*clickclick*
*CLICKCLICK*
*CLICKCLICK*
“Uggghh WHAT?!”
“Hey!! Get the hell up now!! There’s a situation in town-“
“UUGGHH!! Its fucking… The sun isn’t even up!!”
“You wanted that spot on the Elite!? Well guess what, ya got it! Ziyou is dead! Congratulations!”
“W… what?”
“Phazer and Glaz too. Para is in the ICU and half the damn runners up got tossed or won’t be able to put a scratch on this thing. Bastard hit as the rest of the team made off for HQ or some shit. Target is still in the open and headed down the Eagle.”
“B-but… This isn’t how it was supposed to-“
“Get in the club! They still won’t let me in city limits remember! Just get a move on. You’re the only heavy in range they’ll let loose. Commander Jackson’s on point with the armor. And please get there before this thing gets to them.”
“…huhh. On my way.”
*click*
“Okay Osci, let’s go kill something.”
Hollow.
Caved,
Dark.
Crushed.
Armored steps, weighed down by an immeasurable burden.
A slow and rhythmic stomp echoing through a light scorched rut.
The abused concrete crumbling to dust. Asphalt crackling its hardened to gloss as it shattered. The plaza and promenade the stretched out from The Hill’s base now broken and defiled. The entire district stuck in darkness as powerlines were drained and fried by siphon and stellar might. Only that artificial mountain itself left as a bastion against the dark. A shining example, broken out of. Turned away from.
In to a march of empty want.
Stretching into the empty streets of the city sleeping undisturbed. Streetlights flickering as those steps entered their pools. As the darkness created was left behind. The eyes of the suit dark, burned out for a second time. But now in tandem with the scorched edges of that twice broken maw. And the charred scars of so much pain poured upon its surface.
The steps grew heavier. Not stomped in menace or diligence, but like the will to continue was waning each time a foot fell. The arms swaying and clanking at their sides too empty to hold position. The head only hunched slightly, but still hung with all it carried. All signs pointing to a common conclusion.
Seth was tired.
Tired of fighting. Tired of hating. Tired of all the pointless emotions that filled him over and over again. Tired of being looked at. Tired of being present. Tired of endlessly reaching for…
For…?
He couldn’t even remember what anymore. He’d wanted something. Needed to get to it. But he couldn’t think of what it was. Could picture or feel or understand what it was. Just that he’d wanted it. But now… it didn’t matter.
The only thing he knew, they only thing he was, the only thing that was left of him…
Was tired.
And the only thing he wanted to do now was go home.
To go to bed. To leave this day in the past and move on. The faint remainder of his will and conscience held this feeling like a candle against the wind, not knowing where it came from or who lit it. Who huddled around him to keep him moving forward. But it was all he knew now, and all he cared about. Everything else was just darkness, consumed by something still clinging to his edges, holding tight to his psyche yet unable to sway. Kept at bay by the feelings shining in that dim fleeting flame. By those pressing down upon him like someone there to help. And by that overwhelming want to drift away.
It was forced to be just as tired as he was. Just as beaten and empty as streets of Kadia he trudged through, with that single purpose left guiding him on. With so beautifully clear a vision for his ultimate goal.
To just finally rest.
The night dragged, streets devoid of cars or people or any sign of life. The hour too late for the night crowds and too early for the morning shifts. And yet still so eerily empty.
A faint light grew in the east, cloudy skies reflected and advanced the dawn beyond its reach. A fog rolling in and swallowing the horizon, and much of the city with it.
The mist only adding to the spread of the coming dawn, blotted out any definition that could be had of it beyond the rising light. Yet the streets remained unused as the time for early commuters came, the quiet din of their starting days seeming distant.
Separated.
The fog keeping this… partition of Seth blind of his surroundings. The buildings rendered nothing but shadows and shapes. Even as the sun slowly burned it away, details afforded only to things in close and high and bright.
A few parked cars on the side of the road. Buildings closing in the sky. A flashing street light shining through the cloud ahead. Emergency lights warning in tandem on the shadow filled side streets.
The fog only grew thinner the farther he got, as the city’s defenses becoming clearer in kind. The side streets at every intersection closed and walled off, the only path open the one ahead. But he had but one path to walk anyway.
