Chapter 1: Sand

Loud bangs echoed across the silent desert, along with the clang of thin metal being blasted apart.

A man stood leaning against a sand blasted jeep, occasionally taking a drink out of a can of week old flat Dr Pepper as he watched the sunset on the edge of the horizon.

He finished the can off, grimacing slightly at its warm and rather unappealing contents.

After he reloaded his shotgun he threw the can a good few meters into the air, then aimed and fired. The buckshot all missed somehow. He frowned and looked at the old gun.

"Time to pay Garm a visit. My gear is in such shit shape." he muttered, looking at the dented barrel, cracked wooden stock and rusted body of his poor battle worn shotgun.

He put the shotgun in the bullet hole riddled passenger seat of the equally as bullet hole riddled jeep and got in.

Putting a bandana around his mouth and nose, and bi-tech goggles over his eyes, he started up the jeep. From the sound of it, it was very much in a state of disrepair with the engine sounding like the screams of the damned and the bodywork looking almost ready to fall apart.

"I really shouldn't have driven through that sandstorm, at least Garm's crew are miracle workers." He smirked as he shifted from park to drive and planted his foot on the accelerator, sending the damaged jeep over the dunes rather haphazardly.


Four sand damaged buildings stood inside a walled compound. A tall building that dominated the place stood in the center. Attached to it was a short, but very wide building with the word 'Bar' carved into the concrete wall of it, a seperate building with locked gas pumps outside that seemed like a garage, and a black window tinted building that hid behind the bar and main building. The entire place was surrounded in a horrific sandstorm.

The jeep pulled into a park outside the tall building, and the man got out. With the shotgun in his left hand, and a large duffle bag over his shoulder, he kicked the door shut. He didn't bother locking it, since no one in their right mind would want to take the rust bucket it was.

He entered the tall building and shook off some sand from his clothes. Lifting the goggles onto the top of his head and pulling the bandana down off his face, he looked around. Inside it was aesthetically pleasing, to a degree for something out in the middle of the desert at least. Proper black carpet, walls that had the greyish paint on them still, and an actual desk at reception.

"This place is better than our safe houses after the renovations… perhaps I should do something about that..." he muttered, looking around with interest at the surprisingly intact building.

He walked to the reception desk, where an old man with cast iron plate over the left side of his skull that stopped just at the bottom of where his eye was, was sitting at the desk. The old man had dark grey hair on the half of his head that was revealed, and a silvery coloured long chinese master beard and mustache. He was wearing a name tag, it had in tar black block letters "Garm" and under it was "Owner" in gold writing, which looked rather nice on the dark red background of the tag.

"Evening Garm." The man said courteously, Garm however took no notice of him at all, the man sighed.

"You still mad about that poker bet you lost to me?"

Garm looked up with half scowl, "I lost $40K to you that day."

"Come on Garm, it was 5 months ago, you must have made it back by now." he groaned, then looked him in the eye, "Look I need somewhere to stay for the night because of the sandstorm but I can't leave to go anywhere else because my vehicle is about to fall apart."

Garm looked up from his book, then behind the guy out the window to look at the storm.

He sighed and put the book down, "How bad is the damage?"

The man stood up straight, "The passenger are rusted shut, looks like it lost a fight with 20 buzzsaw wielding maniacs and her engine sounds like someone opened a portal to hell right in the screaming banshee section."

Garm nodded, and grabbed a key from his drawer, "Room 60, M level. Your ride should be fixed by tomorrow."

The guy took out his agency key card and swiped it. The antithesis credits payment went through as Garm then handed him the key card to let power into the room, "I'm sure you remember the weapons ban around here. Leave your stuff in your apartment, and if anyone attacks you, it's a fist fight only. You are more than welcome to use furniture however, I can always replace that stuff."

He nodded, pocketing the card and the key.

"Heard one of your old friends and his SFO partner fucked up a recon mission of all things." Garm turned back to the book.

"Old friends?... This friend got a name?" He leaned on the desk.

"I think his name's Hank" Garm found his page.

The man nodded and stood up, walking behind Garm to the elevator "Who's the SFO then?"

"Some hard ass, don't know his name. Only that he took a number of bullets to the body and head, and lived, so he's kinda fucked in the head."

