If you haven't read the intro, read it here first:
== WARNNG: There is a small bit of swearing in the story, however I can remove it if I must. ==
Chapter 1:
I finally came to.
I see blurred lights and hear panicked shouts coming from all around me.
"What's going on?" I mumbled in a slurred voice.
I noticed someone standing over me. I focused my vision on him.
He was wearing a very bulky, blue armor, but I could still make out his face because the visor was the length of the helmet itself. He quickly glanced up from what he was doing and made eye contact with me.
"You are quite lucky we were able to find you, you know," he began as he places some tools he had been using on a small counter, "we heard something shriek near us and figured it was an alien. When we followed the noise we found you all beaten with those monsters trying to rip you out of your armor."
"Thanks, for saving me. I thought I was a goner," I replied.
"Hah! Don't thank me, I'm just the medic. You should be thanking the captain who personally went out to save you."
I slowly started to rise.
The doctor immediately shouted, "Hey! Don't make unnecessary movement! You're extremely hurt right now. I gave you the strongest sedatives I had to numb the pain. You have a broken arm, five broken ribs, and your spine is fractured. You're lucky your able to move!"
I set myself back down as he picks up his tools again and wraps a thin metal sheet around my arm. He then places a strange looking machine on the sheet.
It starts whirring loudly.
It's hot to the touch, a pain bolted straight through my upper body, which causes me to wince.
"Don't be a wimp," he said jokingly, "it'll be over soon, and you'll feel much better."
I gave him a stern look. He was right though, within minutes I could feel the metal sheet tightening around my arm as it cooled down. The pressure of the now tight sheet felt great.
"There you go. It should be a few days, but your arm will be better in no time. Just don't stress it out. Now, your ribs are already taken care of. I corrected their positioning as you were asleep. You may feel slightly uncomfortable at times however. Your spine is a different story. It is fractured very close to the spinal cord and I don't have the tools needed to perform that kind of surgery. You'll just have to wait until we get back to base and hopefully we can patch you up right."
"Hopefully?" I say in a worried tone, "Do you mean there's a chance the operation can go wrong?"
"Eh, don't worry about it!"
Just then, there was a knock at the door. The doctor immediately allowed the visitor in.
A tall, buff man walks into the room as the doctor stands at attention.
He looks straight at me.
"It seems you're doing better," he began, "I'm Commander Alex Relixer of Clashing Thunder Division. How are you feeling...uh-"
"Jacob. Jacob Briggs," I quickly jumped in. "I've been better."
"Well, Doctor Langston should have you patched up soon. You were in quite a bind."
"I know, it was terrifying honestly. I need to get back to my city though. Our guards were ambushed by three huge rhinoceros looking monsters, and were slaughtered! The aliens rampaged through the streets, killing everyone in their way. I am in the Cesaeri Militia, and must fill my duty to protect my city.
Commander Rilixer and Dr. Langston casted their gazes at each other. The commander looked towards me, but we didn't make eye contact. He just stared at the silver tiled flooring. Almost instantly, I deep down knew exactly what words that were going to be ushered out of his mouth. Still I was not prepared for what was said.
"Jacob, Cesaeri has been destroyed. All that's left are ruins."
Those last words hung in the air for a few moments. I had no reaction other than shock. I didn't begin to tear, and I wasn't angry. I just sat there. Dumbfounded.
A few minutes later I finally had collected my thoughts, "My...family?"
"There are people missing, but most everyone in the city have been killed either from aliens or collateral damage."
I was getting ready to reply, but suddenly a loud explosion was heard, and the whole room began to shake and jerk vigorously. The medical tools all fell off the table to my right, and I saw my worn out armor begin to slide across the floor. An alarm started to sound. "Warning! Warning! Hull damage critical! This is not a drill! I repeat, this is not a drill!" The voice blares into the room, and immediately both the commander and doctor rose. Commander Relixer picked up a communications device. Listening to it, he turned to Dr. Langston and whispered something into his ear. Hastily, the doctor turned to me.
"Jacob!" Dr. Langston called to me, "We had a new armor prepared for you. Because of your spinal injury we needed to add some extra bulk to it, so bear with us, please. We need you to fight with us. Aliens have blown a hole in our hull, and we are losing altitude at a rapid pace!"
