Forums of the Megaverse®

OPERATION HUMAN DEVIL

On the battlefield, all actions are honorable

PART 1
Minnesota, Tolkeen War. Finger-wiggler’s got a barrier, flippin’ Uncle Skullhead the bird. No man’s land is a graveyard of twisted metal, broken lives and ghosts. Tornados of fire, storms of ash; the CS camps are men in body armor and pooch-boys with nosebleeds. Intel says the mages inside are having a tea party, laughing at humanity.
Me, Alrik, just another merc in a long line of fresh meat. Pulled a few jobs at this point, not the vet I’ll become later. News is Tolkeen ambush squads have been picking off deadboys left and right, no prisoners, no mercy. Givin’ what they get. I get called by CSOC (Coalition Special Operations Command), Major Bush. Guy’s an old stiffback.

Tells me mercs are the filth off his boot, then gives me orders.

“Infiltrate the city, find and eliminate the mage they call Grey Mist, he leads the enemy guerillas. Pay on completion is 500k.”

I got a chuckle building, but dig it, Alrik, they want to make you rich.

“Great, go in and ask to see this slag, get fifteen to the dome when the first mind melter pulls my card?”

Bush leans across his desk with a grin. “You’re handler says you can do it, so do it and collect your creds. Fail and I’ll draw and quarter you myself.”

Motivation, eh? Join the enemy for real because the job’s impossible. Dig it.

***

Op begins the next day, merc patrol. CS doesn’t risk the elites on a walkabout. In no man’s land, fire and ash obscure everything. No joy from multi-optics. AC’s cranked and the Crusader EBA still feels like an oven.

Wellington buggy patrol, 8 men, 4 to a scooter, over a hill and into an invisible wall.

No grip, fly into the barrier and slam on the ground, lose my air and my rifle. Then the flash comes. Not blinding light, white-hot fireball. Buggy two is slag, get up and crawl to my rifle as lighting splits the sky, screams follow. Get to a ditch and roll into it for cover.

Pop up, four other men alive, returning fire into the ash cloud. Rifle grenade hits something in the grey, no magic return-fire. No way they got’m. Sweep around, see a heat sig flanking the left and drop down again. Time to be a stinker.

“Contact right!”

Volume of fire over my head, crawl toward the 4 man team.

“Negative contact, cease fire!” the sarge orders, then a Battlefury blade grows from his front, turns his chest plate red-hot from the friction.

“Left!” the corporal orders, but he gets the magic sticky net of death, the rest of us roll into the ditch to avoid it.

The ash coalesces into a man with a demon mask and tattered cloak. A gout of dragon fire erupts from his grin, fills the ditch. I use one of the other guys as cover; bits of his armor melt onto mine as he screams.

Last trooper survived, half melted armor, useless rifle. Still got his vibro-tomahawk and makes a surprise move, Ash Cloud doesn’t defend in time but my NG is up and I pulse 45 mega-joules into the merc from behind. Tomahawk falls to the ground at the mage’s feet. I throw my rifle down and put my hands up.

“You guy’s hiring?”

***

Ninety minutes later, dark room. In chains, no armor, poked and prodded, missing a fingernail or two, black eye, bloody nose, the works. Hurts like hell.

“Give me a reason not to kill you, skull-lackey.” If you ever get interrogated by a sadistic Juicer, don’t. Fists like sledgehammers and they never get tired of pounding you.

“Could be you think I’m cute, Juice.” Of course, it came out like a garbled mess. Don’t think my jaw was quite workin’ how it should.

“Smart mouth, dumb ***”, and he put a fist in my gut. More mouth to pants blood. Feels good.

“That’s enough, Lars. We’ll try a different angle.”

Out of the dark comes sweet sixteen. Little girl wearing a pink dress, ribbons in her hair. Maybe I’m seeing things, but the world’s a crazy place.

She smiles, and it’s cute as hell. Hell’s apt, something wrong with that pearly grin. Sweetheart tinkles toward me on glass slippers, but I notice the leather sword belt, the fury blade in the sheath. She shanked the squad leader. Keep it together, Alrik. She ain’t that cute.

“Why did you help kill your comrades?”

“Easy way to prove I want to be on your side.”

She looks at me seriously, strain around her eyes, she looks older, but not in a human way. Then the giggles, high pitched horror.

“What is it Asalyn?” a voice asks from the shadows.

“He’s serious”, the little lady says.

“Hell with that”, Juice is giving me the death glare. “Not gonna let this guy live if he’ll stab his mates in the back.”

