You might be asking yourself at this moment: How is this man working so fast? How does he keep producing quality content at a bi-weekly schedule? Well, It is because I am infused with a will. A will to write a goddamn good fiction. As always, capitalized Units can be found in MentalOmega .com Thank you, Apocalyptic Wanderer and Sceptile FTW for being my first followers (｀◔ ω ◔´) And thank you too, other readers, for sticking till Chapter 3. As always, feel free to make any suggestions, comments, or rants about this chapter either by posting a review or going to topic/107728-mo-fan fiction-at-minds-end-chapter-2-is-posted-looking-for-beta-readers-also/ Have fun with this chapter, but be warned. This chapter is pretty short.
A lemony yellow hue covered a glass containment pod almost twice the size and height of a regular human. Inside, a figure remained deathly still, floating inside of a transparent orange liquid. Its eyes closed, limbs wrapped around itself in a fetal position. A metallic umbilical cord traveled from the bottom of the pod to the belly of the beast, pumping nutrients to feed the experiment's expedient growth. A squad of men peered into the pod, writing on paper parchment notepads and dressed what seemed like old and worn violet hazmat gear. Poorly put together masks and pairs of glass goggles covered their faces along with. While they wrote, they stood on top of an iron catwalk, which was supported by thin steel poles. The catwalk resided in a cavernous area filled with hundreds if not thousands of similar looking pods all stacked together like the Terracotta Army. If one were to stand on one side of the cavern he would not be able to see the other side. The entire area was dimly lit, with most of the space being illuminated by the soft glow the pods give off. Occasionally a chilly breeze would sneak in from outside world and travel throughout the cave. The squad of scientists studied the aforementioned pod, examining its every feature. Unexpectedly, the creature within opened its eyes and started spazzing uncontrollably inside of the containment unit. It bashed on the glass, punching in the direction of the scientists. None of the four were surprised. They kept recording what was occurring on their pads, writing in pen, and occasionally flipping over a new page. Even as the containment pod broke, as the creature leaped out to choke one of the scientists, the rest remained dispassionate, bored. Data was more important than the life of one of their colleagues. Eventually, a hefty man that measured up to twice the size of the scientists, with thick skin of gray, dragged the creature, and the scientist it was strangling, off into a corner out of sight. Somewhere else, deep within the layers of containment pods, a man opened his eyes for the first time in a long while.
...
*Static* "War come in... Hello?" A voice, simple, suave, with a hint of a Middle Eastern accent, came onto the radio in search of someone called War.
No response from the other side, just the soft fizzing of radio interference.
Not to be dissuaded, the voice tried again, "War? Yooo Hooo? Hey, come on man we're all done on our side. What about yours?"
"War? WAR!" The man who had been speaking placed his palm smack center of his face, "Death you try. He probably listens to you more than me anyway."
*Static* A younger, feminine, voice switched to speak. "Hey War? If you don't respond in the next thirty seconds I'm gonna stab you in your sleep," she ended her sentence with a singing tone.
"Maybe I'll sneak my way into your cabin and tip toe around your traps. I know where all of them are anyways. Yes even the one underneath the twenty-fifth-floor tile, I can sense these things you know. Maybe I will accidentally misplace my underwear on the way. Then conceivably, I'll accidentally crawl in your sleeping pod with a knife in hand, and!"
*static* "OK! And no one needs to hear the rest of that! Anyways, I dunno if you are having that dream again, but when you finish up meet us at point Zeta-three. We'll finish the mission ourselves."
*static* "Don't be late, I'll be wwwwwaaaaiting."
I wasn't dreaming, just staring at the full moon, admiring its rounded craters and soft pale light. Maybe I was dreaming and just didn't know it. I had been choking one of the security guards for quite a while, perhaps a little too long. My left arm alone had been enough to break the protective gear he was wearing and apply deadly pressure on the neck. I let the guard's body go limp onto the ground. He made a satisfying thump sound when his body collided with the dead corpses of the rest of his team. There were no bullet holes in them, just broken bones and internal bleeding. The guards haven't been enough of a challenge for me to fire my weapon yet. Ah, flies were already gathering at the bodies the moment I finished. That's the Amazon Rainforest at work.
