The Agent looked out from behind his hyper reality visor, the hostile orange glow marking out his enemies in the distance, hiding behind their cover up above the the final checkpoint. The scorpion tank needed to pass through.
His name was unimportant; however, his designation within Blacklight was Deadman. And the situation was fucked for his squadron right now.
It was supposed to be a simple job, HQ said. There were only regular Order militia guarding the Scorpion, they said.
He deactivated the HRV, sure once more of the location the enemy had fallen back to. Nothing was that simple, though. The Order had not only their regular militia here, but they happened to have some of their very own Agents doing their rounds nearby, and they popped by to give support.
He continued to step through the now cleared area. It was truly unfortunate that a few of the Order had fallen behind, and he had been picked to play clean up.
He flashed the HRV again, noting this time the cool blue location of all his allies, who were standing beside the currently downed Scorpion Tank. Much to his joy, though, the tank quickly stood back up, and one of his fellow Agents climbed into the tank.
“Taking the driver’s seat,” He heard come over the speakers on the inside of his helmet, as the tank began moving along once more. This is what he was here for, he thought, the regenerative tech on that thing was the same technology as on the armour of an Agent, scaled up like never before. That sort of tech could prove invaluable, and they could NOT afford The Order have this technology beyond a testing stage like this.
He pressed on, and he saw the bridge the remaining enemies were barricaded on, as well as the blockaded checkpoint below. The metal ridges rose out from the ground before just as straight as the billboard rose above, both stopping his group from completing objectives.
Deadman took cover behind a large shipping container as the scorpion tank came out from behind a corner on the primary path, steadily approaching the barricade. It would surely come into sight of the barricade soon, giving them an opportunity to take it down, and stall them even further. Such an outcome would be unacceptable.
Deadman looked around once more, searching for an alternate route before hitting the jackpot. Right over there was a passage leading underground that had previously escaped notice. Taking one more HRV sweep, he confirmed the location of his enemies, as well as the path of the tunnel to the other side of the blockade, before taking off towards the corridor across the maintenance route.
As he entered the corridor, he flashed his HRV again, as he was trained to do. Thankfully, the Order Agents didn’t seem too keen on leaving their little hiding hole. In spite of that, the HRV revealed something that he rather didn’t like; that being the distinctive shape of an anti-armour stinger rocket. He ran down the hallway like a bat outta hell, as delays were unacceptable under the Blacklight doctrine. Keeping his LMG close to his body, he slowed as he approached the end of the corridor and exit to the other side, and said into his mic, “Force their hand, I’ll mop.”
“Confirmed,” a flat voice responded, “Swarm incoming.”
Deadman paused for a second, and made sure to keep his head down, before starting to aim down the sights of his light machine gun, to prepare to clear the corner as soon as his opportunity arose. Not a second later, he heard the distinctive whir of the a swarm incoming. This was going to be good. Then, he heard the missile split as he had many times before, as well as the cacophony of explosions as the proximity to hostile targets triggered the rocket’s action and explosions tore apart the cover of the unfortunate militia and enemy Agents.
He ran out of corner, and swung around the corner to run up the stairs, before holding down the trigger at the mass of stunned looking order soldiers.
The heavy crack of the machine gun was music to his ears, as well the impact of the bullets against the armour and flesh of his opponents. He left them no chance to recover, not after the rocket first impacted. Although the poor bastards did not stand a chance, a small smile graced his face, truly this was what life was about!
As he turned around to walk back down, his suit gave a warning as a bullet pinged against the back of his suit of heavy armour, dealing some superficial damage to the regenerative surface of his armour.
He whipped around and ran towards the pile of mangled bodies, putting away his LMG and pulling out his breach hammer. He said he was going to mop up, and he was going to do it.
Quickly, he spotted the hostile, one of the barely armoured militia with a peashooter of a pistol trying to down a fully armed and armoured Agent.
The man was propped up against the remainder of their cover, and there was a look of fear on his face, seeing his impending death stomp its way towards him. The militiaman began to fire as fast as he could, dumping his magazine of low calibre bullets down range, into the mass of armour in front of him, as the small rounds continued to prove ineffective against his armoured target.
As soon as Deadman was within grabbing range of the soldier, he immediately lashed out with his free hand, gripping the pistol by its top, and yanking it away from him using the enhanced strength granted by his armour, before hurling it off the bridge.
The look of fear upon the amateur’s face seemed to heighten as the gun was yanked away, and one of the man’s hands started to move, possibly going for an explosive or knife. Deadman did not allow this, of course.
He did something that the movie’s had drilled into him as a sign of power, even if it would be typically fatal for him if he was fighting someone who actually had the weaponry to hurt him. He grabbed the man by the neck, and lifted him up from his previously sitting position to high in the air. He slowly and deliberately brought back the breach hammer before swinging it with as much force as he could into side of the man’s head.
