Mitchell was going crazy. His back hurt, his arm, fuck, even his ass hurt. The squad was hanging around a makeshift camp, waiting for their exfil to finally come in and get them out.
They'd taken a squad in to clear out a small group of KVA that had been discovered. It should have been an easy in and out. Go in, wipe them out, go home.
Of course nothing is ever fucking easy. Ever.
Four Hours Earlier….
Alpha team –Gideon, Mitchell, Joker, Ilona and West- were in the thick of the KVA-held area, picking them off easily. Bravo team was bringing up the opposite side catching any runners. It almost seemed too easy. After clearing what looked like a small lab with various electronics and what looked like bits of exo-suits, Alpha team decided to search the room for any useful intel. Mitchell found what looked like some kind of weapon, but he wasn't sure what it was.
It was round, almost like a grenade, but with no pin. There was one red button on it. As tempted as he was to push that button and see what happened, Mitchell was smart enough to know pushing anything 'red' was usually a bad idea. So he pocketed the object into a pouch on his exo and figured he'd bring it in to R&D when they returned to base.
Not finding much of anything useful, they confirmed with Bravo team that the area was clear of KVA and decided to head back to their command area set about half a mile away.
Climbing through the rocky terrain and through or around crumbled buildings, the two teams slowly made their way back when suddenly a lone KVA soldier appeared from behind a ruined wall of what was once an eatery, getting a shot off that hit Mitchell square in the chest.
The rest of the team reacted instantly, multiple bullet holes appearing in the KVA's chest, all center mass.
At the same time as the bullets were flying, Mitchell was falling. The round had struck him on his reinforced vest, not piercing it. It hurt like fuck he thought as he tried to break his fall. He managed to get an arm under him as he went down on his back and tried to roll out of the fall, rolling over onto his side.
He suddenly heard a strange clicking sound, followed by a piercing light that seemed like it radiated out from him in slow motion, then sped up fast. As he sat up and tried to clear his head, he immediately noticed he was tingling all over and felt extremely twitchy. Looking around, he noticed his exo-suit was glitching pretty bad and was becoming useless.
"Mitchell!" Gideon yelled. "Oi mate, what's your status?!"
Mitchell looked over and saw that Gideon and the rest of the teams looked like they were fighting with their exo-suits. There was an occasional spark, but each soldier almost looked like they were dancing in their suits. Each man was hurriedly trying to extricate themselves from the exo.
"Mitchell!"
"I'm fine Cap'n!" he yelled back. He shook his head again trying to clear it and then began to separate himself from his malfunctioning exo-suit.
Gideon had managed to extract himself and came running over to Mitchell, running his hands up his chest, checking for injuries. He looked almost panicked.
"Damn kid, you went down like a fucking bag of bricks". Gideon kept checking him over. Mitchell just stood there and let him. His ears burned a bit seeing his captain so worried.
"I'm okay, really. It's a good thing I was wearing one of our new vests huh?"
Gideon, satisfied that there was no bullet wound stepped back and scanned the rest of his men, seeing that they had all managed to get out of their exo's.
"So what the fucking hell was that? What the fuck made our exo's go haywire like that?" Gideon asked.
Mitchell pulled out the orb thing he had picked up in the lab out of his pocket, noticing that the red button was depressed.
'Damn, see, nothing good ever happens when you push the red button', he thought. Gideon was looking at the object, not realizing Mitchell had even picked it up.
"I bet it's whatever this is. When I fell back I must have rolled over onto it, activating it."
Mitchell began to hand it over to Gideon when all of a sudden his arm did what looked like a worm movement that continued all the way through his body. It almost looked like Mitchell was trying to do a crazy dance move.
"Whhhhaaaaathefuck!" Mitchell exclaimed as he lost control of his hand and dropped the orb.
Gideon, the fucker, had the balls to laugh before becoming serious. He wasn't sure what had happened, but hearing the almost girly high-pitched exclamation come out of Mitchell as he did his weird move was funny as hell.
Straightening his face, trying not to snicker, he looked at Mitchell. "Kid are you alright, what happened?"