"Shit, hope Hank doesn't cop a bullet too. His face is a bit too pretty to be scarred by something like that." .

A rare smile graced Garm's own scarred visage as he glanced back to him.

"You haven't changed at all have you DJ?"

He turned slightly and returned the glance back to Garm, his own smile gone, "I have changed… just not how most people would think."

DJ entered the elevator, and pressed the button on the slightly dented panel. The doors closed with a soft metal grinding tone.

The doors reopened on his floor. The hallway on that floor was short, as the 13th floor contained only 4 rooms. Reserved those who were willing to pay full price, or were high ranking enough that they needed to be more secure during their stay.

Finding his room room, M60, he unlocked the door and entered the dark room. Taking the power card from his pocket, he deposited it in the slot in the wall, activating the lights and power to the apartment.

Closing the door behind him, he put his bag and shotgun down on the table, and sighed exhaustedly.

He removed the bandana from around his neck, then the Bi-tech goggles he had retrieved from a A.A.H.W engineer he smashed into a wall.

Next was the heavy black leather jacket that had seen better days, then the armored vest he wore that had the overlapping metal scale design that looked like black dragon scales. He put them on his bed next to his hidden special knife he took from the hidden jacket sheath.

What followed was pretty bad, the shirt he had on underneath hadn't been taken off for 5 months, and was pretty rank with bloodstains, sweatmarks and other unmentionable stains. The shirt was less a shirt and more a once white rag that he just ripped off with ease.

Taking the moment, he looked at himself in the mirror. He had definitely toned up since the last time he looked at himself, no longer that skinny 16 year old that first joined the anti, but this wasn't what he was looking at. He was looking at the progress of the scales on his body.

Last time he had checked, 6 months ago, the scales had just finished covering his right shoulder completely. Now, they were starting to spread onto his chest in vein like lines, on his back however they had spread to fill the gap between his shoulder blades over his spine.

"Fuck me… they're spreading fast…" he frowned.

He stripped completely after shaking the thoughts from his head, then hit the shower, trying to relax in the hot water he hadn't felt for what seemed like an eternity.


After spending a full hour washing up, he donned new casual clothes from his bag and put his boots back on, before heading to the elevator.

As he waited, he was wondered about how things were with Hank. He held a bit of regret for not saying his proper goodbyes with Hank, although the feeling was not mutual with the rest of the squad, given they shunned him after the promotion he had no say in. His mind wandered to his old mentor, he made his peace with what happened, and accepted it was what he had to do. War has no place for sentiment.


Garm looked up from his book 3 A.A.H.W agents came in, looking exhausted as fuck.

He looked back down to the book once more and sighed "You tried to go through the sandstorm didn't you?"

The leader of the three nodded, before going over to the desk, clearing his throat after the sand battering.

"Can… we get a room?"

Garm put the book down again after marking his page. "27 is ready. You got cash on you?"

The agent put $100 on the desk, Garm put it in the till drawer, gave him $20 back, then handed him the key and the power card.

The agent and his two companions went to the elevator, and reached the door just as DJ got there.

The youngest of all the agents, a rookie black shades, went for his gun immediately, but the leader of the three stopped him, "No gun zone. This is neutral ground." DJ walked past them, and entered the bar through another door, while the agents entered the elevator.

Garm looked at the clock on the wall above him, then stood up. He securely locked the doors leading outside with deadbolts before going into the bar.

The bar itself was large in size with easily a 200 person capacity, but had very few people in it. The janitor that worked part time between there and the AAHW outposts, DJ, Garm himself and Steve the blackjack dealer were the only people in there.

DJ was at the bar, eating the pistachio nuts, not even bothering to remove them from the shells. For some reason he was able to just eat them without any problem, he always summed it down to the experiment having a nice side effect for a change.

"You drinking tonight?" He asked, placing a glass on the bar.

"Sure. How about… Nikka single malt Yoichi? I heard Japanese whiskey is pretty good." He looked up from the nuts.

Garm nodded in agreement, "It is, that one specifically has a very good taste to it. Kind of bites the tongue."

DJ moved the nut bowl aside as Garm got the bottle and glass. Filling it only quarter way, DJ looked at it, then slowly drank. Garm poured himself one, and instead just swallowed it all in one go.

DJ blinked and shook his head a bit, "Yeah that's a bite alright. Woo…"

Garm smirked. "Now then, anything else?"