His grin further spread at the sound of two very familiar sounds. The first was the echo of the crack as the breach hammer’s captive bolt triggered, magnifying the force of the strike, and the second was the comforting noise of breaking bone with flesh beneath it to absorb some of the force. The viscera sprayed over the visor of his helmet, the hammer, and his arm as the man’s skull practically exploded from the blow, leaving nothing of the head intact except for a brief section of the lower skull, where it attached to the neck.
He wiped the blood and bits of brain matter off of the front of his helmet as he chuckled lightly underneath his helmet as he dropped the body, and pulled the mechanism on his hammer to ready the bolt once more. It had been weeks since he had the opportunity to close in and use the hammer, he almost forgot about how much fun it was.
He put his hammer away and withdrew a small red injector connected by a tube to a backpack which he was wearing, and slid the needle into a small port on his left hand, shuddering lightly as it injected the medigel into his veins, spotting rapidly regenerating any damage he may have sustained from either the pistol, or the bullets from ‘cleaning up’ earlier. His armour may be regenerative, but he was not, and although the bullets didn’t puncture, he might as well prevent any minor issues from the impact.
“Checkpoint cleared; proceed and load the Scorpion on truck,” He heard the robotic voice of HQ say as another Agent managed to slip below the bridge, and hack the panel which controlled the barrier. He looked out over the bridge, and saw that they were just in time as the tank immediately began to proceed under the bridge.
Deadman took that brief respite to look through the carnage he had caused, before something caught his eye: Another LMG, and one with quick magazines no less! Might as well replenish his ammo without walking to a depot, he figured.
Walking over to it, took out his machine gun and discarded his partial magazine, before checking the corpse that sat beside it for more ammunition. As he checked through the pockets of the corpse, to his joy, he discovered quite a bit of ammunition. Counting the ones he still had and the ones on the body, they totalled up to the full complement of five eighty round magazines.
He quickly picked up the ammunition, and fitted one of the full magazines into his gun, before walking back the way he came, and down the stairs. As he got down the stairs, he turned left and left again before walking out, towards the main lane and where the scorpion was about to pass through. While he walked, he reached up to the side of his helmet to activate his hyper reality visor once more, bathing the world in the familiar and comforting blue. He did not see any spots of orange as he looked around, and although a few could be hiding back in fortified positions with a HRV Blackout covering them, they had just about completed their objective, and those were likely to not be a threat considering that the truck was only a scant dozen meters away. He jogged up to the scorpion tank as it was approaching the objective, and he heard a rather disconcerting sound, the sound of a brimstone airstrike incoming.
Looking up, he saw where the cluster bomb split; right over him and the tank.
He looked back down and closed his eyes, he knew what was coming. There was no chance that he would be able to get out of the way of the explosion. He had neither the time nor the speed. Well played, Order, well played indeed.
Then everything went white.
He jolted back to alertness as he heard the distant singing of metal hitting metal in a deadly song. He knew the sound of soldiers attempting hand to hand combat when he heard it, and that meant he was either alive or somehow in Valhalla. Eyes darting open, he looked over the immediate area. A very green forest, he noted as he took a brief survey of the area from his position with his back on the ground.
The idea of that the vikings were right was seeming incredibly more to him by the minute. With one last scan to make sure that there was no motion in his immediate area, he bolted up and kept careful note of any sounds in his immediate vicinity. Although he heard none, he quickly pivoted around while drawing his pistol in a ready to fire position. There was nothing but trees, and he didn’t hear the sounds of someone moving back behind one before. Tilting his head, he looked around the clearing. Perhaps his primary was around here somewhere.
Off in a patch of what looked like weeds, he spotted a glimpse of a camo pattern that very much looked like it didn’t belong in a forested area. He moved quickly over to the weeds before kneeling down, and brushing away the surprisingly thick stemmed plants that looked like oversized dandelions.
With a sigh of relief, he put away his pistol, and took up the large gun into his arms, and was immediately comforted by the familiar weight. This he was used to, he knew it. Protocol stated that he should engage in scouting, he reminded himself as took one hand off of his gun and lifted it to his helmet before tapping a button on its side.
The world was awash in blue as before as the trees turned into non-solid objects. However, in the direction he heard the metal clashing earlier, he saw two small forces squaring off in forms not human. He believed that his HRV was likely malfunctioning, the fighting forces were appeared to quadrupedal in nature, and were fighting using melee weapons exclusively. Without any other course of action, protocol stated that he should investigate.
Carefully, he moved from cover to cover, from tree to tree with only the crushing of the occasional forest debris giving an indicator of his presence as he moved closer to the combat.
He was going to figure out what was going on here, one way or another. As he approached the noises of close range combat grew in intensity. Strange, close range combat tended to be quickly over as one of those in close range combat rapidly slew the other and returned to ranged combat. Perhaps the HRV wasn’t malfunctioning after all. He would get to see the truth soon enough, however.
