Bug Problem Part 1
Duke Nukem
Duke Nukem had always felt that he had been on top of the world, but in this case he was far away from it. Duke was the Captain of the BUGS2 expedition, an expedition that was meant to cull the hostile life of Mars and eventually colonize it. He blankly stared into the vacuum of space. "This shit can't get anymore boring.", he groaned, for a space adventure this was extremely boring. The left side of his face glowed blue as a notification that the BUGS2 spacecraft was nearing Mars. "Finally, some action 'round here.", Duke thought as he got up and walked straight towards another window.
The formerly-red planet of Mars reflected in both the window and to onto the surface of his sunglasses. To Duke the surface of Mars looked so strange as a planet full of life and greenery, it looked to suspiciously like Earth.
In fact, the planet looked even closer than he thought. An invisible exclamation mark popped up over Duke's head as he looked at the notifications at a nearby computer screen. "17 Hours until landing.". Duke cursed loudly as he made his way to the meeting room of the BUGS2 Spacecraft. Picking the most appropriate way to enter the room, Duke kicked down the sliding doors, everyone's faces were now directed towards his neutral visage.
"It's almost Christmas time kiddies so no more lollygagging. We're gonna land on Mars soon. In the next couple so hours, be ready to kill the shit out of some roaches."
The Duke unceremoniously turned around back to his quarters, leaving the BUGS2 crew in shock over what happened.
Duke was awoken from his half-day nap to an annoying blue light flashing on his face. He groaned and got up to see the source. 'Shit I'm late again.', thought Duke as he rushed outside. Mars disappointing Duke, he was expecting plains, not a bunch of moss and.. He was brought back to his senses by the chatter of his crew. "So this is Mars..", queried a crew member, Duke retorted back to her, "No, this is fuckin' Pluto.". The crew member leered at Duke while he walked closer to his crew mates.
"Alright..", he trailed off, Duke barely remembered the task he was doing, let alone even the reason why he was here. "Kay, it's time to play exterminator and we're gonna clean this planet. You, you, and you, go to West. You, you, and you, go East. Everyone else get the fuck back to the ship. 'Find any bodies, put 'em here in this shitbox, if shit goes down, you can call the Duke anytime.". Duke turned around and went back to his Captain's Quarters to resume his napping.
A couple of hours later, the BUGS2 crew were sitting in the meeting, nervously chattering while Duke puffed on his smoke. Just an hour within the mission there was already a casualty, Akita Nanao apparently got her neck snapped by a Cockroach. "This is fucking insane.", Duke announced, the crew shared their worried glances at him and Akita. Maria Viren, one of the crew mates spoke up to Duke, "Captain..Let's return to Earth!". He turned his head towards her and responded, "No.. We ain't goin' back till we kill all these shit-eating roaches!".
The meeting room erupted in protest until a cloaked man disrupted it. "Well...someone dying was more or less part of the plan though.". God Lee, an Israeli crew member stepped to intervene, Duke took the initiative and got up from his chair. "Listen here Solid Snake get your head out of your ass and listen up, the only thing that was supposed to die were these chickenshit Roaches.", he pointed at God Lee's chest. God Lee turned away from Duke's gaze and crossed his arms, "She was just some woman who lived like a maggot, became a maggot through surgery, then died like one. Are you really that sad?". Duke's face scrunched up underneath his sunglasses, "Shut the fuck up asshole.". God Lee snorted and rolled his eyes, "Well you can say that to the Government, because that's probably what they were thinking.", he paused than continued. "Our lives have no value, we won't go home or get our money, it will just be like before.". Duke thought to himself, 'Doesn't this asshole know who I am? I'm the Duke!'.
God Lee wordlessly stepped out of the BUGS2 spacecraft, clutching his right wrist. "I'll bring their carcasses back to Earth and shove them into the employee lockers at U-NASA...!", God Lee tapped a few button on a panel before declaring, "I'll find their nest, be back in one hour.". A crew member called out God, "Wait! I can..". God continued on his way out, "I'm better alone, a Samurai or a Muay Thai boxer would only slow me down.".
