08-07-2017, 01:11 AM
Below Miss Stormtrooper’s silver tinted helmet she had to smirk, cocky. She liked it. The natural flirt held her tongue though. This was business, not pleasure. She’d been called in for overtime, making her eleven thirty shift and extending it past dawn. Luckily she could drink energy inducing coffee on the ride there. She had he coordinates for the islands in her sector, she had her squad, plus one. The smile on her plump and masked lips held. She’d made an amazing choice recruiting this man. Now, content with her choice it was time.
“Let’s roll out boys!” she commanded, charisma and authority in both her body language and her march as the others fell in step, their footfalls followed hers exactly on mark.
From just her outer shell, one at a glance could note that this trooper, while her voice was disguised in a unisex digital voice box, she was not like the others. It was not just her high station, nor her chrome and black detailed armor. She had multiple weapons slung every which way, carbine hanging off her back. A belt full of gear and grenades. She was not your classic trooper from just a single look. She was someone who had been readying for wear her whole life. Dante would hate to go against this brawny macho dude and was glad they were allies, the similarities between he and the silver layered storm trooper was there in both obvious and subtle places. Proficient in many weapons. Keen in command.
Next, there was the curious recruitment of a prime. She’d known just where to look, what door to knock on. Dante flicked his albino hair and allowed the moon to glint off of it in silver shards. Both he and the anonymous yet flashy trooper were catching the silver strands of light.
“Redgrave,” the digital voice commanded in a firmness despite the monotone and uniform box. In her hand she was holding the coordinates in a holographic tablet in her hands and also had it synced up to her night-vision visor, “These are the coordinates. I’m glad to have you with us. If you help us extract the civilians successfully, you’ll be rewarded.” Money. Bribery was good for a merc.
Miss Stormtrooper though, had her own reasons for his recruitment. Selfish, be as they may, what wouldn’t she do to save innocent lives?
“My name is Commander Clark. I’m heading up this mission, this is my platoon. I trained them myself, so they’re not like any other Empire drones who wear the badge without the balls or skill to back it up,” Redgrave looked at the men. The dots connected from his original observation, he nodded. Distinguished lines he could make out along the trace decals of the other stormtrooper elite.
“What are those, commander?” he gestured to the lines that had more or less covered the men’s legs. Individual cuttings, tallies, like you’d see along a prison wall.
“Kill count.” She grinned and he could hear it in the digital voice. “Some of them have run out of space and have gotten creative. We kill monsters in the Deeps, men who become monsters. Murderers. Invaders like Nebula need to be stopped. We don’t just do it for the kills, but the lives saved too. But I have a little bit of a running with my boys. Once they cover their whole armor inside and out with the engravings and markings, I buy them an upgrade personally. Any color suit they want. Any kind of suit they want. Jimmy over there wants a fuckin’ jetpack. AND YOU’LL GET IT TOO!” she called out to him as she pointed to one particularly tall trooper, his head bobbed above the rest of the moonlit helmets.
“Interesting,” Dante reflected. He thinked he respected this branch in Costa Del Sol just a little more than the Coruscant based Empire.
“More like fuckin’ savage,” she snirked back. “Choose your words wisely. Else you might just get yourself punched for it. Their manners aren’t always the best when dealing with recruited outsiders. But I figure if we get corrupted and go down, I’d rather give the survivors we are rescuing a chance to live with a prime. I saw your fight in the games with Gildarts. You fought well against the crashmage. He’s a fuckin’ beast.”
She didn’t mention how she’d seen him today. Pleasure didn’t mix with business. This wasn’t small talk to her, it was briefing. “I want to talk about some of your maneuvers. Forgive me for presuming, but I think I have a few tips on how to slay our current enemy faster. The Empire honestly don’t have that much intel on Nebula’s Hellhounds. Get too close though and they’ll infect you. That’s why I brought you this. I can’t even be sure it’ll work, but it’s for you.”
She pat his back with the strength of a man and pushed Dante forward mid-step. He nearly slipped. A greasy white sheen glinted over him. “It is elite technology. They don’t even make this fuckin’ stuff. I don’t either. But I have very good, savvy connections with engineers. They’re a little illegal, but I make a deal with them.” she wiggled her brows though he couldn’t see it. Corruption? Sure, but it was motherfuckin’ worth while.
“Paying you means you keep your mouth shut about that and my sources though,” she continued her session.