As the sounds of combat reached an even greater height, he caught a glimpse of golden metal through the tall trees, followed by a glimpse of a slightly rusted iron. Cautiously, he crept further forward and took cover behind a tree. Leaning out to catch a look, he saw something that he didn’t expect. There was a small squadron of maybe eight to ten equines in a clearing armoured in a shining metal that appeared very visually similar to gold wielding spears fighting off an airborne group of gryphons who outnumbered them roughly two to one. However, despite their numerical superiority the gryphons seemed to only be attempting quick hits against the formation below, and leaving when threatened with retaliation.
A small rustling to his left and a bit behind him caught his attention, and he turned his head ever so slightly, to catch the image of one of those gryphons trying to be stealthy while holding some sort of axe in its front claws. At least he knew they were at least moderately intelligent, if they developed weaponry.
The gryphon continued to get closer, likely discounting the idea of him knowing that they were there. Of course, his helmet has no visible viewing ports visible from where they were coming from. They likely didn’t know that he could see through the entire thing from the inside. The gryphon was also much smaller than he expected, maybe its head reached the bottom of his ribs, if it stood up straight. He noted that it spread out its wings out slightly as it moved closer, and it dropped into a ready to act posture. Silently, he prepared himself for action, barely moving a muscle as he pretended to be watching the combat in the forest clearing.
With a small flap, the gryphon took to the air on its wings, and readied its axe for the attack. The approximate height of that the gryphon lunged from, as well as its height of flight, indicated it was going for the neck, and judging by the way the axe was angle it was going for a horizontal swing. He waited for a brief moment to give it less time to redirect in, before dropping down to a low posture and swinging the butt of his light machine gun at where he estimated the gryphon’s neck would be, based off of its velocity.
With a satisfying crack he hit the gryphon directly in the neck, and it let out a very shrill bird noise as he heard a bone break. Target neutralized, he thought to himself as he turned to watch it impact the ground like a sack of potatoes on the other side of him. However, now, he had bigger issues. The group of other gryphons likely noticed this.
Eyes darting back towards them, he confirmed his hypothesis as he saw a few eyes being cast in his direction. Making a choice, he decided that it would be best to assist the equines. After all, they are geared in armour and are using weaponry, and he is already part way there. Even if he came to regret helping them later on on moral grounds, he would still have made an enemy of only one group rather than two. He darted over to the next tree closer to the fight in a quick burst of movement and aimed out from around the side, switching to semi-auto on muscle memory, before aiming down the holographic sights.
Locating one of the gryphons who were farther away from the combat and as such more focused on the area rather than a specific foe, he tapped a shot out. Targets with a potential for quick action first. To his surprise, both the equines and the gryphons flinched at the sound and were momentarily distracted of gunfire ringing out through the forest. This pointed to either inexperience or guns being not used here. More information was needed on that subject.
Capitalizing on the moment of weakness on the part of the gryphons he quickly moved onto the next target, a bigger looking fellow armoured in what looked to be a fairly rigid leather. One bang, and that gryphon began falling just as the first he shot hit the ground amongst the equines.
They seemed to zone in on him then, the ones not currently engaged against the formation below, giving him his next list of targets. There was a cluster of three which were the closest to him, which he quickly downed with three shots, moving from his scope from one to the other.
At the far side of the battle, he noted one turned to leave. His presence would be preferentially be kept secret from opposing forces.
Another crack came from his gun as he swung it around to fire a single round off at the runner, only to be blocked by the body turned corpse of another gryphon. While he was merely guessing as to their internal anatomy, the shot hit its chest from the side and likely pierced both lungs and maybe its heart, if Earth biology generalizations held up.
Twitching his aim upwards, he shot another gryphon higher in the sky, before aiming back towards the crowd and landing a round directly in the thigh of the attempt escapee by the time he had managed to gain roughly five meters from its previous position.
It was then the equines made their move, taking advantage of the disarray of the closer gryphons to kill three of them. It was rather impressive, their timing that is. Getting back to work, he located the final few gryphons, and gave them a bullet each. They were all relatively close together at a moderate altitude, below the tips of the moderately tall trees, but higher than the reach of the spears. He wondered if any of the equines were hurt by the falling bodies or equipment.
As the final of them hit the ground he took cover behind the tree for a brief moment before flashing his HRV to check for anything else coming from any direction. Noticing nothing other than small animals, he disabled it, and stepped out of cover, before walking to the edge of the clearing, still outside of the range of the spears. He didn’t have any protocol for this, although he would try his best.He then said to the group of rather uneasy looking equines “I don’t suppose you can take me to your leader, can you?”
One of them opened their mouth to speak, and all Deadman heard was a melodic language that no human vocal cords could reproduce.
Author's Note
Cue shameless content reuse for the first part of it, before he dies. At least is gave me a reason to go over the first chapter and edit that section, it was stinking up the place like a slab of rotting meat hidden under the chandelier. As always, give me your feedback as well as questions, ladies and gents.
Edit: Now with the comments from my editor removed. Google docs importing on this site is a weird thing.