While the rest of my team went ahead with the mission, I decided to take a little stroll, preferably before more guards show up and start to make a scene. Perhaps I had just been exhausted, directly causing that dream to keep recurring throughout our missions. Consecutive infiltration, skirmishes, and travel should wear out a normal human body, but that factor couldn't have possibly affected me. Even Famine with his pathetic unaugmented body was able to stay on his sharpest with only an hour of sleep each day. Might have something to do with his endless stamina. I decided that since the others were finishing the mission anyway, I could basically stray off without any repercussions. That being said, I did not slack off so I can rest, no, I needed to test myself. Thus, I took a detour to point Zeta-three. In my path, I found the hardest looking jungle tree out of hundreds of thousands. It was probably not the thickest tree one can possibly punch in the Amazon, but it was adequate. Plus, the tree itself was just far enough away from the main objective area that my strike wouldn't raise any alarms. Without wasting more time, I pulled my right arm back and shot forward. The quick attack only split the trunk in half, desert yellow splinters poking out of the part of the tree I had just removed. The tree remained rigid, unwilling to fall. I knew it then that I was getting sloppy. Before, the tree trunk would have exploded into a thousand tiny barks.
...
Crouching on top of a Brazilian Nut Tree, and hanging onto a branch, I peered out into the almost pitch black horizon. My view lit by only the silver moonlight and early stars. I saw the full vastness of the Amazon forest. Trees as tall as the clouds covering a carefully hidden military compound. The owners of the base had let the local vegetation grow all over the buildings; roots and leaves provided an almost perfect cover under the Canopy layer of the Amazon. There was only one unusually tall building in the whole complex that tells of the base's location.
The unusually tall building was a tower with solid concrete as a base but only metal scaffolding making up the middle structure. At the top of the structure, four triangular spikes pointed at the starry sky on a rotating pan. What the tower seemed like to me at the time was a crude imitation of the Allies advanced Gap Generator. The Latin Confederation somehow got their grubby little hands on some Allies schematics. Fortunately, they probably didn't have the necessary parts to completely recreate the Gap Generator, because honestly, their effort looked like it was made out of scrap metal. That tower was our biggest problem. With a constant radar scrambling shroud being produced, Master could not send in Drillers for a direct underground assault on the facility. I would have loved to bring my brutes in, they need a walk and where else better than a battlefield? With drilling proving impossible, my team was sent to do the job of many, once again. Not that I minded the killing, just snapping necks gets a tad dull after a while. As I peacefully watched the horizon, (really wished I had a cup of warm tea) several small-scale explosions interrupted the quiet by lighting the darkness like small scale fireworks. The usual calm chirping of animals turned into wild screeches as I see dozens of birds flying away from the sudden detonations. Shortly after, the poorly built and crude imitation Gap Generator slowly tipped over, crashing into a maintenance bay and collapsing the roof. When a tree falls in a forest and nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound? Some say yes, others would deny the existence of the tree itself, but my team's answer to that question was to make sure no one is around to hear it fall by any means necessary. Another bright orange explosion bursted out of the facility and wrecked the nearby buildings. Seeing the carnage, something stirred up inside of me, mostly at my nose, urging me forward to join the chaos and spread doom. I spread my arms to make a T formation with my body and dived off the 160-foot tall nut tree. While on my way down, a Harpy Eagle screeched violently and flapped away.
...
My nose itched. I knew why too; it was the humid weather of the rainforest. I couldn't have simply scratch my nose either. Both of my hands were too busy delivering sudden death strikes to suspecting LC Conscripts. Sometimes I had wondered what it would be like having a third arm to scratch my nose while fighting. I asked Master about this before, but he instead of taking it under consideration, he mostly just laughed uncontrollably. The next day he gave me a raise. I didn't know what was so funny about my proposal, I thought that drawing I made was excellent. Obviously, the crayon coloring needed some work but the point should have been conveyed easily.