A bespectacled crew member turned to Duke mid puff. "...Are you okay with this Captain?", Duke turned around and looked over at him. "If the dumb asshole wants to kill himself because he thinks he's hot shit, he can.".
About an hour and 35 minutes into waiting for God Lee to come back, "The fucker's late.", Duke looked down at the radar. "Holy shit, the crazy bastard actually did it!", Duke turned around to see a giant humanoid creature crashing through the windows of the spacecraft, it had a muscular body with elongated head with big blank eyes. To Duke's nonexistent surprise, it was holding God Lee's head. Maria Viren, using her bug powers to stop the creature, summoned the carapace of the Stag Beetle unto her arms to protect herself. Sadly, it proved useless as the Cockroach sliced through her effortlessly with it's bare hands.
Duke grabbed a pump action shotgun with a handle on it. "I got this asshole, everyone stand down!", however, Duke was interrupted by the frantic calling by his bespectacled comrade. Outside of the BUGS2 Spacecraft, thousands of Cockroaches surrounded the vessel. "Everyone, get your asses outta here!", Duke called out. "But Captain, we can't we're..", a loud banging sound was heard as the Cockroaches climbed on top of the BUGS2 spacecraft.
"That dumb bastard pissed off the nest!", Duke cried about, before being swept and falling onto the ground. The Cockroach charged at Duke with a punch that could kill as many as 23 humans at once. With the pull of the trigger, the Cockroach's chest blew apart along with lower parts of it's face. "Everyone, get the fuck outta here! Get away using the car!", Duke pumped a round out of the shotgun. Duke turned to a portly man with a scrunched face named Ichiro. "I'm countin' on ya, now get everyone outta here!"
Doomslayer
Getting sealed in a cursed tomb by demons was bad, but getting released and almost sacrificed by a bunch of insect men was much worse. The Doomslayer looked around at the mess he made, 2 minutes ago this was a gathering of Insect-men, now it was a scene of a hard-fought massacre. He cleaned off the yellowish blood of the cockroaches off his chest and reached for his armor, which was conveniently nearby. He grabbed the chest plate of the armor and was greeted by a grisly flashback to the massacre of the BUGS1 and BUGS2 expeditions. The mercilessness of the cockroaches was revealed to him. Cockroaches, how the hell did they get to that size? The Doomslayer took no time to ponder as he slipped on his helmet.
The Doomslayer looked around him was he in some sort of cave? The only source of light was a hole on top of ceiling. He squatted down and jumped up, leaping higher than any other man could. He crashed through and landed on the ground with a particularly loud thud. The Doomslayer scanned the area for any signs of hostile life, only to find that there was nothing around except mountains and moss. Behind him, lay a troop of 5 cockroaches, and an unlucky one decided to charge him with a sucker punch.
The Doomslayer easily countered with his right hand, and with a punch for a punch, his hand completely went through the Cockroach's arm. The cockroach recoiled back and the Slayer used his left had to deliever a deadly blow through the cockroach's chest. The Roach remained unfazed, it soon collapsed onto the ground where it's blood leaked onto the soft moss. The other 4 cockroaches took no haste in attacking the Doomslayer.
The armored Marine felt an unquenchable anger filling his mind to the brim as his vision became red and his senses dulled. A roach tried to bisect his head, only to have a foot shoved right through it's chest. The cockroaches moved at a speed that nearly matched the Doomslayer's own, he acknowledged this when a Cockroach punched his back. The Slayer recoiled in a surprising amount of pain before ripping the Roach's arms off and beating it to death. The remaining two roaches charged him in unison, they were cut mid charge by the Slayer using the other Roach's arms as projectile weapons.
