He figured the last time he'd hear the rattle of machine gun fire it was when he opened fire on that nest less than a month ago, and he'd assumed that this particular dream was merely a blurry flashback to some firefight in his past, however the ringing in his ears turned out to be nothing but real.
Mikita fumbled out of his bed and onto the dirt floor, the shock immediately whisking him awake, the firefight in his "dreams" having manifested in reality.
Only the sound indicated that he was in a bad position without anything worth a damn to protect himself, however he had taken to rest in his clothes, the PokéNav still wrapped around his wrist. It read he had only gotten four hours of shut eye; however it hadn't mattered with the blood now pumping through his veins again. He was alive, but if the screeches of the Zubats coupled with gunfire were any indication, that fact wasn't to stay true.
The medical bed in the tent had proven comfortable enough to sleep in, so the bone saw was quickly in his hand before the flood of night light was ushered through from the opening entrance flap.
A muzzle of a gun poked out followed by the head of a person. It took the well-seasoned soldier less than a second to identify that this man wasn't one of the uniform clad Rocketeers, the tribal tattoos decorating his bald head clear enough in the moon light.
Mikita rushed forward before the man cleared the flap, the feet between them closed in a second before his arm reached out and pulled the man by his neck in on his terms.
He had taken the intruder by surprise, his gun knocked away by his impact to the ground. Mikita had pinned him to the ground, the bone saw immediately jabbed into the intruder's right arm. He gurgled a scream; however it was merely another whisper to the chaos happening outside.
It was a raid and Mikita had known the scenario well. Whoever they were, they must've over powered the UNGA checkpoint and attacked by moonlight. The man's screams went on, the soundtrack of the night as he heard more than Rocket's sentry Zubats outside dying. He had collected his thoughts as he had composed himself. He was probably the only man left to fight against whoever they were. The rattle outside spoke to the testament he was outgunned and outmatched.
He remembered why he was here in the first place, though the attainment of the sum of cash began to pale in importance as his body adjusted to being under fire. His heart rate quickened, muscles tensed, and mind racing. He tried to remember the layout of the camp, possible infiltration points, the status of his own body, courses of action among other things.
'One thing at a time' Mikita whipped his bone saw out the flesh of his victim, his musing about the situation refocusing.
"Who are you?!" He had matched the volume of the man's screams, being detected not a problem.
He seemed to refuse as he recomposed himself, wriggling his shirtless body under his grip in an attempt to escape, cursing and spitting in his native tongue.
"I can make this more painful than it should be you know!" Mikita kneeled, his boot momentarily pinching on the cut marking the man's arm as if a discarded cigarette, his other foot on his chest and his position bent, bone saw ready for another jab.
He was a Medic; he knew how to pull anyone's strings anatomically. The shoulder area was a particular target he always aimed for, if not for disarming his enemy, it was to harm them greatly for a bundle of nerves had been located there.
The intruder once again screamed. The cut juiced like a lemon, blood coating Mikita's boot. He wriggled and squirmed to no avail, the pain counteracting his strength and will. Mikita had promised himself he wouldn't kill anyone outside of the service, though he hadn't been kidding himself. He had brought a shotgun with him and perhaps the reason why the plane ride was so hard on his gut was because of its compression against the Kevlar vest he wore underneath the scrubs. He hadn't wanted to, but he was prepared to, and far too used to, killing.
His screaming subsided; eyes wincing in pain and all at once his resistance subsided under the former lieutenant's heel.
The winner of the fight had kneeled down further, the intruder's pulse still going.
A hot exhale came from Mikita contrasting the cold ones of his opponent, unconscious against the dirt floor.
In the dark, Mikita had yielded more information from him than he would have if he had been awake. The tattoos on his head extended down all over his body, war paint as opposed to ink. The designs were elaborate, even to Mikita's dulled sense of artistic knowledge, holding the answer to his question.
Even at a glance he knew they were the tribal men, of what clan (if any) was negligible, but they were the Native Americans driven to madness when the bombs fell centuries ago. When this area was resettled by pioneers over three hundred years ago they faced these natives in the same ways they did a thousand years ago, though Columbus never had to face Pokémon and automatic weapons. It was a hard and overly complicated advance by these people who colonized this region and Old America as a whole, but Guyana had been mostly "tamed".
"UNGA protection my ass." The lieutenant hadn't believed the checkpoint had failed, picking up his opponent's fallen weapon.
Rifles and shotguns had paled in effectiveness when compared to Pokémon, the pioneers having lost too many to the synergy that these natives possessed with the wildlife, even backed by the first new companies of the United Nations Government's Army, however he was better off with a Kalashnikov and his shotgun than he was with a bone saw.