Nevertheless, my nose wanted to break from my body in order to find an owner to that will scratch it. I had set my path to find a soft tissue or something in the LC supply depot. Then again it was a Latin Confederation supply depot where the word depot is more prevalent than supply. I casually walked up to a guard post to ask for directions. Instead of welcoming me like good hosts, the guards, probably utterly terrified, peppered my armor with bullets. Typical human behavior, not even a hello or a welcome, just straight to shooting. So, I took my insatiable itch out on the Latin Confederation troops who attempted to stop me from entering their supply depot. Effortlessly, I smashed in the abdomen of two guards. Guards around patrolling the facility heard the shooting and traced the sound back to my position. Within a few minutes, I was face to face with thirty armed guards. I almost felt sorry for the poor bastards, the odds were against them. Guardpost Sleeves made for excellent makeshift weapons if you could pull them out of the ground. I zoomed around the depot swinging the Sleeve like a baseball bat. All the while dodging as many shells and flak explosions as possible. Although my armor could have handled whatever the enemy could possibly throw at me, my provision officer didn't seem to like the fact every time I went out my armor becomes riddled with so many dents it looked like the surface of the moon. We only have one set, he says, so take care of it! With all the nagging he does, I decided to humor him as long as I could. I picked up a stray barrel and threw it deep into enemy lines. It was ready to be lit by a match or a stray spark. The latter of which was more than plenty due to the hail of rounds being fired. Someone got the bright idea to actually use the empty vehicles around the depot to stop me while watching their comrades burn. A Catastrophe tank drove forward out of a forest camo tent. It attempted to put itself between me and my objective. The driver, perhaps arrogant, maybe desperate, floored the gas pedal while pointing the front of the vehicle directly at me. I had no time to toy with these meaningless insects. They wanted me, so I gave them exactly what they wanted.
Digging in my steel boots into the semi moldable dirt ground, I prepared to catch the incoming monster tank. My arms out, knees bent, cannon secured magnetically on my back, and nose still irritated as hell. The tank was only able to get attain a speed of 40 miles per hour before reaching me, but with its gratuitous size and mass, a normal man would have easily been turned to roadkill under the force. I thanked Master silently for these bulging muscles. I caught the tank by the bumper, but not before it pushed me back more than 50 yards, into an extremely thick Amazon Tree with its overwhelming inertia. Fortunately it couldn't force me back any further away from the facility. By holding the tank's front bumper, I lifted the entire front hull into the air. Officially, the Catastrophe tank became the hypotenuse of a triangle with its treads still speeding away, but no matter how hard it tries it can not move. I decided then to imitate what I saw not too long a while ago. A mere child had used nothing but brain power to lift up an entire Soviet Akula nuclear submarine out of the water. The submarine had been over 180 meters long and was still dripping with seawater when she decided to flip it over onto land. I could not help but remember the envy I felt seeing the little one do something that I could not conceivably accomplish. She had all the power that I was supposed to represent. Using the new found anger I acquired, and my leg muscles, I threw the mighty tank over onto its belly. No one inside was ever going to escape that claptrap. Dusting my hands off, I examined my now muddied armor. Its platinum shine muted by perspirations, but not a single dent in sight. Ramming me with a tank, pft, a bunch of animals. I proceeded back to the supply depot expecting more resistance. Only to find the area completely devoid of other bipedal life. I admit, I might have been laughing at that moment, the cowards had left after seeing me in action. Didn't blame them. Shortly after, however, my body reminded me of my true objective. So I continued my journey down into the supply depot.
...
Inside of a large but dim room, several dozens of television monitors were stacked on top of each other facing one direction alike a side of a rubix cube. On various screens were white and black static, but on others were scenes of fire and destruction. Many hard working soldiers frantically searched the screens for the signs of intruders, none of them had any luck finding any. Their eyes jumped from screen to screen desperately seeking even a glimpse of the attacking force; while their necks twist and turned rapidly to allow their eyes screentime. On the other side of the room, a thick glass panel separated a round table filled with people in uniforms and white coats from the rest of the room. Sickly green cotton uniforms, with the occasional golden paint button on the collar and belt. Although the regular grunts look stressed, agitated, and fearful, the upper echelon behind the glass panel looked even more so. The room had a definite lack of proper air conditioning, thus the humid amazon air added more agitation. One officer constantly used his right arm to wipe away the sweat that has accumulated above his brow. Despite his best efforts, a pool of sweat formed on the table he was leaning over. Another officer briskly sucked in on a half pipe of cigarette. The Cigarette embers glowing brighter as he did, then he raised his head towards the ceiling to exhale a massive cloud of gray toxic smoke, irritating the other officers even more. Two empty cigarette cartons laid on the concrete floor. One man, who appeared to wearing a Colonel's uniform, fidgeted with his fingers in the corner of the room, scratching the skin next to his fingernails. Tearing at the skin in order to quell an insatiable itch. All in all there were ten people behind the panel, nine of which were extremely upset.