"Losing altitude? Where exactly are we?!" I questioned.
"As of right now, approximately 85,000 feet above Montisri City. About 2,500 miles from Cesaeri."
I frowned. He smiled weakly, knowing I was not happy that the information was withheld from me, and also knowing I was upset at being so far away from my city, Cesaeri. Humbly, the doctor came over to me and strapped me in a brace that held my spine in position. While it limited my movement a tad, it allowed me to perform basic actions without much pain or trouble.
I arose from the bed and began to get up. I balanced one arm on the doctor's shoulder as support, but didn't need it anyway. As I got up, Dr. Langston led me out of the room and into the wide open hallway.
I was sore from head to toe. Nevertheless, I continued to increase my pace as I jogged down the hallway. Both on the left and right I could see soldiers running along side me. Soon afterwards, Dr. Langston stopped next to a large door marked "Armory".
"This is it," he said, "Your armor and weapons should be on your left."
I walk in and find myself quickly overwhelmed by the mass amount of weapons and armors that are concealed within the doors. Everything from basic Vipers used for police work, to the legendary Perseus armor prototype made just for the combat specialists themselves. I looked to my left and saw a small platform with a set of armor, a weapon and pack. As I approach closer, I see the name "Briggs" written in ink on a small note card. The handwriting is sloppy, as if the writer was in a hurry to get it done. As I took up the armor's helmet, I noticed how heavy it is. After putting it on, it automatically switched on. "Andromedae online," it stated. I then attached the chest piece which, when placed against my waist, wrapped itself around my torso, chest, arms and legs and firmly locked in place. I attached what I knew was a Tri-O-Avatar pack to my new armor and locked it in place as well. I looked down. On the table was a strange gun. I glared at the white and orange weapon that laid before me. I had never seen such a gun before. It was labeled 'Prototype-00a' on its handle.
"This looks like fun," I finally said to the Dr. Langston, "what does it do exactly?"
"That's the LIT07 Prototype, a laser gun that our scientists created using pieces of robotic alien tech salvaged from our past war. We managed to combine their technology with ours, and this is one of many results that came from it."
I didn't reply. Instead I just stared, in awe, at the LIT07 I held in my hand. I must have been staring for quite a while, because eventually Doctor Langston cleared his throat, "Ahem, we can't keep this up if we want to live through this attack! Are you ready?"
I snapped out of my trance instantaneously, "Yes, yeah. I'm ready."
I wasn't.
Chapter 2:
I emerged out of the large armory doors and looked back at Doctor Langston. He stared back, puzzled for a moment. He quickly realized I hadn't been instructed on where to go.
"Right. Follow the next squadron of soldiers, they will lead you to the attack site," He replied. His manner of speaking was very nonchalant. He was so calm, in fact, given the circumstances, that it gave me an almost eerie feeling that something was off about the situation we were in right now. However, I dismissed the thought, nodded towards the doctor, and went on looking for whatever squad might find themselves stuck with me for the time being.
Shortly after having departed from Dr. Langston, I found myself mixed in with a group of soldiers armed to the teeth in snipers and long-ranged weaponry. They were each clad in a small purple armor. As each soldier gripped their weapon, the beams withheld in each gun glowed a bright yellow, as opposed to the standard blue, almost as if it's power was being magnified. I looked towards the front of the squadron, and stopped the soldier leading the group.
"I need to get to the attack site, is it possible that I could follow your squadron to it? I'm guessing that's where you're going?"
He glared at me, I realized maybe he wasn't as friendly as his small purple armor looks.
"And who might you be, exactly? I don't remember having to carry along a rookie with my squadron!"
"Rookie?! I didn't know such a small man could have such a big mouth!" I retorted.
He ignored my remarks and continued, "Fine. Just shut up and follow."
He took the lead as I followed through vast corridors. One in particular was very interesting. Through what seemed like an abnormally sturdy glass window lay large testing facilities. There lay dozens of newly designed weapons and armors, much like my new LIT07. One room in particular held a very beefy looking green armor; its appearance being hauntingly intimidating. I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of the guy in that mechanical beast. Another room held a series of RPG blueprints suspended near a man-sized table. Three white RPGs lay there, and two scientists were attempting to merge them together, it seemed.