The shotgun was quickly slung over his back and a beat up old Kalashnikov was idle in his arms. For a brief second, in his scrubs, jeans, and the bare minimal protection of Kevlar on his chest, he reminded himself of how much he looked like one of those pirates...
He racked the metal bolt back, the weapon dirty and grimy as yet another visitor came through the tent flap, chaos still erupting outside. Orange flames painted the air as he became aware of his next patient.
It muttered its name a few times, regarding its fallen master and then the man with the AK above him. It took more than a second for the Typhlosion to know what happened, and not much more than a second after that for the flames on its back to ignite.
Mikita had the luck of the draw however and it only took one moment to raise his rifle to meet the overgrown beast.
The fire on its back met the fabric of the tent, the sage green turned black and then burning into nothing. The medical tent caught fire, and then Mikita then promptly opened fire as the Typhlosion lunged, claws swooping in. At such a range, none of them could've missed, but the Kalashnikov had the reach. The Typhlosion's momentum reversed itself, stumbling backward out of tent, training moving Mikita's legs to follow him out. Each recoiling shot felt like a well-worn glove to him, the force of the recoil fitting nicely into his shoulder as he kept the spread to a minimum. Each shot had taken center place on the yellow fur of the beast, its chest turning into red splotches with each twitch it made from the shots making impact. Lungs and ribs broke as the bullets exited out from the other end. Mikita was intent on mag dumping the thirty 7.62 rounds in perpetual overkill, spraying fire that lit up his portio of the night.
His rifle sealed the Typhlosion's fate by the rain of lead that came from it, and by extension, Mikita. However he had almost sealed his own had he not caught a glimpse of his surroundings in his peripheral vision. The camp had looked nothing like the one he had drove into hours before, the clarity of the moon light was enough to reveal Natives left and right sacking the camp. Rocketeers were fighting a hopeless battle, scattered Zubats, Grunts, and Scientists, fighting to no avail. He also saw the machete coming at him from his right.
The Typhlosion let out a horrible cry and a last spurt of flame in its killer's general direction, but it had missed and definitively set the medical tent ablaze. Mikita's rifle clicked empty, in the split second he transferred from targeting the Typhlosion to the native running at him with the machete, his hands went from trigger grip to around the stock.
The machete came down and the empty rifle came up to meet it, the weight of the rifle overpowering the machete away from him as reciever and blade collided. In that moment of surprise Mikita followed his rifle through the swing, one hand letting go of the rifle and rolling into a fist. He punched at the same angle as his swing, forcing the man to the ground, yelling gibberish in the hopes his compatriots would help him. The pistol in the man's holster was quickly picked, and Mikita had broken out running toward his van.
Perhaps it was the lighting conditions or the cover of chaos, but no one had noticed the man in the scrubs and the jeans dashing across to his van, the back thrown open amid gunfire and the cries of various Pokémon.
He grasped for his coach gun and then his pack that he had stored next to the stretchers, the gun snapped closed with shells as the sound of growling came forth. A Mightyena had tracked him into the van, the wolf's primal instincts probably serving it better than its master's. It nearly caught his heel as he jumped into the rear of the van, though he landed on his back and he had put his gun forward to meet the threat. The double barrels had aimed through his legs as the Mightyena had pounced once again, though the jaws that posed the threat were soon removed as one shell had exploded in its face with instantaneous death, the shockwave in th confined space making his arms tremble.
The body twitched post-mortem and was promptly kicked out of the van, the blood stains from his three kills in the last couple of minutes still there coating his boots, scrubs, and arms as if he were some bastard abstract art piece. He had been used to knowing the situation, the parameters of the battle. Though he was on his own for the time being, rudely awoken in the middle of the night to come into an ambush. However he was a medic and he worked with what ws given to him, this not being an exceptional situation.
There was not much in the sports bag in the first place, shotgun removed, so he had thrown in the remaining painkillers, antibiotics, and bandages into it for either surviving Rocketeers and if worse came to worse, himself. For a second, he thought it'd be too much either way, but it didn't matter, the supplies weren't his to begin with and he couldn't care less for preservation or cost effectiveness.
Objectives were always at the forefront of Mikita's mind, hammered into his brain by years of them. He wasn't enlisted anymore, but he still had an objective as the ringing on his forearm was reminding him.
The van's tires were discovered to have been slashed as he jumped out and took cover behind the concrete road blocks, the PokéNav on his right arm answered as he ducked his head down, back to the wire wall of the encampment.