But through what senses left, and against those trying to stifle, he felt eyes on his back. Heard echoing footfalls and hushed voices. Knew contempt and fear and anger for what they were. Someone was shadowing him, keeping pace and keeping hidden as best they could. Some knowing sense that they would ambush and corral him if he ever deviated. But their distance was considerable, and Seth had no care for turning around. Or fighting any more.
The fog’s coverage diminished to a cumulative haze as he drew closer and closer to home, to what he saw as home, to self-affirmed salvation repeating itself. To that industrial sprawl awaiting him. To that apartment left behind.
But before he could see it, feel some rise at its proximity, know his journey had an end. From that loose haze appeared more solid shadows.
Blocky shapes that took up the whole of the wide road that he'd walked. A shout echoing out giving a small indicator of what awaited him. The sound of formation, of orders, and the intermittent hum of meticulous machine placement.
As he trundled on, that subconscious speculation was affirmed. An armored roadblock staunch and waiting… to stop him?
Question didn’t matter.
They didn’t matter.
Tanks taking up the bulk of the space, angled matte green hulls and compact gun barrels for such city incursions. Armored personnel carriers taking the flanks, their troops spread out before them and their extra firepower added to the mix. A brace of guns mounted to the tops of the armor, heavy machine guns meant to fend off infantry attacks in such confined spaces. Finally a lowered wall of bollards that kept the mechanized platoon of soldiers separated from their intended target. A mix of rifles and shoulder launched munitions all they were afforded. All in all…
Still so little for him to care about.
The why, the how, the means and manner. All of it just in the way. He wanted to sleep, to go home. To just disappear. But even that was blocked.
To the both of them.
As his trudging cleared the distance, turned fog to mist and mist to humidity, a gruff voice echoed from the tensing defensive line. All guns shifted and turrets swiveled to point. To aim at the only thing they were sent here to impede. Orders to keep calm, to hold fire but be ready. A startup of a megaphone and that gruff voice became directed without question. As it yelled into the echo approaching their charge.
“HALT!!!”
The commander looked armored to the teeth, forest padded helmet and vest with matching shoulder and arm guards. No doubt continued with leg armor below the bollard. His face was stern, a voice to match, but it beguiled a more deep seated concern. A fear that shook his words, and washed over Seth’s frayed senses. He had experienced something not too dissimilar to this before. Some history on repeat.
Even if it wasn’t a real one, even if he knew for certain they were gone, it was clear this commander couldn’t shake that he was facing another laceroid approaching his defenses. An oddly in-depth assertion for this, like it was second hand and corrected, directed just so he could understand through the burden placed upon him. Another part? Someone in that huddle? It didn’t matter, nothing mattered. Seth never stopped his slow weighted advance. He may as well have never heard him in the first place.
“I SAID HALT DAMNIT!!! IF YOU TAKE ONE MORE-”
The unceasing metallic metronome cut the commander off without a beat out of place. His fear contorting to take the insult, passing it off as childishness at best. He dropped his megaphone to curse to himself.
“Son of a bitch! PERKINS!! FIRE A WARNING SHOT!!”
A soldier on his right loudly affirmed and leveled his rifle in Seth’s direction. The distance was far, but it was enough to ensure he knew where to shoot. The rifle cracked and a round skipped off the asphalt. The crack echoing with its whizzing underscore, but followed by the continued beat of monotonous steps. The commander’s brow furrowed deeper than its already agitated position, hunching over the bollard defensive line. He’d known this wasn’t going to end so simply. So he raised a hand, a clear indicator that all the soldiers on the line understood. He took a deep closed breath as if still struggling with the inevitable, but he had to go ahead with what must be done. But why did Seth have to care about-
“ALL RIFLES!!! OPEN FIRE!!!”
The quiet of the city was rendered a distant afterthought as a torrent of cracks started with no hesitation afforded. Automatic rifles pouring fire upon him in a cacophonous barrage, only accented by the baffled sounds of rounds ricocheting away. The storm of lead nipped at the asphalt, misses and general deviation spattering pebbles into the air. But the only reward they got from hitting their marks were puffs and sparks.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
The advance continued without regard, small caliber rounds never even a threat, and all of Seth’s focus on that flame never inching away in the slightest. That huddle close, like an arm shielding. Even as brighter flares and tracer rounds dazzled around him. The commander took the ineffectuality as only further consternation. He held a hand to his helmeted ear, a microphone set in for relaying orders under the self-sent noise pollution.