“Why not? You’re human, and you’re fighting the Coalition.” The little girl grins and her eyes go from blue to yellow, pupils to slits, then gone. Losin’ my mind here.

“You think helping the skullheads is loyalty to a cause?” Juice spits on the ground. “They don’t give a lick about a merc’s life.”

“Then you’ve proved our prisoner’s point”, says the shadows and the demon masked man comes forward. “What is your name, and why are you really here?”

“Alrik. I’m supposed to kill Grey Mist, get close to him and make with the second smile. Easy job, right?”

“You’ve found him”, says the mask. “Do you still intend to finish your mission?”

Asalyn makes with the excited glare. I feel more like a meal than a prisoner.

“You kidding? Rather help if the pay’s good. CS doesn’t know what it’s doing out there.”

Grey Mist and the girl share a look and he nods.

“Alright. If you’re serious, I have a plan.”

PART 2
Grey’s plan needs more than their small hit-squad. After applying some weird voodoo that patches up my lumps (which felt like someone massaging me from the inside and I’m still not okay with), he takes us inside the barrier. Teleportation. Suddenly my elbow is part of my foot, but I see the world again and my pants aren’t on me head. Good deal. Never been to Tolkeen. Pretty place. Too bad it’ll be slag when the CS is done. Yeah, I don’t believe the townies will win. They’re trapped, desperate. They’ll pay me for what I can tell them, for what I’ll do, but nothing’s saving these streets from hell on earth when the skullheads get their act together.

Speaking of hell on earth. Demon, twelve o’clock. Fifteen feet of hairy muscle dressed in black armor, fangs like knives, sword so big it’s giving me a complex. Never look at them. Don’t get near them. Fear happens. You don’t get impressed by their size, it’s your mind. It shows lets you imagine the fangs in your guts, it tells you this thing will hunt you forever, tells you this creature will pick your limbs like you’re an insect and there’s nothing you can do about it. Your knees shake, your mouth dries up. Then it looks at you and the feeling ratchets up to eleven.

“Problem, squish?” Juice prods me in the back with his JA-11. March on, soldier.

“Ignore the décor”, Grey tells me. “Sending them back where they belong is in the works.”

“What about her?” I nod at sweet sixteen and chuckle.

No one laughs. Tough crowd.

We walk and eventually reach the steps of a tower that reaches into the sky. You don’t see it from a distance, maybe we’re in another dimension. ***. Mages. Grey walks on ahead and the other stop at the steps. Juice reigns me in when I keep going.

“Stay here”, Grey tells me, then he ascends.

Stuck with Juice and magical girl that wants to see what I taste like. I say a prayer for sanity.

***

An hour passes and I can’t keep my mouth shut.

“When do I get my gear back?”

Foot traffic passes, soldiers and mages give us the eyeball, no one answers.

“What’s the plan?”

“The plan is for you to shut up, squish.”

Ignore the Juicer, no one likes them anyway. “Let me ask you something serious.” Magika de Spell looks at me with her blue eyes.

“Do you really trust me?”

“No.”

“Then why am I here?”

She smiles, “Because you’re ambitious. We don’t trust you, we trust that we can use each other.” Then her look suddenly becomes coy. “And I like that you’re terrified of me, but won’t stop checking me out.”

Roll eyes. Look for something else to ogle.

“And, if the council approves our plan, we’ll need you.”

Fair enough, sending back a fake or putting a charm on me would get sniffed out by the pooch-boys and psi-hounds.

“Okay, and if I betray you?”

“Then I’ll—“ Juice starts, but Asalyn cuts him off.

“You won’t. The deal will be too good.” She steps close and looks me in the eyes. “You do want a big pay off, don’t you?”

There are hands in places I’d rather not mention. That doesn’t do much when compared to her eyes. Can’t see anything but power there, irresistible and absolute. What the hell is she? Is she even really a she?

Can’t look at her. “Yeah, nailed me. Dead bang.”

She giggles and spins away gracefully, it makes my insides turn over.

PART 3
Group of mages gathered, plan got the Council Stamp of You’re Idiots but We’ll try Anything Once. Good enough.

“You have little time to make this work”, Grey Mist tells me. “When you appear, you’ll have to make your way across the no man’s land, get into camp, give them proof of my death and show them the battle plan. They’ll have to react quickly. As soon as they’re at the ambush point, we’ll do the rest.”

“And how do I collect my pay?” I ask for the fifth time.

The demon mask seems to grin on its own, for the fifth time.