"It's a bad time, Archer." He hadn't needed to even glance down at the ID to know it was him, speaking in a hushed voice, calm and collected despite the situation.
Archer's tone was the contrary, he had yelled, perhaps spit into his own line. "The hell is going on over there, lieutenant!?"
He peeked over the concrete barricade, the medical tent had since been burned down, the fire feasting on its remains as the Natives continued inward into the camp, destroying pockets of resistance as far as Mikita could tell.
"Hush, Archer. Don't get me killed now you hear?" He swapped cover down a few feet, intent to getting to the dig site and avoiding the eyes of the intruders.
"Don't you shush me lieutenant, I have probably the most important asset down there in Guyana and the sat footage is picking up fires and corpses!" A body had lied against the erect tent Mikita had taken cover behind, the black uniform and the parka having been torn by a well-placed slash of claws across the man's chest. The Rocketeer had died in this position, his eyes reflecting the moon like pools of water, hands clutched at a red and white sphere.
The Pokéball was inert, whatever Pokémon it had once contained was released, however the distinctive ping that came by touching the material was still there.
A group of armed men had almost come across the lone ex-soldier, a husky Scyther in tow, sniffing the air for any survivors, but the inert Pokéball was thrown in the opposite direction and promptly drew their attention, running off into some corner of the camp. An appeased smile had come across Mikita's face; however it disappeared with another shout from his handler.
"What the hell is happening over there Mickey?!" He dashed from cover to cover, the dirt tracks he made mingling with those of paw prints and bare feet.
"Natives came and attacked in the middle of the night, I just woke up no more than a few minutes ago." He wondered where was the UNGA, or what happened to them, but they would be useless and in the end counter-productive to what he was originally doing.
"Did the UNGA checkpoint fail?"
"Don't know. You have any idea who these guys are?"
Papers ruffled and people bustled behind that comm line, more than apparent that Archer had been in the same situation room he had seen him in earlier.
"This is probably the exact group that made a bother of itself before the UNGA moved in. Descendants of some Native American tribe." He ducked out of cover to look at one body that wasn't clad in black.
'At least someone had tried to fight back.' He mused over the body, the bite marks on its neck and the nearby corpse of the purple rat meant leaving no doubts over what happened. The war paint on the body was generally the same as the man he had taken out in the medical tent, the war paint still wet in some places. The feather head dress and the leather whip over a pair of ill-fitting pants denoted that had been in some way shape or form some sort of Pokémon handler to the natives, his skin baked a tan typical to those who lived on the equator.
"No shit, Archer."
"To be precise, their official name of the only noticeable group is roughly translated: "Father of God"."
"Sounds like religious terrorism, Archer."
"Something regarding that, you should know the sort."
"Don't remind me." It was a sour remark; however the blood on his face provided an even more unwanted taste in his mouth. The Mightyena had taken a twelve gauge to the head, and the momentum had unfortunately pushed the grey matter forward, the red on his bare skin not differentiating him from the attackers' war paint.
The plucked pistol was firm in his right hand, the left gripping his coach gun. He had no idea how he remained stealthy, but if all indications were correct, and he knew his spatial awareness hadn't become that impaired; he was behind all of the "God Fathers" and their Pokémon.
Yelling in their foreign language, they had all but indicated that they thought they had wiped out all immediate resistance, circling around the main tent in the center area.
That also meant that the Dreamstone was about to be put in harm's way.
"What am I dealing with Archer? I need to know or I am not getting Dreamstone back,"
"You're dealing with an extremist tribe who thinks all Pokémon come from one of their children."
Mikita had heard his fair share of reasons why terrorist or pirates went to war: Oil, money, god, culture, land grabs, but never of the like he had just heard.
He had realized he had been panting, adrenaline having kicked in and leaving him at that moment. His bodily functions proved to not benefit him at all given the sound of growling rounding the corner behind him.
It was a deep and heavy gnarl, the air having warmed up.
'Houndour…" He whispered, advising himself. The pistol was clicked off its safety, stuffed into the front of his pants as his shotgun was pointed in the direction of the incoming threat. Houndour and Houndoom were a favorite of pretty much everyone who used Pokémon as weapons. Easy to train, very familiar because of their canine roots, their fiery temper was used to much effectiveness on the battlefield. The more experienced among the packs were able to bark fireballs, but that took time and training which the UNGA in particular didn't care for.
"Stay on the line Archer; I might go loud any second."
Its teeth were the first thing he noticed, bared and covered with its saliva. Threatening as it appeared, he had dealt with the canine in the same manner he did the Mightyena.