“50s!!! OPEN UP!!!”
The top mounts on the tanks and APCs all took this order, HMGs playing cello in this lead orchestra. The larger rounds added more sparks and fire to the scene, more asphalt dust to their surrounding, but still couldn’t succeed in slowing this already depressed pace. And yet the beating upon his suit had one effect. That protection against pressing too tight. The tinge of irritability, an unwillingness to wake up. Danger rising with the shell caliber. A small flicker that plied to the wind, buffeting away at that small held to flame.
The commander now thoroughly perturbed, history was repeating to him worse than before. At least the real things felt pain and bled. So all signs pointed to hell was reincarnating in his eyes.
“APCs!!! OPEN FIRE!!! VASQUEZ, THOMAS!!! HIT HIM WITH THE AT!!!”
The armored personnel carriers began their staccato, thirty millimeter chain guns with armor piercing rounds so they don’t light the city on fire. Solid shots of firm bass pounding the suit in separate successions, metal spalling like firework stars. Blinding and beating away. But still it all held, the suit and its pace. That torrent rendering a fierce wind whipping, clawing into the midst of that sheltered flame. Flickering its light, drawing attention away. Pulling the curtains too wide. And added something more than fatigue to this monolith…
Pain.
A round veered from center mass and hit an arm, added weight to recoil before the next step could be finished. Throwing it off. The cadence breaking its hypnotizing drone, the flame's dance lost to its only recipient for but a moment, yet retaining in its huddled to warmth. The right eye opening, resistant of takeover and subsuming but still buried deep inside it all. Another fragment of what Seth was in this closed trap. A surviving remainder bereft of memory that now found itself awake and under fire. Just in time for shoulder mounted antitank rockets to come into play.
Two booms in timed sequence, matched as best they could against the barrage so their munitions don’t get intercepted by friendly fire. Stubby and finned, rockets jetting toward him bearing specialized explosives meant to defeat armor just like his. A fact that forced that fragment awake further from under all the burdening weight pressing it down.
They were at least slow by contemporary comparison, one from either side but both pointed at center of mass. Should be an easy dodge, easily avoided. But that awakened mind found itself unable to move, his body refusing and the still clung to greedily. Still held and stifled from too many sides. But despite this lock in lock out, he still had a bit of power at his disposal, and those rockets had detonation fuses.
He focused, reached, rent and jumped lines, sent power jagged to the small timer circuits not expecting a wakeup call. And those rockets exploded into devastating rings of smoke and shrapnel. Crashing a wave of heat and plink off the armor, highlighted the world that fragment had woken up to. Even as smoke shadowed him from the sight of the firing line. As the cacophony finally quieted without a target. It knew it was in the shit.
“CEASE FIRE!!! CEASE FIRE!!!”
This commander wanted to be sure of Seth’s state before ordering further attacks, but it should be obvious that this was useless. The echoing booms and cracking extras died out with the smoke, replaced by that still ever continuous and monotonous walk. His heart visibly sinking as that metal shell cut through, as Seth saw him all the same. But it was not fear that took hold of him.
The awake part of Seth’s psyche could make out his dismay, no second hand direction needed. He could feel the Garkah trying to help maybe, but details were moot right now. His body and the better part of his mind were still set on one thing and one thing only. Getting home. And that thought crept into the awakened part like an intrusive yawn. Dragged at it like it wanted to be made whole, like it shouldn’t be awake. Like it was risking more by glaring out from its shattered hollow. But the given circumstances demanded some kind of consciousness.
The commander steeled his nerve and raised his hand to his ear again, the eyes of transitory fear staring down Seth’s. Fear that was burning to anger. Anger at having to relive the hell he was pulled out of, anger that another hell was about to be realized. Anger at truly dooming his men if all else fails. And anger at that it came fully to this.
“TANKS!!! FIRE AT WILL!!!”
The soldiers ducked from their firing positions, gunners closed their hatches and prepared, but the commander stayed up. He had to be sure. The central tank callously whirred to life, barrel angling to fully acquire the shot. The commander braced hard on the bollard, but concussive force is a hell of an expectation shifter.
The boom kicked the air hard down the line, and he was battered down for his fearful need. The fragment could still hold sway over perceptive reflex, but fought its damnedest for just the slightest reaction with it.