I’m in good shape, feeling better. Got my mangled armor, vibro-knife, NG-L6 with underslung and the two pineapples I never used. No helmet yet though. These guys aren’t complete idiots.

Still, gotta try again. “Give me half up front or just kill me now. The 500k the CS promised me is sounding pretty good right now.”

The punch comes fast, hard. Takes me right off my feet and reminds me of why I hate Juicers.

“Squishy, squishy gets his wishie.”

“Lars, that will do”, Grey Mist says, but his lap dog is feeling frisky.

The guy wants his boot to become intimate with my face, but before I’m even up on all fours I got the vibro-knife out. Juice’s leg comes right at me, I grab on for the ride and sink the blade seven inches into the hip joint of his armor.

I fly, but he hits the ground, grabbing at his nearly severed leg. I roll up, Wilk’s pistol clearing the holster. Not good enough. Dozens of hands come up, words echo together form the mages and I get covered in the Net of Nope.

“I’ll kill that ****** squish!” The thing in the pink dress waves a hand and Juice goes rigid, silent. Down boy.

Demon masked Mist is standing over me. “Are you quite finished?”

“Hell with you. You know I’m greedy trash. I want both rewards, but if things go wrong and you die, no second pay day, dig?”

He stares for a long moment, then calls Asalyn over. She lifts the spell binding me and gives me a cred card. Her creepy grin kills that happy, money-in-hand moment.

“I think I’ve figured you out”, she says. “The reason you don’t like the demons, I mean.” I put the card away, trying not to think anything, knowing she’s probably reading my mind again.

“You’re a devil.”

***

Get zapped into no man’s land. Head’s doing the teleport-spin, no time, have to move forward. East to camp, best I can do without a map. Got my helmet, got my pay, got my ruse. Momentary thought to just run for it, but the thought of another 500k leads me on.

Ten minutes in, skull cycles bank overhead, six minutes after, surrounded by SAMAS. Hands up, helmet off. Show’m the head and mask of Grey Mist. Twenty minutes more, stepping off a Mark V in camp. Major Bush with a dozen commandos, psi-hounds and pooch-boys, waitin’ for an excuse to kill me instead of pay me.

“Howdy, boss.”

The old stiffback grunts and psi-hounds approach. They sniff at the head, sniff at me, tingly feeling all over.

“Stinks like a mage”, says the lead stalker.

“Take the head”, Bush tells them. Not letting go, commandos twitch, let the damn head go, Alrik.

“You gonna pay up, major?”

He grins. “You can collect your bounty from CJS (Criminal Justice Services) when you’re discharged.”

“How about a voucher, then? You got me over a barrel here.”

He considers, but shakes his head. “I’d like to keep you here, at least until this is settled.”

“How about you give it to me anyway? I got more than just proof of death.”

“Really.”

Now it’s my turn to grin. “Major, how’d you like to get promoted?”

***

The tightwad still doesn’t give me my voucher, but I can deal. Tell Bush to bury the head and mask, Grey Mist knows I don’t trust him just like he doesn’t trust me. Share the plan with Uncle Skullhead. Yeah, the target ain’t dead, but Bush doesn’t care at this point. Intel I’m giving him is worth ten times what I’ll collect. Tolkeen’s planning a huge sortie outside the barrier, exposing their troops. If the CS can ambush them, they’ll lose their veterans. Sounds good, right? That’s Grey Mist’s plan. Draw the deadboys out to ambush, but the trap is bigger.

I lay all my cards on the table, only way this is going to work. Bush thinks I’m a devious man, dig it.

***

Three hours later, game time. CS battle group is at checkpoint for ambush, I’m in camp on a rise with Bush. He’s wearing body armor, got everything ready. Camp like a ghost town, skullheads in short supply. All I need now is an opportunity to beat feet.

Psi-hound appears, salutes Bush.

“What is it, corporal?”

“It’s starting, sir. I smell them.”

The sky rumbles and everyone looks up but me. I get to lower ground. Bush gives the order to ready for combat, but it gets drowned out by the clap of thunder, vision is blurred by the strobe of lighting. I tumble down the rise as the top is split by a bolt from the heavens.

Covered in earth, get up, dust off, surrounded by hell.

Mages and demons everywhere, wrecking camp, sending skullheads to Prosek’s bosom. Spellslinger with a flaming sword chucks a pair of pooch-boys into the air with a wind slash, cuts down a trooper trying to get to his feet. A black armored demon sinks his fangs into the helmet of a fleeing grunt, blood geyser. Tolkeen mercs come out of a portal, laying down fire, pushing the deadheads back further, but the retreat is stopped by magic nets, the camp is paralyzed in chaos.