The shot was loud. Its effects perhaps even louder, the point blank shot having thrown the body much farther down than he had expected with chunks of flesh spread around. However dealing with one threat led to another and the sound of foreign shouting erupted through the camp once again.
The tent he had taken cover behind was instantly dancing from its rope foundations as a ripple of assault rifle fire cut through and diced up the sage tent.
Mikita slid under the gunfire, hiding behind another concrete barrier and blindly firing with his coach gun. Whoever they had been, they were not accurate shooters. That hadn't meant that them closing the gap was preferred.
He popped his head out and aligned his shotgun with his sight.
One man had fallen as he pulled the trigger of his shotgun, however one was replaced by many and he found himself in a firefight not even a full twenty four hours in a foreign country.
'Still doesn't beat Australia.' Jokes and fond memories aside he emptied the remaining shell of his weapon into a charging tribal, his body flailing as he fell to the dirt ground with an unhealthy thud.
His shotgun had clicked empty, an audio cue for Mikita to let the shotgun fall as his hands went from one grip to another, yanking the pistol out of his pants and re-aiming.
Archer had a satellite feed trained on his mercenary. For all the chaos of the current situation, he had to be impressed by the lowres imagery. Five men had initially responded to his loud disposal of the Houndour, having dealt with one seconds later under fire. His transition from long gun to pistol was smooth and accurate; a testament to his experience.
Each shot from the pistol fired had hit home and then five men had been dead within the minute, the muzzle flash from the pistol illuminating the shot briefly.
He wasn't to blame, Lieutenant Noelle that is, he hadn't any foresight to know that this was going to happen. Nor was he a leak judging by the way he dropped the raiders, but still Archer's anger could only be vented at him for the moment.
The rest of the room had been in chaos, bustling and trying to get a grip on the scenario in Guyana. He had been calm and collected however, instead his mind concentrated on what had led up to this.
Perhaps that had been irrelevant based on the current situation.
His priority now was damage control, raising his cellphone to his mouth.
"Mikita?"
He dropped a pistol magazine and replaced it with a fresh one as he spoke to his PokéNav, running for a weapon from his fallen foes after racking back the plastic slide.
"Yes, sir?" He answered the call, eyes scanning over the rifles on the ground.
"Do what you can to clear the camp; we're organizing several rescue flights from the nearest airbase to the port."
If the camp was filled with tribals who hadn't known how to use their rifles he stood a fair chance, picking up a stray Kalashnikov from the ground. Just now the Zubats started to recollect themselves far high in the sky and they were organized for a supersonic barrage. Thankful for the medical support he had given the Zubat earlier he had hoped that they would be able to differentiate friend from foe in the chaos.
"Roger that Archer. I'll secure Dreamstone as best I can."
"Good man. Archer out."
He had scavenged several mags from the other guns that fell, however one felled weapon had struck him odd in particular.
It was an AR-15 pattern rifle, not something found typically in the hands of forest guerillas in the rainforest.
Weapons in the world were all either found in weapon caches from before the Third World War or were reproductions from government controlled firms. Those pirates and bandits that Mikita had shot at and been shot at from had been thankful for the Cold War that had happened before the hot one however, millions upon millions of firearms hidden away and dug up as time went on. His gear was mostly made up of those relics from the 1960's, at least his guns were, so he knew the look of them well compared to the new ones that had been designed in the last century.
The Kalashnikov in his hand and the AR-15 on the ground were fine designs, but they had come and been used by distinctly different people: The AK was the weapon many people still attributed to evil, the AR-15 the one held by their saviors.
Perhaps the detail would've been ignored if it had been used and chewed up, but it hadn't been. It was new and the white paint that outlined the letters of the trademark and switches were still shining.
This was not something that they had just come upon, Mikita knew, rifles were never left behind by their carrier in the UNGA whom used these rifles exclusively. These rifles had to have been given.
No matter how those weapons had managed to be ascertained a stray shot from one of them had just then suddenly tugged at his Kevlar vest and he was suddenly spun down in the ground in response. It was a glancing blow and the Kevlar underneath his shot scrubs deflecting the shot well. However he still had felt the blow as he was thrown off balance and sent down to the ground. The shot rattled his guts, bruising his skin unpleasantly, but it was a survivable shot.
He moved into the fall however and spun onto his back toward the origin of the shot, Kalashnikov aimed in his scrunched position.
"God damn!"
A tribal had shot him from the cover he had just come from, forced below the concrete wall as a 7.62 burst from Mikita chipped away at it.