“What is it?” Dante’s hand extended out in front of him and as though he were wearing a second glove about an inch from his fingers, ripples of static light extended.
“It is the best shield you can get. We’d be in deeper shit if you got corrupted. My men have one that is similar, but slightly less effective. Yours is a prototype, but I’ve tried it my fuckin’ self underwater several missions ago. It is fuckin’ flawless.” She had a bit of a sailor’s mouth, but what marine didn’t? She had the baddassery, wit, and retorts so far to back it up.
The respect was nearly instant, though she was just a secondary with the same visored “face” as the other twenty men in her ‘toon. They were nearing the army’s sectioned off dock. The chrome commander was instantly waved through and she walked across the gate with a strut as the guardsman inspected the prime with a glare he could feel through the visor. “Who’s that?”
She spoke simply, “He is with me. Lieutenant.” Those were the magic words. No further questions. Clark got shit motherfuckin’ done.
“Right boys, you ready to slay some bitches and rescue the survivors?” Clark said as they all boarded a docked imperial boat, it was a more of a warship, but it was smallish considering the other submarines surrounding the bay had enough space for F-22 and spacecraft alike to land.
But, every inch was utilized, and there were space for plenty of survivors. They filed underneath the deck and her men strapped in. Why? They were just on a boat? “You better do the same, Redgrave, we move pretty fast, that’s why she’s this size. Nimble. Gets me where I need my men to be quick.”
Dante assessed the half-lit cargo area with seats lining against the wall, like that of a movie theater, their seats flipped down. Conserving space, smart.
“Right, there’s a few things we do know about Nebula’s bitches. Not all of them deserve to die, they were, after all, turned from our own Vasty Deeps residents. But they’re gunning to decapitate you without a fuckin’ single hesitation. And if it comes down to it, you’ve my permission to shoot to kill. I’d rather save the uninfected than risk you men dying for a plague that may not have a cure. I’m told there are Primes on the frontlines of the invasion. We won’t be going to aid them. That’d be suicide. We’ll rack up the survivors, rescue them. Prevent further takeover, if we can. Our mission: Save the uninfected. There’s plenty of standing room on this boat, it could hold three hundred civvies if we got creative. We’d just move a little slower. So men, are you ready to kill some mother fucking asshole Darkling scum?”
“Fuck yeah!” a chorus roared.
“That’s my men,” she commented, her gait wide before she was notified that they’d be departing. She sat down and showed them a map which expanded in front of all of them on a holograph, due to the display of the tablet she’d been carrying.
“In our sector, they sent us to some pretty dangerous spots, islands in dire need of evacuation. Highlighted in the x’s are our targets. Suvivors are hunkered down in their bunkers, waiting there for us. We haven’t got time to twiddle our fucking thumbs, so we are going to haul fucking ass and get in there. Those red blotches you see on the map are where the artillery of the islands is facing the most resistance. That means the Darklings are overwhelming those locations. Soldiers are dying. Innocent people are dying. Let’s remember why we are here. Let us remember, in this moment, why we fight.”
There was a reason she was the commander of the most elite non-prime stormtrooper unit in the Vasty Deep. She preferred it out here in the unknown rather than cooped up in the stuffy city with lawmen breathing down her neck. She wasn’t that type of trooper, she wasn’t the type to be kept on a leash. Her gaze flicked to Dante, he could tell because her neck had twisted like an owl’s as her helmet slowly turned.
“Do you copy? I mean, understand the plan?” she asked the Prime.
“Slay some of Nebula’s darkspawn, right?” Dante said back, breifly.
“That’s right. Feel free to get creative. My boys like to show off in battle, you best earn your keep and impress them. You’re the first prime to ever even temporarily join our forces.” she stated, almost proud.
Dante merely nodded and his eyes fell back on the glowing geographically accurate map.
“Our radar scanned maps are usually very accurate, that’s why I’d like to point out the storm moving into the furthest island. Good thing we are going there first, do you see? This is the route we are taking back.” Commander Clark pointed and a glowing orange line was highlighted back, “Though, we might need to improvise, could get a little bumpy.”
Suddenly Clark held a hand up to the side of her helmet, “Go for Clark,” she commanded and listened to the information being fed to her within the confines of her silver-coated, ceramic-looking shade.
“You worthless piece of shit!” she growled, “That’s it. I’m coming up there.”