The battle, despite the display of ferocity on both sides, was completely one sided. The back of the Doomslayer's head ached for a little before fading away. He trudged aimlessly in another direction before stumbling across an old, and rusting metallic structure. It appeared to be some sort of space craft that resembling an insect. Looking in closer, he saw the freshly-killed bodies of two men and double timed over to their location. He stood over the bodies at the wrong time. As soon as the Slayer arrived, the vessel's door opened and out stepped 5 people who were wearing the same outfits as the bodies on the ground.
The crew members of the BUGS2 looked over in collective terror as a behemoth with green armor stood over the remains of Redon and John. The crew mates and the Slayer stared at each other hostily before Marine waved his hands downwards as if to say, "Simmer down." through hand gesture. The Asian lady of the 5 stepped up and asked, "Did you see who did thi-", she was cut short by the Slayer quickly nodding negatively to them.
On top of the same ledge the Slayer was on, a cockroach held a phone, and a male voice could be heard out of it. "Duke Nukem will die. It will be much easier to move about once he's out of way. About the survivors, continue to monitor them.". The roach spoke with an oddly feminine voice, "Everything has gone just about as expected so far, is there anything else I should keep an eye out for?"
"..."
Bug Problem Part 2
Duke Nukem
Duke thought there wouldn't be anything harder than saving the world from aliens, he was wrong. Ichiro laid unconcious and bloody, for whatever reason, the cockroaches were more focused on The Duke himself. Bodies of cockroaches laid on the ground while Duke pumped through every round like there was no tomorrow. "The only good bug is a dead bug!", Duke cried out, he punched the head off of a cockroach that got too close. One cockroach grabbed him by the back of his shirt with the intent to fling him to the nearest wall, Duke reacted by severing it's arm, "Order up!". The cockroach was flung into a small group of cockroaches causing the wall to be stained with yellowish blood. Another cockroaches tugged on his shotgun, throwing it across the room.
"That was my little friend!", Duke cried out, he punched, kicked, and elbowed his way through numerous amounts of cockroaches. During his rampage he felt dizzy and nauseous, little did he know this was the result of lack of oxygen within in the area. Duke's breaths become shorter and more drawn, "I ain't..got time to breathe..", Duke collapsed and fell to the ground.
Ichiro
With his collapse, the room went completely silent. There was only one roach, the roach with the feminine voice. "Thanks to Shokichi, suggesting the same plan as our choice by coincidence, We didn't raise any suspicion.", "I gotta hand it over to the whole, 'Japanese Self Sacrifice Spirit'.", her chatter raised no response as the only living things here that could talk were unconscious. "Oh right, I just gotta pour a water on ya, right?", she poured water over Ichiro's head. Ichiro came back to his senses and glanced at the Cockroach. "Why do you look like that?", he inquired. Soon the cockroach was ripped apart by something inside, Victoria Wood, a crew member emerged out of the exo-skeleton of a Cockroach. "Well, they're monitoring us and all, I thought it would be nice atmosphere.". There was a momentary silence before Victoria spoke again.
"So anyways, I couldn't find what we were looking for. Maybe everything didn't go like we thought it would.", she gloomily replied. Ichiro looked over to another corner, and approached a Terraformer egg, "No, one of them dropped one.". Victoria perked up and rushed over to Ichiro, "So this is a Terraformer egg?", she rhetorically asked. "Mission complete Ichiro, let's get back in contact with and head home!", Victoria was ecstatic, she winked at Ichiro and gave him a thumbs up.
Doomslayer
In an instant, cockroaches were targeting the remaining humans of the BUGS2 spacecraft. The Doomslayer silently grunted as the Roaches pointed firearms at them. One of the hapless crew mates cried in fear before being blasted into shreds. A braver crew member used some sort of shield ability to protect herself from the Roaches, but she was surrounded and ripped apart before she could do anything else. The glasses-wearing man was easily killed, having his head swatted off. The Doomslayer stuck close to the remaining three crew mates and raised his fists. In unison they leaped out to attack, all three demonstrated particular prowess in fighting the roaches. They ripped, they teared, and one of them actually punctured the Roaches with some sort of needle. Soon, a berserk anger took over the Slayer and his vision faded to red.
