeffy was all for it, but it wasn't about saving people with him.  He just didn't want to be shown up by Fat Boy.  Jeffy, always thinking it's about street cred and respect.  Fuckin' douche.  Even after getting his ass beat for his stupid ass antics, he was still 'playing'.
	I was along for the next four 'saving' runs.  All told, we saved about another two hundred or so people.  I killed both monsters and people.  I'm not proud of killing people, but Fat Boy told me it wouldn'ta mattered.  All of the ones we had to off either required too much medical attention or were sick in the head, complete whack jobs.  Either way, Fort Pine had limited resources and we could only take the ones who'd be able to survive and be of use.
	It was probably the only time I didn't want to listen to Fat Boy, but I knew he was right.  That fucking sucks hard.  The last time I ever did that, I told him about that.
	You know what?
	Fat Boy smiled and told me not to lose that 'innocence'.  That it was important to feel for people and even the monster girls.  He told me it wasn't their fault that they were made to kill.  They were just like us, following orders or going on instincts, either way, all of us were trying to survive.
	Fat Boy probably didn't feel like he was killing the monster girls, more than he was letting them free.  Once you're dead, you don't have to worry about what your orders were.
	I think he'd always kept the thought in his head that Sukebe was his real opponent, not the monster girls.
	When we got from that mission, Renmark said soldiers needed back up.  We got more of the gangbangers back in our posse and headed for the few metropolises we could reach.
	Turns out we were the replacements for a unit at the frontline.
	Fuckin' Renmark.
	God, the days of urban warfare.
	You know all those movies where a single badass is running through buildings, shooting the shit out of people who'd fucked them over earlier in the movie?
	Imagine living all of the action scenes in a John Woo movie over and over, for twenty hours a day.
	For an ENTIRE month.
	Fat Boy was like a goddamn freight train covered in chainsaws.  He knew which ones to use guns on, which ones to use swords on, which ones to simply beat the shit out of, and which ones to avoid like the fucking plague.  There weren't many of those last kind, but the smarter of us always followed Fat Boy's intuition on the scary bitches.
	During that month, he dropped so much weight, calling him Fat Boy was really stupid, but he didn't mind near the end of the month, probably because it was like going up to the prettiest woman you've ever seen, both spiritually and physically, and calling her 'ugly'.  Just ain't true, no matter how much you say it.
	Jeffy learned the hardest way that Fat Boy was almost never wrong, even when those psychic types came into the equation.  Ironically, it was a four-armed muscular girl that made Fat Boy panic for the first time.  I gotta wonder if he was psychic or something, 'cause the first thing he did once he saw her was to tell everyone to run for cover.  He told Jeffy twice.
	After Jeffy ignored him twice, Fat Boy just left him.  Jeffy had to known after the last time Fat Boy stopped warning him that he was on his own, so what he did was pure stupidity.
	Jeffy thought his shotgun was all anyone needed to win.  The four-armed girl was irritated by the scattershot, but not hurt.  She grabbed Jeffy like one of my sister's teddy bears and beat him.  Jeffy couldn't fight back and the sound of bones breaking or organs giving way were audible with each hit.
	Okay, maybe I felt a bit sorry for him, but he was still a douche for ignoring Fat Boy.
	Fat Boy handed me his shit and picked up his big sword, a mother-fucking claymore.  That thing was solid steel and taller than Fat Boy.  When the four-armed bitch started bear-hugging Jeffy, Fat Boy raced up to a car next to her, using it like a springboard to jump up and plunge that sword straight down into her neck.
	Fuckin' thing shattered, but Fat Boy kept pressing and the rest of it pierced her collar, cutting deep into an artery, spraying a fountain of blood all over Fat Boy, Jeffy and herself.  Her arms tightened and we all heard several cracks and Jeffy let out a last gurgle.  Fat Boy hit her a few times, trying to get her to let go, but it didn't seem to do much.  Finally, he lowered his head and walked away and the four-armed chick and Jeffy fell over, both dead.
	Jeffy's buddies tried comedy to get over it, saying that Jeffy always wanted to be on top with tough chicks.  They took it pretty hard.  So hard in fact, that they all followed Jeffy into the afterlife real quick after that.
	We got cycled out while the military returned.  Once we got two weeks rest, we were sent to replace a different military unit with more volunteers, ones who'd been trained a lot more than a bunch of punk gangbangers.  That cycle repeated itself.  We lost a lot of gangbangers, police and volunteers.  Some were impossible to save.  Others made stupid decisions, like ignoring both Fat Boy and common sense.  Most we didn't know about until we were on our way out.
	Fat Boy took every death harder and harder than the last.  If anything, I'd swear it was just more coal on the metaphorical freight train of ass-whoop that he dished back.  Fat Boy took a life for everyone lost on our side.
	Sometimes, I'd swear he was trying to make up for every human dead.  I think he might've felt the war would end faster with every monster girl who died.  Sometimes, I felt that way too.
	Eventually, I fucked up and got hurt bad, almost lost my leg against some fiery lizard bitches, and Fat Boy left me with medics.  I tried to do what I could, I asked someone to work with him, make sure he had someone watching his back.  But I never got to see him again.  Word had it that one of those Uber-Bitches, 'Legendaries', had moved through the city.
	I had a lot of respect for Fat Boy's skills, but I don't think he could have handled one of those big bitches.  Seeing as the bitch in question survived well after she leveled that city, even I knew Fat Boy was dead.  Might'a given her a run for her money, though.  Fat Boy was tough like that.  Probably had to have the whole fucking city dropped on him just to stop him.
	I was on my way back to Fort Pine when we heard that the fort was under attack.  They redirected us to some navy base, where the big battle ship, the 'Langoud', was set to launch in a few days.  Shit, I couldn't tell if it was an actual ship or not.  Might as well have been a moving island with some jet engines strapped to it.
	I saw the end of an era and supposedly the start of a new one when that fiery bitch, Kary, blew up.  To this day, I have to wonder where Fat Boy finally came to a rest.  I'd love to pay my respect where he finally went down.  If it weren't for him, I'd never have gotten to live long enough to have kids of my own, or watch my grandkids while my kids took care of budding businesses and stuff.
	All I can think about is how Fat Boy was there for me.  Sure, he was an overweight pear-shaped insomniac at first, but Fat Boy was more than just that.
	He was a hero.
	I still tell myself, "Ronald, you have to do something to honor Fat Boy, like remember his name or write down what you can."
	In the end, I think whatever records survived about Fat Boy are probably more revealing than what I can remember, but I still did this much.
	So, Fat Boy, I wrote about you.  I know you probably secretly hated being remembered only as Fat Boy, but it's all I can do.
	Rest easy.
	Shit, his name was Jason!
	FUCK!
	I can't believe I typed this entire goddamn thing and I _FINALLY_ remember his name!
	Son of a BITCH!

	~Finis~

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	Memories of the War
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	Just a thing that popped into my brain while reading someone else's story.  I tried to do this multiple times, but every time, I kept running into two formidable opponents: Writer's Block and the Desire To Not Fuck With History.
	I suppose the grim nature of the entire war probably intrigued me, but I'm naturally torn between comedy and tragedy.  So, I had to put a fair share of both.
	I was also torn between a first-person point of view and third person point of view.  So, I went for second-person and I'm fairly happy with the results.

	A-kun