The shell left the barrel in a solid piece, but split rather quickly as air dragged it apart. A sabot discarded from a finned metal penetrator. A solid chuck of dumb metal going way too fast. There was little he could do, the arms refusing to guard and the feet to shift, but it was just metal anyway. And he’d taken worse hits befo-
*BWAAAAMMHHHHHHHhhhhh*
It struck home on the left chest plate and spalled like all the other dumb metal munitions. But fucking hell it hit hard! The rod caved and compacted, cracked in twain, and scattered into a flash of friction heated sparks that splayed every which way. The plate bunched inward, the threads holding tight, the ceramic below cracking apart, but the impact compressed it all too hard to slip through. Seth was smacked like a baseball bat had found its way in, recoiling him in a halo of flash melted slag, arm and shoulder hurled back. The metronome shattered. That flickering flame rendered a glowing wick bared to the gale.
As his foot was forced to take a step back from its once locked path.
The fatigue holding him down forcibly receded. The whole of Seth was definitely awake now, no fragmented pieces alone in the dark. And that was not going to happen… ever… again!
He hunched forward off the recoil, body not quite catching up with this rescission of its peace. The fatigue now just a physical counter to wanton retaliation. Mind alight, but body on auto pilot. It retook his step like a preprogrammed robot as his mind raced at what to do about the next shot.
He didn’t know why he was here, what he was doing, but none of that matter in the slightest. That glowing wick flared its hardest, trying to redraw his mind back down, but the huddle to his defense slipping a bit of power up from under that receding fatigue. Something to use, something to work with. The Garkah knew what to do.
The right tank training over off his recoiled movements, the commander relocked his gaze in realization that this was worse than his previous hell now, because a soft glow was returning to that right eye.
Concussion force battered the line again as the tank fired. The shell leaving the barrel this time was different, a solid piece but oddly shaped. A rod extending out from a wider cylindrical base. A HEAT round like the rockets, a copper jet of shape charged death that Seth wasn’t going to take a hit from.
A shift in huddle, in the layers of the suit roiling sudden. Ark metal coating inside segmenting and spinning against the inner layers. The Garkah could start things up, but he had to jam the power into it. A slapdash magnetic pulse generator starting up like it was nothing but an afterthought to them. The bulk of that power hitting this new system and loosing out as his body took another step. A radiating wave of fire repulse, short range and eaten up by the air, but striking that shell from its straight and narrow flight path. Yanking it for the metal it was made of.
Sending it tumbling with but a single degree needed, to catch drag it wasn’t made for. Sailing end over end as it passed beside him, finned end skipping off the asphalt and disintegrating. But skipping again. Hitting rod down and detonating. The air slammed against the suit as chunks of road and metal shrapnel struck, the worst avoided but the danger far from denied.
The commander had withstood the second blast enough to retain his lock, but he was wishing he hadn’t. He shook as his own fire was doused, as the third tank finished aiming and fired. Another blast, but the fear flooding left him frozen to it. Another shell, this one fat, solid, and standard. Full of high explosive and not as dangerous to the armor, but it would turn Seth to jelly in a can.
Another charge up and power feed. Another step loosed repulsive magnetic pulse. It pushed the shell off its flight path and threw it over his right shoulder. The fat gymnastic hunk of explosives dropping its path close to the sidewalk, touched the road fuse first and-
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
Windows on nearly every building shattered. The front of some barely seen store bashed inward. The blast wave kicking the suit like the mallet to a gong, smacking him forward and cutting the world out of stereo. A trickle of blood tickled at a lobe as pain beat out the ring in his ears. But despite the fiery smoke that swallowed him up, despite meticulous ordinance and the pressure wave's disregard, the beat of metal on asphalt continued
And Seth came back into view just as menacing.
The commander could barely handle it anymore, returning to that day long ago only he could see. But his troops could still catch this fear for themselves. Slowly, painfully, he raised a shaking hand. A silent signal so they wouldn’t hear the fear in his voice. The tanks held their fire, the cycling of rounds undoubtedly taking place. The troops retook their positions but could do little to suppress this collective apprehension. The APCs reacquired their target, the top mounted machine gunners turned back out and racked their cellos to prepare for the full arrangement on coming.