DJ shook his head, showing his mutated arm, "This moody bitch feeds off the alcohol, accelerating the speed of how fast it spreads. I want to stay as human as possible for as long as I can. But at the same time I enjoy whiskey too much to not try it. Oh woe is me." He finished with a mocking tone.

The lead agent entered the bar, he had taken off his tie, and his shades, he had also unbuttoned his suit, he sat next to DJ.

"Got any of that scotch left from my last visit?" He asked Garm, who nodded and poured him a glass from the rectangular bottle of dark green liquid.

The agent nodded thanks, then downed it fast.

DJ looked at him, "You look like hammered shit. You didn't try going through the storm did you Jason?"

The red shades agent 'Jason' looked to DJ, "I admit, it was foolish, but I just couldn't handle being around those damned zombies anymore. Their creepy."

DJ grinned, "Zombies? Creepy? That is SO unbelievable." he remarked sarcastically.

Jason smiled, "yeah, laugh it up, you may end up dealing with the fuckers soon enough…"

"That's true seeing the missions I get sent on" DJ replied, sliding the bowl of nuts to Jason.

The other two agents entered, the older of the two was also without tie or shades, but his suit was buttoned up, the youngest who nearly pulled his gun on DJ was in full uniform still.

The older one sat next to Jason, while the younger one went to the blackjack table. Garm served the agent the same thing as Jason.

DJ looked at them, "Recruits?"

Jason nodded, "Kinda of, Hardass here has been with us a while but is still a rookie really."

DJ raised an eyebrow, "Hardass?" Jason sighed, and pointed to the older one, "Hardass." Then he pointed to the younger one who just lost $75, "Dumbass. Leading these two is like babysitting the two ends of the ass spectrum."

DJ chuckled, then sighed, "I used to be in the same position… then the two rookies I was with thought they were ready and ignored my orders to stay put. They rushed into fray, and got torn apart by some real nasty shit. Can't say I miss them though, they never listened. Reminds me of two brothers I used to know…" He dropped off at the end, so Jason let it be.

The youngest agent finally came over, and looked at DJ with a scowl, "So, what's a freak like you doing here anyway?"

DJ blatantly ignored him, which just made him push harder.

"No one want's you anyway, whether we win or not, at the end of this you're going to be the shit that everyone leaves behind."

Jason sighed, "I'll say something nice at his funeral maybe… although I doubt he will get that privilege..."

DJ clenched his fists under the bar in annoyance.

"You know what? How about I take care of the problem for you so you don't suffer later, how does that sound hu…" The agent was cut off by a bullet to the head.

Garm had a Colt .357 in his hand, a light smoke trailed from the barrel.

"None of that bullshit belongs here, good thing you're dead because otherwise I would be making you pay for bleeding on my carpet."

The other agent was shocked at Garm's sudden kill, where as Jason and DJ seemed to expect it.

DJ sighed, trying to calm himself. "I think I better turn in for the night before I end up breaking something."

"Night." Jason waved goodbye as DJ got up.

Garm put his pager down, "The team is already working on your jeep, should be ready by 8 AM."

"Good, I need to get on the road as soon as possible." DJ walked to the door, as Steve pulled the headless corpse of the young agent out the back to put in the boiler fire.

~5 minutes later~

DJ crashed into bed, not even bothering to get undressed, he got under the soft covers and fell asleep within seconds, disregarding the young agent's blood now staining the white sheets.

His head ran through not dreams, nor nightmares, but his times with his squad back in the day, until his tired brain gave up on projecting images entirely.


A shadowy figure watched DJ through the window from the cliff it was on. Within seconds of DJ falling asleep it disappeared, burning the dead bushlife and a few lizards to nothing in seconds as it dissipated into the air.

"Soon… Everything will fall into place. And we will be standing atop the ruins of both agencies with the world at our feet…" A deep voice remarked quietly as the burning ceased.


Ok, this is the first chapter in a story I have planned for a while now. This chapter alone I re-wrote several times, and proofread even more than that.

This is of course a rewrite as well once again. I have more time to be able to write over weekends now so this will become a much more active story with hope. That and with Spirit and potentially Alias helping me out this can be a great story.

Please leave a review if you can, it would really help. Thanks everyone

~L. Hammersmith