We continued out of the corridor and back into another hallway. Soldiers were being rushed out the room ahead of us. They were severely injured, some even with severed arms and legs. I gulped, and tried to calm myself down as best I could so as to not look nervous.
We approached the door where the wounded soldiers were coming from, and loud explosions and screams were now clearly audible.
The doors opened for us. Inside was a huge, two-story, dome shaped room. The first floor was shaped as a pit, and the second floor circles around it, somewhat like a gladiator arena. We seemed safe for the time being on the second floor, but on the bottom floor, all hell had broken loose. It's only been 20 minutes since the attack first began, but it looked as if this fighting had been going on for hours. Mangled bodies of both humans and aliens lay scattered on the floor of the pit, and blood was spraying everywhere. Screams and shouts could be heard left and right. The roaring coming from aliens was deafening. They were so bad, in fact, that I had to temporarily switch off the sound mechanism in my suit, as it began to interfere with my ability to hear the built in communications device.
Without another second wasted, the squadron I was following quickly charged in, and, with amazing precision and coordination, took cover all across the second floor. On the count of three, the squad's leader ordered the soldiers to open fire on the aliens. Yellow beams from snipers shot from all sides, killing off a huge number of aliens very quickly.
I realized the soldiers in the pit needed help, and fast. I quickly found a way down in to the first floor.
Almost as soon as I reached the bottom step, I was tackled to the ground on my stomach by a enormously heavy panther-like creature. I fumbled my LIT07, and watched it fall just barely out of my reach.
I suddenly felt a piercing pain jolt down my spine. The alien was forcibly stripping the armor off of my body, and it was affecting the brace that was attached to me prior to the attack. Thinking fast, I switched on my Tri-O-Avatar, and mustered up all my energy to push the monster off of me. As the creature lost its balance and fell to its side, I dove for my gun. I grabbed it, turned, aimed towards the monster and pulled the trigger.
A barrage of blue beams bursted out of the gun instantaneously. They quickly laid waste to the panther-like alien, and left a shriveled, smoking corpse filled with holes as its product. I slowly raised up, checking around me to be sure no creature was attempting to sneak up on me.
"Tri-O-Avatar set for recharge," my suit informed me. I gripped my LIT07 tight, and started to approach my next alien victim. Suddenly, the ground shook.
I paused.
A low boom could be heard now. I darted my head around as quickly as I could to pinpoint the origin of the noise. I see the Atom squadron confused as well, checking their left and right for the all clear.
More gunshots can be heard from outside the room, and they progressively got louder. The booms weren't just any noise, they were... footsteps. And they were running. Fast. A monster was charging for the door leading into this very room.
Several miscellaneous Hydra, Strike and Pegasus soldiers left standing came to my side as we awaited the monster's arrival. It was obvious they were just as afraid as I was. We each trembled, our weapons of choice shaking in our hands.
The footsteps from the hallway soon approached the door, as well as gunshots and shrieks of pain from what sounded like soldiers. The doors bursted open, behind it stood two large rhinoceros beasts. A trail of mutilated bodies lay behind them. Both were blood-stained and ferocious looking. They roared so loud it shook the room itself.
The first rhino targeted me and began charging at full speed. As I tried to evade the attack, a clumsy Strike soldier slammed into me. We hit each other with brute force. The Strike soldier fell to the floor, which caused him to drop his silver sword. The rhino caught eye of this and fixed his attention on the downed soldier instead.
"Look out!" I shouted, but it was already too late. The rhino plowed into the poorly armored soldier, drilling its horn into the person's chest, which killed him on impact.
The rhino turned towards me, and lifted both of its fore legs. I jumped out of its range, and the rhino's legs hit the ground hard.
Suddenly the ground began to crack. A small rumbling could be heard. A small crater circled the rhino creature as it fell in. The crater quickly widened, causing me to fall in along with it as I desperately tried to grasp onto anything I could find to hold me up.
It was at least a thirty foot drop between the crater and the floor of the room beneath it. I braced myself as I was about to meet the floor.