The fury of fighting the Roach's became so severe that the Doomslayer felt leftover rage and began wildly attacking whatever was near it. He charged at the lady with the pigtails before grabbed from behind and restrained. The two men he was accompanied with held him down to the ground while the lady inspected him. The Doomslayer calmed down and stopped struggling, when his rage stopped he felt nauseous and his vision was blurry. The lady with the pigtails looked down on him as he slumped downwards. "Can you talk?", asked the lady. Her question was met with only silence. She stared into the faceless visage of the Doomslayer's helmet, all she could see was the outline of a man's face.
Seeking to free himself from the grasp of the two males restraining him, he threw the black haired one a slight distance away and rung him other arm off of the blonde one. The Doomslayer got himself back up, but everyone else was focused on a series of pyramids. "What..the fuck!" the black haired one cried out. His face twisted into a grim smile, "This is fucked! Why is there a building here? The transmission from BUGS1 is just weird too! What the hell is going on this planet!?". The male was interrupted by a garbled voice coming from the machinery of a nearby...pod? "Your anger is only natural, Komachi Shokici". The Doomslayer paid only little attention to the conversation between the crewmates and whoever was talking to them. But his transmission was interrupted by the sound of a pod taking off nearby. "Wait that's that sound!?", "It's coming from BUGS2", "Is that the sounds of it's engines?"
The Slayer looked up to see the BUGS2 spacecraft propelling itself upwards, with enough time maybe they could force the ship to land. The garbled voice gave him a command that he was more than willing to follow, "Find the Eggs, and destroy them.". ANother voice told him to bring back the Eggs, but the Doomslayer was much more willing to follow the latter. Midflight, swarm of flying Cockroaches had overwhelmed the BUGS2 spacecraft, it soon caught on fire and parts of the ship exploded. It crashed back down crookedly in a position similar to what it was before launch. The Doomslayer made haste towards the ships doors and kicked them down. The other three followed behind the Slayer only to find that the Doomslayer was locked into a death stare with 5 cockroaches.
The Doomslayer heard chattering from his comrades but it was just white noise to him, fury radiated from every inch of his body as he clenched his fists harder than they should be. All 5 of them charged the Doomslayer, the pig-tailed lady, and the blonde male. The Slayer was too wrapped up in fury to notice the black haired male running past the Roaches. Two roaches split off from the group to deal with Pigtails and Blondie. The Roaches were notably faster than the ones he had encountered before, but they couldn't match up to the speed the Doomslayer brought. For every hit the Roaches dodged, the Marine would dish out 3 more. As he fought the Roaches, he noticed the distance between him and the rest of his "team" widen. Isolating the Doomslayer and the rest of the group proved to be working effectively as one of the Roaches beheaded Pigtails.
Fearing the death of Blondie, the Doomslayer's fury only grew into gargantuan levels. The increased speed of the Roaches were rendered irrelevant as he begun attacking the triplet's legs. When one Roach tried to roundhouse kick his back leg, the Doomslayer grabbed it's leg and tore it off. He slammed his foot onto the still-neutral expression of the Roach before grabbing a Roach and ripped it in half. The Doomslayer reached for a Mantis-shaped claw discarded on the floor and bisected the final Roach vertically. Blondie was launched through a wall with a two foot kick. The Doomslayer moved at a speed that a roach would have troubling seeing. In front, someone shouted ferocious before declaring, "I NEED MONEY!". Whoever that was, charged the roach and sent it back, but the Doomslayer attacked it from behind with a mighty shoulder charge. The unfortunate roach was caught in a testosterone fueled hydraulic press. The force between the two squashed the Roach completely, but the force of the Doomslayer shoved the unknown man back. He looked in disbelief as the armored Marine towered over him. "Thien who is this guy!?", he asked. Blondie looked over at him and said, "He's a friend.".