She unclipped her seatbelt and clamoured up the metal stairs with curt steps, tempered with anger.
Something told Dante that it was a bad idea to get on that man’s bad side. The demon prince’s eyes fell on the shining armor of those around him, elite platoon, huh? They all looked uniform, except for their all very unique kill counts. Perhaps that was the reason she let them keep count. So they’d all have unique stripes, like tigers in battle. Earned with bloodspill. It was brutal, but also a bit genius. Most of the deceased likely deserved it. He got the idea she slayed a lot of non-human monsters, which set Dante at ease. Yet another thing he had in common with Clark.
The boat continued to throttle forward, like a rocket eternally blasting off. The superior technology had thrusters that were blue and frothing with hyper-soundwaves that he could hear whirling despite the very thick outer shell this versatile boat was armored with. Likely one of Clark’s “kind of illegal” investments. This type of savvy, however, was likely the reason that Clark was one of the best. Elite didn’t equal ‘by the book’ but it did mean that they were well-versed fighters. Likely among the best in the Omniverse. He was thankful they were fighting on the right side.
Soon enough, the immense buzzing of the rippling shivers that cascaded through the vibrating metal slowed and the men waited for Clark to come down (or send them the command through their built-in communicators) for the direction to clear out. The commander’s clinking was sounding through the hollow belly of the steel ship as she descended the stairs.
“Well what are you pussies waiting for? HAUL FUCKING ASS!” she shouted and the voicebox blared with sharp tones. The men all simultaneously unclipped their restraints and began their ascent. “You too!” She hollered in a much more kindly voice, “Prime you’re with me.”
Above deck. It was Hell. Clark’s eyes scanned the scene as she was pelted with unearthly hail, gusts of surging wind, and precipitation spraying against her visor in sheets. She blinked, getting accustomed to the shitty weather as the dew accumulated in beads on her shaded glass. They’d arrived at the first island, their most intense checkpoint. In the shade of night, it was difficult even with tech-granted night vision to make out anything. Heat vision helped a lot and she told her men to switch to that via radio.
“Confirmed. Copy.” they replied back.
“Welcome to Hell, Redgrave. Also known as the frontlines and no-man’s land, though I bet you’ve been here before.” Clark stated with a slight incline to her tone, barely detectable in her voicebox.
Oh, if only he knew. Dante thought regarding Commander Clark.
Through Dante’s vision, he had a keen, experienced eye when catching the shadows of demons. Even through the storm, he could sense their tainted, corrupted presence crawling beneath his skin. Making his flesh warm with heat and power. His blood began to pound as the ramp ported to the land.
All along the shoreline, the charts shown their route behind the stormtrooper’s visors. Dante didn’t have one, but he’d gotten a good enough look at the map. Plus, he was considered “the help” in this situation. The soldiers had their job, extract the civilians. And Dante had his, what he was getting paid for. Ridding the battlefield of the bombardment of the closest thing to a demon in the Deeps, save himself.
“Redgrave, let’s clear these fuckers a path so they can get to the bunker where the civvies are huddled down. Eh?” she proposed.
“I couldn’t agree more.” he said with a nod, his expression serious. There was no time to waste. It was time to start de-shelling these electric, remote-controlled, sad excuses for hellspawn.
“Right. Grenade out!” She shouted, as commonly as a golfer would yell fore! down the golf course and she chucked a blue illuminated grenade into a hoard of flickering dark wings. Yes, they were actually flying in this hellish weather.
An explosion of static cascaded through the sky, transferring like lightning in the already cataclysmic storm. The water and high precipitation rate had made the stunning zap of electricity transfer through the close-flying fleet of the Darkling swarm like dominoes. They all fell as one and their wings froze due to the debilitating volts of electricity. Clark was ruthless, she didn’t even wait until they’d hit the flat ground before pulling out her gun and mowing them down.
Cackling sparks of electricity continued around the ebony-polished shells as more lead bullets poured into the beasts. No mercy, even for the spawn who had been ‘Deep natives and turned. Sacrifices needed to be made in war to save those who were still salvageable. Plus, finishing off the contaminated meant less to get contaminated in the islands to come. Calculations and tactics were steep and harsh, but cauterizing the wound before it could get worse was generally the right call.
Well, Dante wasn’t going to let her have all the fun, the troopers rolled out behind the two leaders, Clark and Dante, as they paved the way.