Why were the commanders of the Latin Confederation so panicked? Well, one by one, more and more screens flickered out to white and black static. None of the intruders were identified, and each unit sent to investigate has ceased activity all together. With the heat, smoke, fear, and scratching one man had enough.
"Damn it." A burley fist pounded on a wooden table "I demand to know, Captain, why haven't you found the intruders yet?"
The middle aged officer stood who stood by the doorway replied while swallowing his fear, "We're trying to find them General but, but, but we-"
"Well try harder!" The General abruptly cutting off the unnerved man. "Or your head will be separated from your body the next time I see you!"
"YES, SIR! Right away sir!" The man skidded back into the main room slamming the glass panel door as he did. He waved his arms furiously and ordered his men to use their necks to its full extent in case they will never be able to use it again. Still, the enemy was nowhere to be found.
One figure, who was not as sweaty as, stood up from his cushioned seat in the corner of the room. He was dressed in long violet colored robes despite the heat. The figure stepped closer to the round table and inquired, "Incompetence running amok in your troops, General?"
The General did not look pleased by the comment. He turned, wearing a full scowl, to the figure and replied harshly, "This is no time for your mockeries Ivan, We're dealing with an unknown force and I AM NOT about to die here."
"Now Comrade General, you might think this attack was perpetrated by an enemy force, but from what I saw from my time on advising you, it could be the boogeyman coming to get you." Ivan ran his fingers on the maple table, "Or it might just be the work of your own men."
Ivan's sentence sent a wave of shock and denials through the General's cabinet. All six members were fiercely retaliating against Ivan's accusation, that is, until the General silenced them with the wave of a hand.
"What are you talking about Ivan?" The General turned his chair to concentrate on the panel of screens, and raised an eyebrow. "This clearly is the work of outside forces. No army of ours can move this inconspicuously yet cause so much damage at the same time. Whatever this is, it's not ours."
"Are you sure Comrade General? You know yourself the officers has been... shall we say, testy these couple of weeks. Especially suspicious from them are the reports about seeing what, a flying saucer? Who do you think you're trying to fool here, all of you with your false reports and your lies? "
The General rubbed his bushy gray beard. "What are you saying Ivan?. These are my loyal men, they've served under me for ages. I trust each and everyone of them with my life!"
"I think you know in your heart General, the truth. Loyalty can only go so far."
The other officer sat silently boiling with anger. Their eyes narrowed at Ivan perhaps planning his untimely demise. Ivan arrived at the hidden entrance of the base one day. He said he came on behalf of Moscow meaning if anything happens to him, everything terrible will happen to them. Ivan was supposed to be rooting out moles in this base; however, ever since the snake in man's clothes arrive at the compound, folders of documents going missing, equipment stolen from the armory, and strange grunting noises emanated from the forest at night. All signs pointed to Ivan being the perpetrator of these events, yet they just can't prove it. Every single one of the officers knew that Ivan was the source of their problems, everyone except for General Vladimir.
"Do not listen to Ivan's words General," a junior lieutenant stood up to speak. "His deception knows no bounds."
"Oh ho, really now?" Ivan unexpectedly smirked, an unnatural expression on his face. "By deception do mean you and the officers conspiring together to create a lie about an unidentifiable intruder?"
"What? No! There is something out there exterminating my men left right and center. The threat is real. Please, General, Ivan is the only one here lying."
Ivan, no longer with a smirk on his face, stared straight at the young lieutenant, "Then tell me, who besides from you officers know where exactly the cameras are positioned? This force of death out there is destroying surveillance cameras left and right. Who besides you six has the authority to know where this room is, and exactly how to open it? Because by the sequence of camera shutdowns it seems like the so called 'intruders' are heading right to this very room! When it was announced that we were evacuating to a safety room there were three other possible options. Yet this supposed enemy seems to be heading directly here. I don't know what to make of it, a coincidence"
"They enemy probably interrogated one of my men. This doesn't prove anything. Camera positions are easily traceable with all the cables on the walls."