Mitchell was rubbing his arm right around the joint between flesh and prosthetic. "Man I don't know, it was like a bolt of lightning just went through me. Made me lose control of my grip for a second too." Gideon saw that Mitchell was flexing his fake hand, testing it.
"Fuck me kid, you seriously have the worst luck. You are like a fucking magnet for catastrophes", Gideon chuckled.
Mitchell glared at his captain and tried to swat at him when another surge went through him, making his arm fly up towards the sky before slamming back down.
"Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?" Mitchell yelled. Gideon was wide eyed. He was worried but at the same time it was bloody hysterical.
Mitchell just gave Gideon a death stare. "This sucks!" With that he grabbed his weapon with his right hand and stormed off towards their base.
Every few yards his arm would fly off in one direction or the other, followed by a colorful curse from Mitchell.
Gideon decided to play it safe with the rest of his men and keep the kid's back, letting Mitchell lead. He was trying really hard not to laugh. He really was.
When they arrived at their base they were told by Private Ross, who had stayed behind to man the communications gear, that their exfil would be delayed, and that they were to hang tight for a few hours. Gideon cursed, wanting to get out of the area and back to headquarters. He took the time however to look over the object Mitchell had picked up.
Three hours later, the best he and gadgets guru Private Willis could make was that it was some new kind of weapon designed to render exo-suits useless, and they could only surmise that it was affecting the electronics in Mitchell's arm.
Gideon sighed and looked over at Mitchell, who was sitting on a container of weapons by himself. He had taken some duct tape and taped his arm to his side to prevent it from flinging out. But every few minutes his whole body would twist as a surge would go through him. Mitchell was looking unhappier each minute that passed. Gideon had tried to tease him about it to keep his head in a good place, but it hadn't really worked. Truth be told, the kid looked miserable. Constantly twitching and in between twitches rubbing his back, neck and wherever he could reach.
Gideon was beginning to feel bad for teasing him. But teasing him was safer than what he really wanted to do. He decided to dig around his sack and pulled out some beef jerky. He sat for a few minutes chewing on it, watching Mitchell being miserable, and trying to decide what to do. Most of the men were minding their own business, doing their own thing.
Mitchell was fed up. The surges from his arm made his entire body hurt. They would spike from his wrist, race up his arm into his neck, then down his back and into his ass. He was damn close to cutting his own arm off to make it stop. He kept trying to rub some of the pain out with his good hand, but it was useless.
The rest of the squad were keeping their distance from him, and he didn't blame them. Almost four hours of this had him snarling at anyone who came near him. He just wanted it to stop. His captain had tried to joke around with him about it, but several death glares and the threat of having his balls pulled up and stuffed into his nose made him stop. And now on top of the pain, he was feeling guilty for saying that.
He knew Gideon was just trying to help, in his own twisted way.
Suddenly Mitchell saw movement to his left and looked over. Gideon was striding over, chewing on something.
"Kid, how are you holding up?" he asked softly, handing him a piece of jerky.
Mitchell took the jerky, pausing while riding out a surge, then ripped off a piece, chewing.
"I'm fucking miserable. I ready to cut my own arm off. How the fuck do you think I'm doing?" he snarled, then immediately felt bad. He sighed, his head flopping down. "Shit, sorry Cap'n. I shouldn't be taking it out on you. It's not your fault I rolled over on that damn thing."
"Jesus kid, I'm sorry for ragging on you. Was just trying to take your mind off it." Gideon suddenly looked down and scuffed his foot. "Can't stand to see you hurting", he whispered.
Mitchell caught his captain's shyness over that comment and decided to take pity on him.
"Aw shucks Gid, you going soft on me?" he joked.
Shoving his jerky into the side of his mouth, Gideon cuffed Mitchell on the back of his head lightly.
"Fucking wanker, I told you never to call me that", he said light-heartedly.
Mitchell laughed as Gideon grabbed his shoulders, starting to massage some of the pain out.
"Aw you love it and you know it", Gideon smirked.
Gideon just grinned around his jerky and kept massaging.