Every gun was set to do whatever they could to this ever advancing and nigh indestructible terror. The commander keeping his hand high so everyone could see, so Seth could see and feel at least some amount of fear for what was about to come down on him. One last ditch bluff to get him to stop, to just halt, to end this terror before it became the massacre he knew it would be. He closed his eyes tight, not wanting to see their vain attempt at stymying the inevitable end oncoming.
But a sound kept him from his fall.
A whirling whistle in everyone’s ear falling for itself before he could solidify this grim resolve. A metallic tone, like metal in the air. Singing so none would be left unknowing of its arrival. He opened his eyes to see and know, just as the massive slab tossed skyward stabbed down before the bollard in front of him. A tide, a wave of fear to crash and pull back what was flooding him out, to recoiling him before making him understand he didn’t need to make this call. To cure the tension to stunned happy silence.
“Sorry! ‘Scuse me. Coming through!”
A voice like a flower drenched in motor oil, a overblown stature that immediately drew this relieved attention from every soldier no longer awaiting that order. It was a hero, come to spare them this fate. And a heavy hitter if there ever was one.
She was tall, a good six ten, and with a physique that could only truly be called amazonian. Her hair blond, but kept short and a little spiky. Her suit surplus like much of the rest, an odd chrome detailing the only stand out feature of the standard dark grey suit. Her insignia though clearly where all her creativity got put. Though vanity may be a bit more apt. A landscape sunrise over a field of broken debris, with her holding a massive sword up in a victorious pose.
Seth couldn’t really place who she was, but it was plainly evident what her specialty was. The slab of metal, the sword she just chucked over too many unprepared heads, was truly abhorrent in size. A blade as tall as or taller than she was and at least a foot and a half in width, with a handle that could seat four hands. Its surface gleaming a dimming greenish hue, not as vibrant as the true Eschenwald but still definitely in the running. Whoever she was, this wasn’t going to end easy.
The commander narrowly slid down the bollard as she approached from the rear of the defensive line, after shot putting her sword rather dangerously close to him. But his relief had to be muted, for the soldier’s sake.
“Buster!! What the hell took so long!?!”
She raised up her bulky arm and rubbed the back of her head as she stooped to face the exacerbated commander.
“Heh…heh. Sorry, it’s a bit early for my shift.”
The commander did everything in his power to not chastise her for sleeping in on a day like today. But he seemed to notice just as Seth did.
That it was quiet.
The monotonous beat of his advance had stopped when all eyes had shifted to their savior. Now the commander turned back, both to draw attention to the task at hand and to see why his nightmare now stood dead in his tracks.
That candle, that hypnotic guiding flame, that last lone crack in the abyss subsuming him was crushed. The huddle guiding and keeping him overpowered. All around him he could feel the thing waking up, feel it ripple in the presence of real resistance. Of a real fight. His subconscious want, the Garkah trying, nothing could keep it suppressed anymore. The fatigue and more appealing emotional prospects disregarded and tossed aside. It was coming back to the forefront with a will all its own.
Opposite this waxing this Buster seemed to smile, despite the commander’s dire attitude. Like it was her natural state. She moved past him and hopped the bollard. Reaching a hand out to grasp her sword, the hue reversing its dim and waxing its own luster.
“Sorry for keeping you waiting!! Not many villains choose to rampage so early in the morning!! But hey, I’m not complaining… about your timing!”
A tension in her grasping arm, muscles made themselves known through short cut sleeve, the wrapping on the grip crinkled audibly in the now quieted air.
“What I will say is you have shit choice in targets!!”
Her smile waned, though her eyes belied nothing of her intent. And the hate flaring behind them.
“You have shit regard for others' wellbeing!!”
The sword suddenly lifted, asphalt afforded no purchase on the now dazzling blade that Buster turned around in her hand like a pen! Instead of the hundred pound slab of metal that it was! Flashing it into an offensive pointing stance over her right shoulder, hands shifting to compensate. Her smile disappeared in the exuding hue of the sword, and a true burning anger came to the surface.
“And you have a lot of nerve killing MY FRIENDS!!!”
The abyss knew full well this was coming. More pain to feed from and more reason to pull power. More… food…?
Seth was being pulled back down, but he felt the tug of fatigue leave him be as he fell away. Even the abyss couldn’t keep up this constant turmoil. He just had to hope that this ended… before…
They all DIE!!!
HERE
THE MIXTAPE IN QUESTION.