"All very circumstantial don't you think? And how did they manage to find this base in the first place? Only two dozen people in the world know exactly where we on the map. Nine of them are right in this room. The camouflage cover this compound is superb. Any satellite scans would have instantly been blocked by the shroud tower. So how did this unknown enemy find a base that technically does not exist?"
"I...-"
"Someone would have had to leak the intel of course if there is indeed an enemy force. But who would do that in this base? Who would betray the General for their own sake? Hmm? Is it you Colonel Dmitry? What about you? Young Captain? Actually, let me ask a better question. Who besides you, lieutenant Gonzales, have a bigger grudge against the General?"
"I.. I don't know what you are talking about. My name is Silvana Orizaga" The lieutenant averted her gaze towards the glossy wood table in front of her.
"Silvana sure, but Orizaga? No no no. I've looked into your background Gonzales. Was it your papa who was ordered to stand his ground and die by General Vladimir? Your mama? Both?"
"..."
"You wouldn't happen to know what the inside of a mental institution looked like a decade ago do you?"
The lieutenant just stared, with her black pupils, at the table in front of her with wavering determination.
"It's actually quite amazing how you managed to rise through the ranks so quickly. Could it be that voluptuous body of yours? I wonder who you had to sleep with to get here."
The heavy smoker felt his tonsils go down his throat.
Extending his arm, using his index finger, Ivan lifted up Lieutenant Silvana Gonzales's chin to level.
"Do not accuse me of treachery when you deceive others." Ivan leaned in, his goatee almost touching the neck of Silvana, and whispered, "Understand?"
"Yes... Comrade Ivan," the woman choked out. Her cheeks flaring and tear ducts desperately holding back the flood.
"That's enough Ivan," the smoker spoke out, "No one here doubts Silvana's dedication. She would never betray the Confederation and neither would we."
Letting go of the junior lieutenant, Ivan returned to his spot next to General Vladimir.
"Ok, so you pledge for her loyalty. So why don't you enact on your loyalty for the Confederation and just tell the truth to the poor General? There was no outside incursion. Just a coup d'etat developed by you officers. There is no outside force interfering here is there? There's probably only a single conscript in the power room shutting down the cameras to create the illusion of an attack. Why, those explosions outside are probably all planned. General, I think the only people wanting to kill you, were right in this room all along."
Vladimir, who had been strangely silent during the argument, was thinking back to that fateful day 10 years ago. He was only a lieutenant colonel then, not as old and still had a bright outlook for the future of the Union. On the day of one of the first Soviet incursions in what was now Latin Confederation territory, Vladimir had been assigned command of a squad code named: Exiles. He remembered all of their faces, each of them had such high hopes for the future. Hope that they would be able to live in their homeland again after being expelled by the American occupations. Unfortunately, the Allies had long known about the invasion force. Machine gun fire came from the trees as soon as the first landing craft hit the beach. Bullets ripped through the thinly armored boats. Decimation ensued...
Snapping back to reality, the weathered old General rubbed his dehydrated eyes with his ashy wrinkled hands. One thought kept repeating in his brain: live, just survive, do anything to make it out alive, live, Live, LIVE! In a singular motion, The tired General reached under the opaque table and pulled out a Markov pistol with exactly 5 rounds in the magazine. Engraved in the wooden handle of the pistol in silver text was, vivir. He pointed the primitive weapon towards his officers and pulled the trigger consecutively five times. Five individuals lost their lives that moment. No letter will ever be sent to their families about their deaths. Their salaries will never reach those they support. Their spouses will always speculate alone in tears what had happened to their beloved. One officer, however, will not need that letter. Lieutenant Gonzales, as well as everyone else in the room, remained in shock of the events that had transpired. She blankly gawked at the corpses, her former companions, perhaps reminded of the mortality of human beings. General Vlad holstered his pistol to put his flaky bleached hands on the soft shoulder of Silvana.
"I am, truly, sorry about your parents."
