Finding Waldo

Digital_Hex

Chapter One

"SHOOT THEM!" I bellowed as my feet touched down on a dusty patch of stone, legs recoiling as I let loose with a fierce salvo from my plasma rifle. The super-heated pulses traced after the retreating Space Marines, clipping one in the pauldron and tearing a smoking hole through his shoulder. He fell to the ground hard, but the other marine dropped off the side of the ravine, where I imagined him to be sliding down into the sea of sand.

The marine I'd clipped tried to stand back up, but a sudden hail of blazing pulse fire slammed into him, shredding the power armour and slaying the marine inside.

I looked over to see my bodyguard nod at me, the quad barrels of his burst cannon slowing in their cycles as the tips let out a light stream of smoke. I nodded back at him.

My ear piece beeped. I activated the comm, waving for the red shirt with the burst cannon to go check on the dead marine and look like he was doing something productive. He hopped up and flipped on his thrust pack, jumping over to the human corpse.

"Wal'do here," I growled. My deep, chiseled voice tore through the communications device, the true definition of masculinity.

"Dude. The. Fuck."

I rolled my eyes as a holographic display of the battlefield appeared in front of me. Small dots of blue and red popped up on the field. There were about thirteen red dots huddled around in the very center of the battlefield, but seven blue dots were scattered all over the field.

"Your Riptide just head-shotted me. What the Hell."

I chuckled.

"So that nets me slay the warlord, right?"

I heard an irritated chuckle over the comms.

"Yeah, you got me. It's turn four, I have two squads of tacs left, both are hurt, one is holding an objective, and only have first blood-"

"Where as I have Slay, Linebreaker, and an objective myself. Oh, and your command squad just ran off like a pansy."

"Fuck you."

"Any day," I retorted. "Game?"

"Game."

I whooped as I threw my hands up in victory. Across the table, my Marine Corps buddy groaned at my obnoxious display of enthusiasm. Around the store, I received similar, if more annoyed, responses from the other gamers.

"Suck it Imperial fools!" I cackled.

"Hey, they didn't do too bad this time," my friend argued. "At least I didn't roll three consecutive 1's in a single phase..."

I walked over to him to slap my hand on his shoulder. "Fuji, in your defense, I did have some lucky rolls this game. I'll give you that."

Fuji rolled his eyes in amusement. "Eh, 4-5 isn't bad, considering my army is at least fully painted."

I huffed. "Hey, base coat is a beautiful shade."

"Yeah," Fuji laughed, "Too bad they aren't gray knights-"

I took a defensive step backwards. "Hey, we agreed to never talk about that again."

Fuji opened his mouth to throw another jab at my poor reasoning attempts from the past, but we were interrupted as a tall man in a black suit picked up on of my Tau fire warrior models, examining the model. The model was just base-coated in gray Krylon, nothing special.

But this guy. He'd never been in the hobby store before. I would know; I was here all the time.

I gave him a curious look as he continued examining the model. He was really soaking it in.

"Uh... hey?" I said sharply.

He smirked a grin, casting his eyes towards me. They were an icy blue, and I could swear I saw them flash yellow briefly. That could have just been my imagination, though.

"You are the owner of this model, yes?" the man asked as he held out the model.

I nodded as I gave another look at the model. I couldn't help but crack a smirk. The fire warrior had been converted so that he was punting a Space Marine helmet while flipping it off. It was crude, it was stupid, but it was funny.

"Yep, that's mine."

"Neat," the man commented. His voice was scratchy and sharp, like dragging wet fingers across stainless steel.

"Yeah..." I droned as he continued looking over my army. He seemed quite amused.

"Was there something we could help you with?" I asked.

"Oh, I was just hoping to see a game."

"You just missed ours, actually," Fuji informed him. Mr. Nameless nodded pensively.

"Such a shame. I was rather hoping to see your... expertise," he said.

I chuckled. "Well, I'm a pretty good player, and while I could beat Fuji every day of the week-"

"Hey!" Fuji growled.

"- I know he's pretty good, too!"

The mysterious stranger smiled. "Is that so?" he asked with a slowly growing grin.

I nodded.

"Then perhaps you would like to play a game against me, then?" he asked, directing the question at both me and Fuji.

I shared a glance with Fuji. He seemed to want to entertain the idea. It had to be better than playing against the LEGO titan dude, for sure...

I looked back at the weird man, shrugging my shoulders.

"Sure, why not. We got time."

The man's smile grew wider, and it was then that I realized he had very long, sharp needles for teeth. His eyes grew full black as he took a step towards us.

"Then let us begin."

He suddenly tossed my fire warrior model at me. I growled as I reached up to grab it-

BOOM!

I body went flying past me as the force of the explosion threw me back.

"What the fuck-" I screamed, but the sudden force of my back slamming into a wall pushed the air straight out of my lungs.

The air was thick and humid around me. I felt heavy clothes sticking to my skin. The ringing of constant gunfire filled my ears, and my nostrils were filled with the musk of sweat and burning flesh.

What the Hell had just happened?!

"Shas'la! Get off your bum and start firing!"

I grit my teeth and turn my head. Immediately, my stomach quivers.

There's a Fire Warrior standing three feet from me.

Wut.