…
Meanwhile, on an island with three Primes on it, with one doll…
They were talking about Jewel, Gildarts was moderately intrigued. Takezo and Dust were to be his apprentices, Dust, moreso. Takezo was stoking the fire. Gildarts guessed this would be a flash-flame cooking technique, one likely invented by travelers like themselves. The Prime smiled. He was relaxing. The humble tunes of music filled his ears with sweet, zen vibes and the ginger sat back in his chair looking off at the rippling waves. He had no way of knowing, just beyond many miles of ocean, people were fighting for their lives. All that, was shaded by darkness, the darkness, of a lack of knowledge.
“I’ll start with beer first,” Gildarts said calmly. Hard liquor was tough on his old-man, and very.. .Tempered stomach. He never, never announced it. But part of it had been damaged in the fight against the demonic death dragon, Acnologia. “My tolerance has been shot for years. I don’t get the privilege of safe drinking very often.”
“Safe drinking?” Takezo parroted. “But you are a man!”
“A dangerous one,” Gildarts said as he let a refreshing ahh flow forth from his lips after taking a sip of a chilled beer Dust had cracked open for him and poured in a stein. “I don’t like to endanger the innocent. Even my sneezes can kill people!” he stated and waited for the exasperated look on the swordsman. The samurai wasn’t quite shocked though, it wasn’t new knowledge for him, he’d bore witness on the beach.
“You, fine sir, would be very rich where I hail from,” Takezo said as he the smoldering meat cooked.
“You know, I don’t really have many friends. Allies, sure, but you’re the closest thing I’ve gotten, aside from Guu and my daughter.” Gildarts reflected. It wasn’t too early in the night to get nostalgic. The tunes were playing, their stomachs were about to be filled with wonderful, tender meat and Gildarts was already sipping the beer. He wasn’t too eager, but the mage was a lightweight from either months or years of a dry spell. The man deserved a medal, and another drink. Dust was serving them all up, they’d experiment their tastes together, and Gildarts was willing to try a few sips of whiskey, if he was served them.
The ocean temperately whispered on in the distance, the beautiful colors molding into the lovely little buzz he was starting to get from his booze. The lightness on his shoulders was refreshing, a welcomed vacation from the mighty Atlas’s burden. Yes, this moment, full of goodness, was paradise. And he had hopes that soon Takezo would fill his empty plate with a well-seasoned freshly slain meal.
“Let’s roll out boys!” she commanded, charisma and authority in both her body language and her march as the others fell in step, their footfalls followed hers exactly on mark.
From just her outer shell, one at a glance could note that this trooper, while her voice was disguised in a unisex digital voice box, she was not like the others. It was not just her high station, nor her chrome and black detailed armor. She had multiple weapons slung every which way, carbine hanging off her back. A belt full of gear and grenades. She was not your classic trooper from just a single look. She was someone who had been readying for wear her whole life. Dante would hate to go against this brawny macho dude and was glad they were allies, the similarities between he and the silver layered storm trooper was there in both obvious and subtle places. Proficient in many weapons. Keen in command.
Next, there was the curious recruitment of a prime. She’d known just where to look, what door to knock on. Dante flicked his albino hair and allowed the moon to glint off of it in silver shards. Both he and the anonymous yet flashy trooper were catching the silver strands of light.
“Redgrave,” the digital voice commanded in a firmness despite the monotone and uniform box. In her hand she was holding the coordinates in a holographic tablet in her hands and also had it synced up to her night-vision visor, “These are the coordinates. I’m glad to have you with us. If you help us extract the civilians successfully, you’ll be rewarded.” Money. Bribery was good for a merc.
Miss Stormtrooper though, had her own reasons for his recruitment. Selfish, be as they may, what wouldn’t she do to save innocent lives?
“My name is Commander Clark. I’m heading up this mission, this is my platoon. I trained them myself, so they’re not like any other Empire drones who wear the badge without the balls or skill to back it up,” Redgrave looked at the men. The dots connected from his original observation, he nodded. Distinguished lines he could make out along the trace decals of the other stormtrooper elite.
“What are those, commander?” he gestured to the lines that had more or less covered the men’s legs. Individual cuttings, tallies, like you’d see along a prison wall.