With that, the last camera pointed directly outside the fortified door outside of the safe room terminated. Vladimir paid no attention to the screens of static, instead, he ordered the eight conscripts who witnessed the execution of their superior officers to pry open the reinforced entrance. They complied with no objections, spinning the massive handle, alike a steering wheel of a boat, of the vault door. Lethargically the vault swung open.
Outside the door was nothing, except an empty hallway with alabaster wall paint and a drab concrete flooring.
"Hold up, just let me just get a canteen of water."
"Ivan. What-"
"Oh sorry 'comrade General', I wasn't talking to you."
The old man looked out to the hallway again, still, there was nothing, no one, there. Despite his retinas telling him there was nothing there, Vladimir could most definitely feel something tightening around his throat. Suddenly the veteran was lifted several inches off the ground, his airflow closed off. The Conscripts did not know what sort of voodoo magic was transpiring, so they simply gaped. While they were staring, eight lethal dagger-like projectiles zoomed around the corner of the hallway. These darts raced each other towards the group conscripts, each magnetically attaching themselves on the helmets of a conscript. Within three seconds, the daggers exploded, producing a myriad of headless corpses. Originated from the neck of the suspended general, a hand with an opened fingered leather glove materialized. More body parts actualize from the arms and legs to the chest. A man appeared out of seemingly nothing. Vladimir's bulging eyes shifted down toward his attacker; however, the dim light of the room made it difficult to see the face of his will be assassin. Also, the surprisingly strong man was covered in a long dark gray cotton cloak. The cloak was not frivolous, and felt Turkish in nature, exactly made to mask the sound of moving combat gear. Moving his right hand, the man retrieved a small broken segment of metal from within his cloak.
"I picked up this from one of the Jaguar tanks outside," a voice heavy with a middle eastern accent spoke. "Think this will fit nicely in your neck?"
Gargle
Smiling at the response, the man jammed the hard jagged metal into the vulnerable neck of General Vladimir. Whatever oxygen-rich blood trying to reach the brain of Vladimir's brain spurted out through his collar. The volcano of blood showered the static screens, the glass panel, and most importantly the space in front of the dying General. One thought ran through Vladimir's head before it shut down forever, live.
Leaving the damned General to his fate, the cloaked assassin attempted to shake off the blotches of blood from his cloak.
Just as which, a pair of hands wrap around the left of the vault door frame. These were soft hands, one can even say they were delicate. The top of a light gray hoodie covered by two glowing metallic lids shortly followed, perpendicular to the door frame.
"Are they dead?" the talking hoodie said, stretching every syllable to almost twice their length.
"Yeah yeah, you got them, now help me get this blood off my cloak."
The full head of a teenage girl popped up like a Whack A Mole. Bright silver hair bounced around, unaffected by natural gravity somehow. Her large cardinal eyes scan the similar colored room. A pair of thin lips spread to match half of her lower face, she was... smiling?
"This room is pretty."
"Well I don't know about that, but I do know you should get your petite ass over here to levitate this blood off of me!"
"Hmm, let me think about it. How about. NO!" Giggle
The girl floated her way into the room, still sideways, now walls no longer hiding the rest of her ash colored hoodie nor her slender onyx shade kneesocks coming up just a couple inches above her knee. What is unexpected on a normal teenager body, however, was not her most splendid pair of voluminous long sleeves, not her extra short miniskirt barely covering anything, and it was certainly not the fact that she was floating several inches off the ground. No, it was the tubes originating from her spine connecting her to a cone looking machine half her size. Its mushroom-like top was sealed with armor, but accessible through a round hatch. The middle section, with ventilators glowing red and puffing, had extra spikes pointed outwards. The bottom, shaped exactly alike a smooth drill, rounded out the whole device. This machine was irregular for everyone else in the known world, but to Death, it was just another part of her body of which she can levitate freely.
While Famine scurried around the room, opening cabinets and shoving in mounds of red stamped documents into a duffle bag, and Death spinning around on the ceiling refusing help with the blood stains, Ivan led Lieutenant Gonzalez to the doorway. He put both hands on his neck, grabbing a fleshy protrude, and pulled up. As a result, large parts of Ivan's face was ripped off and tossed to the side. Now, without the weird goatee and bald head, the face of 'Ivan' revealed itself to be an Egyptian woman with short black bangs, slim eyebrows, and emerald eyes. Her skin had a slight shade of green, but nothing too extreme. The first thing she did after shedding his skin was to take a large deep gulp from a dead officer's canteen. Stale, but still refreshing, water gush down her throat.