A merc sees me getting to my feet, ripped off C-27, plasma fire slags the earth all around me as I get to cover. Earth melts away and I move low, getting out of the area. No time to fight, surviving is the best I can do.

Get behind a pre-fab, unsling rifle, NG-LG6. Could be worse. Deep breath, the EBA is a sauna. Light flashes big time and a roar rips the sky worse than thunder, shakes bones, rattles teeth. Peek around, it just got worse.

Sixty feet of scales, tail, teeth and wings. Horned death, dragon. A ****** dragon. Panic kicks me in the junk, crouch at the pre-fab’s corner, trying to find where my courage went, would love to follow as fast as possible.

Another peek, big-D snatches a pre-fab, rips the sucker right out of the ground and throws it at fleeing skullheads. Time to go, but I see Grey Mist and Asalyn in the mess and stop. Yeah, I knew he was feeding me crap. Knew his plan was to draw the skullheads away and take out their camp, but I didn’t expect him to show himself. Blood turns hot again with cred signs. Maybe I’ll stick around.

Comm is still tuned to the tac-net, pick up Bush’s voice, calm and cool.

“Target acquired. Rock the shack, gentlemen.”

PART 4
They come from the sky. Death on silent wings, Striker SAMs inbound. The mages work to defend, erecting barriers, turning invisible and some of them shifting between worlds, but that doesn’t save all of them. The volley from the SAM’s missile rifles leaves a trail that blots out the sun. I leap inside the pre-fab bunker and cover up as the world shudders around me.

The counter attack continues, shells scream over the sky, shattering the earth, grenade bursts turn Tolkeen mercs to giblets and chute dropped power armor and commandos follow close behind. The skullheads cover their own, giving the trapped forces time to regroup. Watching from a rip in the bunker, I see the dragon reappear in the sky, falling on a skullhead gunship like a meteor. SAM’s engage, but the beast ignores their attacks and rips the heavy support weapons clean off the ship’s hull as it crashes.

I look around for Grey Mist, see him still standing with his sweetheart. She cuts down anything that comes close, deadboys who draw a bead fall to the ground screaming as steam escapes from their armor. Keep scanning, see major Bush ringed by psi-hounds and commandos, UAR-1 back up as they close in on their target.

Decision time.

Rifle grenade, clears two mercs and I sprint like a juicer across the field. Commando team with Bush falls into firing formation, lays down a screen at Grey Mist but the laser fire fizzles. Grey turns and fiery death erupts from the demon mask, skull slag. UAR opens up with the rail gun, sonic crack of death. The rounds spark off a brilliant blue surrounding Grey and his creepy girlfriend. With the flick of her hand, she opens up a portal and out leaps granddaddy Earth. A hundred tons of rock ready for a boxing match. It stumbles like a drunk boulder through the firing line and bowls over the UAR.

“Air support, paste the target!” I hear Bush scream into the tac-net.

I’m still running, almost there. Asalyn sees me and she hesitates, slightly, but can’t deal. She sees the Striker’s approach and summons another barrier. I leap and get inside, tumbling and roll to my feet.

Mini-missile barrage strikes, the ground shakes a little, but nothing passes through as the ground around us is reduced to ash, a cloud of death blocking visual from the outside.

“What’s your intention here, Alrik?” Grey demands. “Why approach when you betrayed us?”

I smirk, “I haven’t done anything you didn’t expect, pal. You were ready too, brought twice the amount of friends you showed me.”

“And so, going to try to collect on your bounty?”

“Here’s a hint.” Grenade burst from ten feet away. Ballsy, but stupid.

High explosive chucks me into the barrier, bruised up but the armor holds. On my feet I know the rifle’s useless so out comes the Wilk’s. Mist is on his feet, maybe he never fell, he’s busy casting my death. The sidearm won’t kill him, but a shot is good enough, put 20 MJ’s into the eyes of his mask and blind him.

“Asalyn!” he cries as he staggers back.

I don’t wait for her to kill me, I charge, vibro knife in hand.

Expert technique, knife in and twist. Vibro-active field turns the guts to jelly, sometimes you get a red-pink flood out of the puncture. No luck here. My hand goes all the way into Grey Mist, like he opened up and let me go through him. Pull the knife back, ice on the armor up the forearm, gloves are stuck, can’t move the joint.

