Chapter 1 – Cold Open
He woke up to the smell of burnt rubber and gun powder. Lucas coughed up a lung full of blood. The twisted wreck of his car lay smoldering behind him while the door rested on his back. With great pain and effort he managed to twist himself free and kick the it away. A couple of days into the assignment and he had already been burned. Literally and figuratively. There was a sudden, more intense, pain that shot through him. The large gouge in his side started to bleed out faster. This shock was just the thing he needed to clear his head. He made a quick assessment of the situation. One wrecked, once lovely transport that he just crawled out of, one lonely mercenary slowly bleeding out and five allies currently MIA. The pain swelled up in him again. He spun his head around in a panic looking for any signs relife. The soft blinking of his communicator only a few feet away calmed him and with an awkward grunt he managed a lunge toward it, pulling it into reach with just the tips of his fingers.
There was a half Red and half white sphere printed on the case. A light in the middle of the circle beat a soft orange in sync with his heart. "Awesome", Lucas painfully whispered to himself. The lights on the outside ring of the circle pulsed in separate times. Four yellow lights and one red. "Not so awesome" he whispered again. Everyone was alive but trapped in stasis in the little box he now held in his hand. At least he knew the prototype failsafe actually worked.
He could hear the hard crunch and pounding of boots off in the distance slowly and steadily getting closer. This night wasn't over yet and with most of his crew in critical condition he had to go in alone for now. He would need his weapons though. He caught a glimmer by the tall, 8 foot high grass. He clumsily limped toward it and found the broken bits of one of his katanas. Luckily the handle was still long enough to use as a long dagger. With the footsteps close behind he ducked into the cover of the brush with a loud rustle. The pain quickly left his body as the cool numbness of adrenaline took over.
There were four G.I.'s walking toward the wreckage.
"looky, looky. We got ourselves some pretty nifty trophies."
"I can't believe our I.E.D. trap actually got him."
"Yeah, first one in a while."
"I know man. Wait till the boss hears we took down the guy who's been wreakin' all kinds havoc everywhere. I smell a promotion!"
"No more stuffy mess halls for us!"
All but one gave a lively "Hoo-ah!" He slouched the whole way with his finger trembling uneasily over the trigger of his gun.
"Hey, hey Geoff, how about a little trigger discipline, dude?"
"No, way man" he whimpered nervously "Have you been reading the reports about these guys, man? they say they're impossible to kill. That is if you can even manage to get a good look at them!"
"I don't know," said the leader. "They look pretty dead to me."
A third one butt in, "And I've got a pretty good look at them once, got a real good look at those two babes. Oh man, I am gonna miss their pretty faces"
"Damn shame," called the last one.
"Damn shame," the other repeated with a nod.
They finally reached the wreckage. There was nothing but a flaming scrap metal and pools of blood.
"So where're your trophies now, huh?" said Geoff sarcastically.
The leader grimaced. He bent down to inspect the area. A trail of blood lead strait into the grass.
"Obviously over there, dumbass" he growled. Everyone just stood in place avoiding eye contact with him. "That means move!" Everyone started to grumble and slowly shuffled forward. He shoved Larry forward with his rifle. "You first."
Geoff gave a sarcastic laugh. He brought his gun up to sights, took a deep breath and marched forward. Everyone quickly followed suite. Lucas monitored them carefully.
They managed their way into a clearing several feet wide but still surrounded by tall grass on every side. They nervously shifted sights on anything that made a sound.
Larry finally spoke up, in a whisper, "What is usually around these parts?"
The leader shrugged and whispered back "I don't know. A couple of animal pokemon"
"But it sounds bipedal." He listened to the rustle again "And intelligent…"
"Well maybe it's some of the native monster tribes around here."
"Aren't those dangerous too?"
"And what are they gonna do? Throw sticks? Punch us with scary fire-hands? We've got guns, dude. Really big fucking guns!"
Geoff fiddled with the Masterkey at the end of his pitch black SCAR-L and shut up for a bit. Another question popped into his head. "What types are they?"
The leader of the group sighed, "I don't know, probably just some Grass and Dark types."
Lucas came up behind him when no one was looking. He covered his mouth and dragged him to his feet. "And a Ghost," he whispered before he dug the blade into the commando's throat. Both of them dived back into the brush.
Everyone turned around as the rustle faded into the dark.
"Commander?" one of them nervously called. They were met with silence. They turned to the one in the back and started rapidly smacking him in the shoulder in a panic. "Call-it-in-call-it-in-call-it-in!" they said in a panic, through gritted teeth before turning around again. The soldier fumbled for his radio but before he could press the call button a hand came from out of the brush and dragged him away. He gave out a girly shriek that was quickly muffled by a snap. Geoff and the last commando turned around only fast enough see the grass rustle slightly. They met each other's eyes and gulped. They slowly got up and circled the clearing back to back trying to follow the rustling. The whole field seemed to come alive with the shivers. Something brushed between them. They spun around, cocked their guns and fired. Geoff stood frozen, mouth agape as his comrade slumped to the ground with a bullet in his chest. He started to shake even worse. His sights kept shifting back and forth at nothing.
Lucas hopped out behind him. The guy was shaking so bad he could here every piece of equipment strapped to him clink. Lucas thought he should put the poor guy out of his misery. As he approached something crumbled under him. Geoff's head swiveled around first but it took him a bit longer for his gun to catch up. By that time Lucas had already closed the distance. He grabbed the barrel of the gun and shoved the stock up and back into his opponents face. The gun had switched hands before he even started to reel from the hit and when his sense came too barrel was already looking at him, strait between the eyes.
"Oh, God," He managed to whimper
"God can't help you now," Lucas growled. He pulled the trigger. The man yelped. He pulled the trigger again. He kept quite this time. Why wasn't he dead? Geoff finally opened his eyes and looked rather nervously at his attacker. They stared at each other awkwardly, a jammed gun between them.
Lucas gave him a nod, "It's your lucky day." He swung the butt of the gun into the man's face and he slumped to the ground in a heap.
This seemed way too easy.
FF really needs to put in a change log or something, unless there is one and I'm being total noob. I made several changes. Not my best work still but already much better. Seeing how much traffic I got last time it probably wouldn't be worth mentioning what those changes were. Probably will redo chapter 2 sometime soon so if anyone is interested keep on the lookout for that.