The half man, half woman hybrid took its merry time doing various stretching exercises including arm circles and toe touches.
Once all done, it started to speak, "Ahhhhhh, the smell of a great morning and a gorgeous view to boot."
Famine stopped his scavenging to take a sniff. "Smells like cigarettes and smoked ham."
"Exactly! A part of a balanced diet."
Turning around, Famine employed the use of both of his hands in order to mimic air quotes. "Welcome back Pest, we 'missed' you."
"Took you long enough to get here by the way. Do you know how hot it is in this costume everyday? I was so sure they were going to find me out when I'm not sweating like the rest of them.
"Not long enough I say."
"Screw you." Pestilence sends a punch Famine's shoulder. "So...where's uh... big guy?"
"He was dreaming again."
"He didn't abandon the mission did he?."
"Well, I don't know. We haven't had contact with him for a while. Although from the sounds of explosions not set off by us nearby I think he came back to his senses.
"Hmph, maybe the big oaf shouldn't be team leader if he passes out half the time."
"Give him a break will ya? I mean when you first got your mutations, I had to hold your hair back when you puked every few hours.'
"Part of the reason I cut it short now."
"You looked better with long hair."
Putting her one hand on her hips, pushing her arced gluteus maximus out, and pulling one of her arms back above her head, Pestilence posed. "You sure about that babe?"
'You're still in that 'Ivan' body suit by the way."
"Oh... right..."
"Speaking of the big guy, we should get a move on. I've got the formula and I told him we were meeting at point Zeta. You know how punctual he is... when he's not dreaming anyways."
"Finally, I can get out of this stinking Death! Let's go!"
Death, however, was more intrigued by the Lieutenant with the blank expression than leaving. She had picked up a spare clipboard, a piece of paper, and a pair of glasses from a ghastly white scientist cowering in a corner. Floating right next to Silvana, Death examined the new specimen. Ever so often she would let slip some measurements and analysis. After completely three rotations around the stiff lieutenant, Death decided to start poking, prodding and groping. Even in her mind control state, Silvana's eyelids retracted, reacting to Death's touch. Completing her physical examine, Death ripped off her glasses. She turned to Famine and Pestilence with eyes big as pearls and a smile so cute that it would put puppies and babies out of a job.
"Can we keep her?"
Famine and Pestilence just looked at each other like concerned parents whom their child just carried home an unusually large black widow spider and asked to keep it as a pet.
...
Sweet relief
I had two handfuls of army issues toilet paper stuck up my nostrils. Sure I looked ridiculous, but the relief was welcomed with open arms. Anyone who there who saw me like that died within a few minutes anyways. It took me a good while to find those rolls of paper. The supply depot was considerably more massive than expected. The upper section leads to seven different underground warehouses. Wherever I went there were cabinets full of canned rations and ammunitions already waiting. However, when I reached the seventh level down, there were multitudes of green canisters. As much I hoped, they weren't filled with lime flavored gatorade.
I had gathered a large amount of explosives at the warehouse entrance when I heard the thunder. According to the laws of nature, rain usually followed loud booming noises from the sky. I held my right hand out to feel to the soft soothing touch of sprinkling drops, only to be hit by the full force of a torrent. I knew that rainforest weathers were bad, but I did not realize it was that bad. The rain dumped by the sky subsequently ruined the gunpowder trails I set up. Frustrated, I walked off towards an abandoned Flak Track covered by a blue rain tarp, hoping to activate its ancient rusted engine for transportation. Maybe it was a stroke of luck, but just as I leave the depot, six marble white streaks originating from the granite sky converged on the barrels I was stacking not a minute ago. Fiery orange consumed my body, enveloping my whole within milliseconds. I felt the power of heat extubating its dominion upon me. From inside my mask, I can see the incandescent red flames pushing against orange ones, fighting over who will first extinguish my existence. Ah, it was a good feeling to be fought over.
To be continued...