Grey Mist grabs me by the breastplate, lifts me one armed. I see fire raging behind the grin of his demon mask. Think fast, Alrik.

Wrap my legs around his arm and head, twist. He can be strong enough to lift me like a boss, but balance bails on us all. Fire discharges into the air, slags part of the Crusader’s leg but we topple over and I lock his arm and head tight.

He’s strong, too strong. Can’t hold him. I see lasers blasting away at the barrier, just beyond the Earth Elemental rips the UAR’s head off, the dragon does a fly by, skullheads turned to ash. Asalyn is straining; the shield, the elemental, I see her face twisted in pain. Maybe it’s more than that, I don’t know. Grey gets his arm free but I fight him off, wrapping him up again. He’s strong with his magic, but he’s got no skills.

Work it.

I roll us over and throw his leverage off, the ice on my arm melts, fingers grip, joints flex and the vibro knife finds armor through his robes, but scratches off. Grey gets my arm finally, wrenches it and I hear a snap. Busted, but the adrenaline won’t let me feel it and from his back he throws me one armed into the barrier.

Lose my air, vision dancing. Hard to move, but I manage to stand. Grey’s finger-wiggling at me, voice scratchy and high, guess he’s angry. Can always be worse.
Force my right arm to work, yank a pineapple and hope the frag from before didn’t damage it. Arm the sucker and let her rip. It’s a big boom in an enclosed space, probably kill all three of us.

Grenade goes off, but I barely notice. Suddenly the world slides sideways and I can’t keep my feet. Somewhere, somehow, I know I’m hitting the barrier again from the explosion. I know my armor is getting mangled, I think I’ve broken a rib or two but it all fades away into numbness. Can’t feel my feet, my head spins and colors blur together until vision becomes useless.

I think I’m on my back, but I could be flying. Senses are completely useless and my brain is singing songs I haven’t heard since I was a kid. What did he hit me with? Is he dead? Am I?

Through the mess of my senses, I find the ground. Start crawling. Brain stops with the distraction for a moment and tells me what’s going on. I’m befuddled. He put a damn curse on me. Stop trying to focus, just makes it worse. Crawl and pray you aren’t going in a circle.

Noises start to become clear, the ultra-ear does its thing. I can sort out weapons fire, but it’s too loud. Hear my own breath, synchs with the pain in my chest when I draw in. Okay, go against the slant in your vision. See a shape ahead on the ground. Then a multicolored light show explodes in my face.

Light refracted through glass. Asalyn’s slipper. A blade stabs the ground in front of me, too weak to look up. Just wait for the end. She’s got you.

Suddenly my insides do acrobatics and my face and knees are the same thing for a moment of darkness. When light comes again I don’t hear a thing. Head starts to clear, roll over and see her standing over me, hand on her Battlefury blade.

“Do you want to die? Do you want this pain to end?” her voice is distorted and deep, the words come out slow.

I manage to shake my head.

“Then sleep.”

And I do.

***

“You were enchanted, huh?”

She nods, blue eyes glittering. Less creepy, but still not entirely human. “Grey Mist found me, years ago, and cast his spell on my mind. I’ve been his ever since. You set me free, Alrik.”

I almost scratch my head, but the sling my arm is in limits the motion and I wince like a wuss.

“So, what are you?”

She smiles, less creepy this time. Almost like a real teenage girl. Should have figured.

We’re in a forest, I’m mostly patched up but everything still hurts like hell. I see Grey Mist’s body and the occasional rabbit, but nothing else aside Asalyn since I woke up. She was in the grenade explosion, no doubt about it, but her dress, slippers, hair and skin show no sign of having been through a battle.

“What will you do?” she asks me.

I motion at the body laying not ten feet from us. “Cut off his head, take it and the mask to CJS and collect.”

“Going to human lands”, she nods. “Then we’ll part here.”

“Guess so.”

She stands, smoothing out her dress and adjusts her sword belt. “It was nice to meet you, little devil.” Her eyes tease.

“Hey, lady, I’m all human.”

“About as much as I am. Humanity isn’t just biology.”

My ribs complain when I chuckle. “Fair enough.”

“You can get into Chi-town heading north, a few days on foot.” She sighs, giving me an eye, but when I don’t ask her to stay she nods. “Well, goodbye.”

“See ya next time”, I tell her and pat down pockets for my pack of smokes.

She grins, liking the idea, then chants eerie words not meant for mortal ears and vanishes in a rush of air.

Couldn’t say if I was happier to see her go, or happier to be alone.

Mages.