Another group of 5 Roaches approached Blondie, Shortie(new name), and the Doomslayer. They stared at the roaches with collective anger, disgust, and hatred. They only began to grow stronger as they let out cries of anger, "AH! AH! AH! AH!". Under his helmet the Doomslayer only smirked. In what would seem like another curbstomp for the Slayer, Blondie stole the show by growing a pair of wings and using them to slash the Roaches. The Slayer stood and watched in admiration as Blondie dismembered the roaches. Shortie targeted a roach by knocking it over onto it's back, the Doomslayer finished it off with a stomp through it's chest. They both split off to deal with the roaches in their creative and gory ways. The Doomslayer almost chuckled as Shortie slammed a Roach onto the ground while calling it a "Piece of Shit".
With the battle seemingly over The Slayer turned towards Shortie was looking at Blondie. "..Thien!?", he called out. Thien? Was that his name, the Marine didn't bother himself with names and returned back into the fight. Blon-Thien's eyes widened as he gaped at the Doomslayer, he shouted, "Marine!". A roach with it's head twisted upside down and a part of it's arm removed attempted to grab the Doomslayer, Thien attempted grab the roach was he was kicked back into the wall. He snorted at the Roach's attemept to grab him and punched straight through it's chest, ending it for good. The black-haired one, who was apparently "Shokichi" returned back, carrying someone either unconscious or dead.
"We're evacuating.", said Shortie, whom was actually named "Ichiro". He went on to explain that the "BUGS2" has an escape pod that could be sent to Earth. The Doomslayer looked over at Thienn and motioned over at Ichiro and Koichi. Thien was in a sorry state, he clutched his abdominal wound as the Doomslayer lifted him up. "I just pushed myself too hard..", muttered Thien. Slowly and surely he metamorphosed into a strange bug creature. Thien attempted to speak to his friends, but his shaky voice turned into gurgling, before he could utter any last words he keeled over and died. The Doomslayer laid the body of Thien onto the ground slowly. He left the two to grieve over his death before they head off into the direction of the escape pod. Ichiro stood at the exit facing the Doomslayer for one last time, "Thank you.". Shokichi called out to Ichiro to hurry up before scurrying away.
Duke Nukem
Duke woke up with a worse pain since the last time he drank Absinthe. He noticed that the BUGS2 space craft looked even worse than previously thought. Duke came back to his senses to find an Armored Spaceman, covered in head to toe with roach blood, crouching over him. "Who the fuck are-", his question was interrupted by the Spaceman holding his hand out. Duke grabbed it in an instant and got back up. "Where's the rest?", he asked, the Spaceman pointed upwards and Duke's mouth turned agape. "What the fuck! Those motherfuckers left me behind!". "Looks like I'm gonna have to kill these roaches all by my self, unless you wanna join in.", the Spaceman waved his hands downwards. Duke became very dissapointed with the Spaceman, "What the hell are you? A fucking coward?". The armored Marine wrapped his hand over Duke's mouth, giving him sometime to calm down.
"By the looks of it, they ain't coming back for the King for a long time.", Duke quickly turned and trudged through the ruins of the BUGS2 spacecraft into his Captain's Quarters. He showed the Spaceman the Cyro Chamber. "'Gonna step in here for some beauty sleep, you want in?", the Spaceman nodded no, "Oh right, somebody's gotta protect the chamber while the Duke takes a long break.". The Spaceman snorted silently, "Sayonara, Spaceman.", Duke stepped into the cold bed of the Cryochamber and pressed some buttons. Before long he drifted into a deep sleep.
End
Epilogue
For the next 20 years, the Doomslayer defended the BUGS2 Spacecraft from the constant onslaught of the Roaches. The Doomslayer through constant battles only grew better at killing them, and by the 5th year, the Roaches had ceased their futile efforts. The only thing left to do was to stand watch of the pod. As for Duke, he remained in Cyrosleep, if he woke up long years after being sealed, he wouldn't be that different before he stepped in. However. but both of them were in for a rude awakening as the Annex I, a third attempt to colonize Mars crashed onto Mars as a blazing ruin.