“Kill count.” She grinned and he could hear it in the digital voice. “Some of them have run out of space and have gotten creative. We kill monsters in the Deeps, men who become monsters. Murderers. Invaders like Nebula need to be stopped. We don’t just do it for the kills, but the lives saved too. But I have a little bit of a running with my boys. Once they cover their whole armor inside and out with the engravings and markings, I buy them an upgrade personally. Any color suit they want. Any kind of suit they want. Jimmy over there wants a fuckin’ jetpack. AND YOU’LL GET IT TOO!” she called out to him as she pointed to one particularly tall trooper, his head bobbed above the rest of the moonlit helmets.
“Interesting,” Dante reflected. He thinked he respected this branch in Costa Del Sol just a little more than the Coruscant based Empire.
“More like fuckin’ savage,” she snirked back. “Choose your words wisely. Else you might just get yourself punched for it. Their manners aren’t always the best when dealing with recruited outsiders. But I figure if we get corrupted and go down, I’d rather give the survivors we are rescuing a chance to live with a prime. I saw your fight in the games with Gildarts. You fought well against the crashmage. He’s a fuckin’ beast.”
She didn’t mention how she’d seen him today. Pleasure didn’t mix with business. This wasn’t small talk to her, it was briefing. “I want to talk about some of your maneuvers. Forgive me for presuming, but I think I have a few tips on how to slay our current enemy faster. The Empire honestly don’t have that much intel on Nebula’s Hellhounds. Get too close though and they’ll infect you. That’s why I brought you this. I can’t even be sure it’ll work, but it’s for you.”
She pat his back with the strength of a man and pushed Dante forward mid-step. He nearly slipped. A greasy white sheen glinted over him. “It is elite technology. They don’t even make this fuckin’ stuff. I don’t either. But I have very good, savvy connections with engineers. They’re a little illegal, but I make a deal with them.” she wiggled her brows though he couldn’t see it. Corruption? Sure, but it was motherfuckin’ worth while.
“Paying you means you keep your mouth shut about that and my sources though,” she continued her session.
“What is it?” Dante’s hand extended out in front of him and as though he were wearing a second glove about an inch from his fingers, ripples of static light extended.
“It is the best shield you can get. We’d be in deeper shit if you got corrupted. My men have one that is similar, but slightly less effective. Yours is a prototype, but I’ve tried it my fuckin’ self underwater several missions ago. It is fuckin’ flawless.” She had a bit of a sailor’s mouth, but what marine didn’t? She had the baddassery, wit, and retorts so far to back it up.
The respect was nearly instant, though she was just a secondary with the same visored “face” as the other twenty men in her ‘toon. They were nearing the army’s sectioned off dock. The chrome commander was instantly waved through and she walked across the gate with a strut as the guardsman inspected the prime with a glare he could feel through the visor. “Who’s that?”
She spoke simply, “He is with me. Lieutenant.” Those were the magic words. No further questions. Clark got shit motherfuckin’ done.
“Right boys, you ready to slay some bitches and rescue the survivors?” Clark said as they all boarded a docked imperial boat, it was a more of a warship, but it was smallish considering the other submarines surrounding the bay had enough space for F-22 and spacecraft alike to land.
But, every inch was utilized, and there were space for plenty of survivors. They filed underneath the deck and her men strapped in. Why? They were just on a boat? “You better do the same, Redgrave, we move pretty fast, that’s why she’s this size. Nimble. Gets me where I need my men to be quick.”
Dante assessed the half-lit cargo area with seats lining against the wall, like that of a movie theater, their seats flipped down. Conserving space, smart.
“Right, there’s a few things we do know about Nebula’s bitches. Not all of them deserve to die, they were, after all, turned from our own Vasty Deeps residents. But they’re gunning to decapitate you without a fuckin’ single hesitation. And if it comes down to it, you’ve my permission to shoot to kill. I’d rather save the uninfected than risk you men dying for a plague that may not have a cure. I’m told there are Primes on the frontlines of the invasion. We won’t be going to aid them. That’d be suicide. We’ll rack up the survivors, rescue them. Prevent further takeover, if we can. Our mission: Save the uninfected. There’s plenty of standing room on this boat, it could hold three hundred civvies if we got creative. We’d just move a little slower. So men, are you ready to kill some mother fucking asshole Darkling scum?”
“Fuck yeah!” a chorus roared.
“That’s my men,” she commented, her gait wide before she was notified that they’d be departing. She sat down and showed them a map which expanded in front of all of them on a holograph, due to the display of the tablet she’d been carrying.