I crashed on my back so hard it knocked the wind out of me. Struggling to catch my breath, I looked over at the rhino.
A sharp, jagged pipe that was jutting out among the wreckage seemed to have pierced the creature through the stomach. It was dead.
I stopped, took a deep breath, and attempted to slowly rise up from the floor. I was in some sort of garage, it looked like. A few small military-grade hover cars were parked scarcely around the parking lot area. The garage seemed as if it hadn't been used in years, actually. The tiles of concrete on the floor were cracked and broken beyond recognition; some worse than others obviously. And the vehicles did not seem to be up-to-date with current technology. The room was suspicious, in a way, to say the least.
I soon realized that everything had gone silent. I wasn't so far from the gaping hole above my head that all the noise I heard before would fade out, but even still, nothing but complete silence.
Eventually, I forced myself up. My back felt as if it were on fire. It felt as if some deranged son-of-a-bitch slashed me open with a knife and began chopping away at me. Still, I rose up onto my feet.
I had that feeling something was watching me. That strange sensation you get on the back of your neck when you know you're being stared down, I felt that. I knew something was here, I could sense it. I dared not to call out in fear it might provoke my stalker to attack me. Instead I gradually looked around the garage, hesitantly making my way around pillars and corners.
That's when I heard something.
A all too familiar gurgling noise emanated from around a pillar. As I got nearer, the sound grew a bit louder, though it was still very faint. I carefully made my way towards the noise, my back against the square shaped pillar, and poked my head just barely around the edge.
An oversized scorpion-like alien lumbered its way towards my location. It was hurt. It was dragging it's back two legs, and its tail was bend out of shape, as if it was snapped in half down to the bone. Either way, I didn't know if it was still a threat, and I didn't want to take any chances. I gripped my LIT07, and took aim at the "helpless" creature.
Just then a large blue blade-like object flew past me. While the projectile didn't hit me, it did however slash my gun, rendering it useless. I switched my attention from the alien to whatever source the wind-like projectile came from. And that's when I saw it.
A black figure stood before me, wielding a blue sword. Its back was slightly hunched over in such a way that it actually looked quite intimidating, as if he were getting into position to lunge at me.
He did just that.
In a split second, he charged for me and jumped into the air. Grasping his sword with both hands, he tried to strike me. I used what was left of my gun to block the strike. Suddenly a blue blade-like projectile shot out of the sword, just like the one that struck my gun before. The blade pushed me back, but I still held my ground. I was now defenseless, and this... thing is coming for me.
He lunged again, this time I dove out of his way. He missed completely, which gave me enough time to collect myself and scramble a few feet back to where I came from before he got ready to strike again.
I went back to the rhino, hoping to find something I can defend myself with. Anything. I began looking up at the crater. I saw the remnants of the Strike soldier hanging onto a stray wire by his foot. The soldier was suspended in the air. The wire somehow wrapped around him, keeping him from falling into the crater. I quickly was reminded about the sword he had dropped when we ran into each other. It had to be around here somewhere.
Another blade projectile whizzed by my head, just barely grazing my helmet. I flinch. I turned around to see the figure charging me once again. As I dart my head back I see the sword the deceased soldier had dropped. It had fallen into the crater along with me. I picked it up and armed myself just as the figure drew near to me. The mysterious figure swung first. I blocked it, and counter attacked. I swung my sword towards his stomach, but he jumped back with abnormally fast reflexes. As I went in to attack a second time, he front flipped over me, striking me in my back with his sword, followed by another blade projectile. I fell to the floor once again.
He stood over me. I knew it was over for me. I couldn't move more than just my head. I was powerless, hurt, and tired. He hesitated for a moment before pointing his sword at the back of my neck.
"The shadows hear your murmurs," The figure began. His voice was so spine tinglingly scary, I instantly got goosebumps.
"Who... W-what are you?!" I questioned nervously.
He continued in his demonic voice, "I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am who I am."
Puzzled by this very vague answer, I didn't even realize the small black vortex appearing inside of the figure. Electrical flashes and lightning clashes formed as a mechanical whirring sounded. I turned my head around just in time to see the mysterious figure disappear in what seemed like a black hole.
I lay there, stunned, as I waited for paramedics to hopefully find me.
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