“In our sector, they sent us to some pretty dangerous spots, islands in dire need of evacuation. Highlighted in the x’s are our targets. Suvivors are hunkered down in their bunkers, waiting there for us. We haven’t got time to twiddle our fucking thumbs, so we are going to haul fucking ass and get in there. Those red blotches you see on the map are where the artillery of the islands is facing the most resistance. That means the Darklings are overwhelming those locations. Soldiers are dying. Innocent people are dying. Let’s remember why we are here. Let us remember, in this moment, why we fight.”
There was a reason she was the commander of the most elite non-prime stormtrooper unit in the Vasty Deep. She preferred it out here in the unknown rather than cooped up in the stuffy city with lawmen breathing down her neck. She wasn’t that type of trooper, she wasn’t the type to be kept on a leash. Her gaze flicked to Dante, he could tell because her neck had twisted like an owl’s as her helmet slowly turned.
“Do you copy? I mean, understand the plan?” she asked the Prime.
“Slay some of Nebula’s darkspawn, right?” Dante said back, breifly.
“That’s right. Feel free to get creative. My boys like to show off in battle, you best earn your keep and impress them. You’re the first prime to ever even temporarily join our forces.” she stated, almost proud.
Dante merely nodded and his eyes fell back on the glowing geographically accurate map.
“Our radar scanned maps are usually very accurate, that’s why I’d like to point out the storm moving into the furthest island. Good thing we are going there first, do you see? This is the route we are taking back.” Commander Clark pointed and a glowing orange line was highlighted back, “Though, we might need to improvise, could get a little bumpy.”
Suddenly Clark held a hand up to the side of her helmet, “Go for Clark,” she commanded and listened to the information being fed to her within the confines of her silver-coated, ceramic-looking shade.
“You worthless piece of shit!” she growled, “That’s it. I’m coming up there.”
She unclipped her seatbelt and clamoured up the metal stairs with curt steps, tempered with anger.
Something told Dante that it was a bad idea to get on that man’s bad side. The demon prince’s eyes fell on the shining armor of those around him, elite platoon, huh? They all looked uniform, except for their all very unique kill counts. Perhaps that was the reason she let them keep count. So they’d all have unique stripes, like tigers in battle. Earned with bloodspill. It was brutal, but also a bit genius. Most of the deceased likely deserved it. He got the idea she slayed a lot of non-human monsters, which set Dante at ease. Yet another thing he had in common with Clark.
The boat continued to throttle forward, like a rocket eternally blasting off. The superior technology had thrusters that were blue and frothing with hyper-soundwaves that he could hear whirling despite the very thick outer shell this versatile boat was armored with. Likely one of Clark’s “kind of illegal” investments. This type of savvy, however, was likely the reason that Clark was one of the best. Elite didn’t equal ‘by the book’ but it did mean that they were well-versed fighters. Likely among the best in the Omniverse. He was thankful they were fighting on the right side.
Soon enough, the immense buzzing of the rippling shivers that cascaded through the vibrating metal slowed and the men waited for Clark to come down (or send them the command through their built-in communicators) for the direction to clear out. The commander’s clinking was sounding through the hollow belly of the steel ship as she descended the stairs.
“Well what are you pussies waiting for? HAUL FUCKING ASS!” she shouted and the voicebox blared with sharp tones. The men all simultaneously unclipped their restraints and began their ascent. “You too!” She hollered in a much more kindly voice, “Prime you’re with me.”
Above deck. It was Hell. Clark’s eyes scanned the scene as she was pelted with unearthly hail, gusts of surging wind, and precipitation spraying against her visor in sheets. She blinked, getting accustomed to the shitty weather as the dew accumulated in beads on her shaded glass. They’d arrived at the first island, their most intense checkpoint. In the shade of night, it was difficult even with tech-granted night vision to make out anything. Heat vision helped a lot and she told her men to switch to that via radio.
“Confirmed. Copy.” they replied back.
“Welcome to Hell, Redgrave. Also known as the frontlines and no-man’s land, though I bet you’ve been here before.” Clark stated with a slight incline to her tone, barely detectable in her voicebox.
Oh, if only he knew. Dante thought regarding Commander Clark.
Through Dante’s vision, he had a keen, experienced eye when catching the shadows of demons. Even through the storm, he could sense their tainted, corrupted presence crawling beneath his skin. Making his flesh warm with heat and power. His blood began to pound as the ramp ported to the land.
All along the shoreline, the charts shown their route behind the stormtrooper’s visors. Dante didn’t have one, but he’d gotten a good enough look at the map. Plus, he was considered “the help” in this situation. The soldiers had their job, extract the civilians. And Dante had his, what he was getting paid for. Ridding the battlefield of the bombardment of the closest thing to a demon in the Deeps, save himself.
“Redgrave, let’s clear these fuckers a path so they can get to the bunker where the civvies are huddled down. Eh?” she proposed.
“I couldn’t agree more.” he said with a nod, his expression serious. There was no time to waste. It was time to start de-shelling these electric, remote-controlled, sad excuses for hellspawn.
“Right. Grenade out!” She shouted, as commonly as a golfer would yell fore! down the golf course and she chucked a blue illuminated grenade into a hoard of flickering dark wings. Yes, they were actually flying in this hellish weather.
An explosion of static cascaded through the sky, transferring like lightning in the already cataclysmic storm. The water and high precipitation rate had made the stunning zap of electricity transfer through the close-flying fleet of the Darkling swarm like dominoes. They all fell as one and their wings froze due to the debilitating volts of electricity. Clark was ruthless, she didn’t even wait until they’d hit the flat ground before pulling out her gun and mowing them down.
Cackling sparks of electricity continued around the ebony-polished shells as more lead bullets poured into the beasts. No mercy, even for the spawn who had been ‘Deep natives and turned. Sacrifices needed to be made in war to save those who were still salvageable. Plus, finishing off the contaminated meant less to get contaminated in the islands to come. Calculations and tactics were steep and harsh, but cauterizing the wound before it could get worse was generally the right call.
Well, Dante wasn’t going to let her have all the fun, the troopers rolled out behind the two leaders, Clark and Dante, as they paved the way.
…
Meanwhile, on an island with three Primes on it, with one doll…
They were talking about Jewel, Gildarts was moderately intrigued. Takezo and Dust were to be his apprentices, Dust, moreso. Takezo was stoking the fire. Gildarts guessed this would be a flash-flame cooking technique, one likely invented by travelers like themselves. The Prime smiled. He was relaxing. The humble tunes of music filled his ears with sweet, zen vibes and the ginger sat back in his chair looking off at the rippling waves. He had no way of knowing, just beyond many miles of ocean, people were fighting for their lives. All that, was shaded by darkness, the darkness, of a lack of knowledge.
“I’ll start with beer first,” Gildarts said calmly. Hard liquor was tough on his old-man, and very.. .Tempered stomach. He never, never announced it. But part of it had been damaged in the fight against the demonic death dragon, Acnologia. “My tolerance has been shot for years. I don’t get the privilege of safe drinking very often.”
“Safe drinking?” Takezo parroted. “But you are a man!”
“A dangerous one,” Gildarts said as he let a refreshing ahh flow forth from his lips after taking a sip of a chilled beer Dust had cracked open for him and poured in a stein. “I don’t like to endanger the innocent. Even my sneezes can kill people!” he stated and waited for the exasperated look on the swordsman. The samurai wasn’t quite shocked though, it wasn’t new knowledge for him, he’d bore witness on the beach.
“You, fine sir, would be very rich where I hail from,” Takezo said as he the smoldering meat cooked.
“You know, I don’t really have many friends. Allies, sure, but you’re the closest thing I’ve gotten, aside from Guu and my daughter.” Gildarts reflected. It wasn’t too early in the night to get nostalgic. The tunes were playing, their stomachs were about to be filled with wonderful, tender meat and Gildarts was already sipping the beer. He wasn’t too eager, but the mage was a lightweight from either months or years of a dry spell. The man deserved a medal, and another drink. Dust was serving them all up, they’d experiment their tastes together, and Gildarts was willing to try a few sips of whiskey, if he was served them.
The ocean temperately whispered on in the distance, the beautiful colors molding into the lovely little buzz he was starting to get from his booze. The lightness on his shoulders was refreshing, a welcomed vacation from the mighty Atlas’s burden. Yes, this moment, full of goodness, was paradise. And he had hopes that soon Takezo would fill his empty plate with a well-seasoned freshly slain meal.
![[Image: -Gildarts-fairy-tail-35651033-300-180.gif]](http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/35600000/-Gildarts-fairy-tail-35651033-300-180.gif)
"I have never met a strong person with an easy past." -Atticus