The Zubat swarm in that moment dissipated and came back down in a stream upon the camp, a handful coming toward Mikita's target and unleashing their ear splitting attacks on the Tribal. Taken off guard he stood up and started shooting wildly in the air at Rocket's bat sentries. Taking the initiative Mikita righted himself and sent rounds into his chest, disposing of the tribal in short order. Dashing for the body, his foot kicked his M-16 away as he verified if he had been dead.
'Punctured lung. Multiple organs pierced.' His mind went over the damage unarbitrarily, rifle pointed at the already dead man's head just in case. The war paint had been all the same on the tribals. If it had been some special occasion raiding this camp, the war paint told so in its patterns.
The bats circled around him, the concern of him being pointed out by the swarm disturbing him. It didn't take long however to realize that the bats were merely waiting for commands from a trainer. Something he had once been long ago.
Pointing off toward the center of the camp he ushered orders like he had as an officer:
"Sweep the camp. Draw them out! Poison them!" The purple bats complied with a magnificent screech and all hell broke loose as Mikita followed them through the camp.
One by one the tribals and their Pokémon had been taken by surprise by the counter-attack. Ushered out in plain sight it had been a shooting gallery for the seasoned soldier.
The medical tent was in the southern corner of the camp, however he hadn't worried about missing targets, the amount of noise he and his bats had been making would draw the attention to him and hopefully away from the center tent. The tribals hadn't been career soldiers like he had been, at least none like he had faced before so he had the upper hand when he had been backed up by Pokémon. He was shot at by those tribals who had been coherent enough to see Mikita however his aim was more refined and for every shot that had impacted the ground in the vague area around him it had cost them five men and a Pokémon in return.
From cover to cover, he covered the camp in a diagonal pattern. It was a typical sweep-up, nothing too out of the ordinary, especially since none of the tribals could've shoot worth a damn. The Zubat had been dealing with the tribals just fine, shooting off poison stingers and occasionally swooping down and biting into the faces and necks of the tribals, Mikita's AK dealing with those who had been missed. The supersonic attacks the Zubat used had caused great noise, scrambling the brains of those afflicted by it and distorting both mind and vision. The tribals had all fallen out of the tents they had been looting, searching for something quite obviously, but ushered out from the cover as their hands were clasped around their ears they ended up shooting wildly into the air, each other, or themselves.
He had nearly unloaded a magazine into the black clad man that had been running at him from his side, however instead of the unloading him with bullets he had thrown the rifle in the figures direction. The Rocket Grunt grabbed the rifle and came to Mikita's side as he switched to the .45 that had been tucked in his pants.
"What's the situation Grunt?!" Mikita yelled in between his death dealing shots at the confused and dazed tribals and their variety of Pokémon, a hand forcing the Rocket grunt to walk in step with him creating a firing line.
The Rocketeer had been unwieldy with the rifle, his experience showing even at the corner of Mikita's eye, but he had tried firing it at a stray Houndoom that had been chasing its own tail in confusion and a glancing blow had sent it whimpering away.
"There are several of us who have been able to hold out!" The Rocket Grunt's rifle clicked empty, however that was solved by Mikita taking a mag from one of his pockets and locking a new magazine in place as the Rocket Grunt still held it.
"Yank the handle!" He ordered the grunt, which he did, chambering another steel round. "And what're you doing then?!"
"I was trying to get you lieutenant! You're the only one we know on base that can help us to reinforce the center tent! The center tent is locked up due to careful construction but if they start burning that shit down we'll lose everything!" The fiber of the main tent had been some special material akin to the dragon skin, the foundations planted were many and buried into the ground. It was a good defense, but it wouldn't last.
"You saying they really are trying to get at Dreamstone?!" It was the only reason.
"Yes, sir! I've told everyone I can to converge on the center camp!"
"Good call, keep the rifle and keep going! I'll organize a counter-attack."
"Yes, sir!" The grunt disappeared when they passed the next aisle of tents, leaving Mikita and his swooping Zubats to deal with the incoming onslaught of tribals. It had been a stroke of luck that one Mightyena wasn't able to be fazed by the a sonic attacks, taking the lieutenant by the surprise as it pounced onto his back, however that problem was dealt with by Mikita purposely falling onto his back, crushing the wolf under his weight.
He had never been one to take count of his kills as he once again righted himself off the crushed bones of the Mightyena that had just tried to gnaw at his neck from behind, though tonight had proven to be an extra-ordinary one in all circumstances.
"Twenty something natives..." He racked the slide back of the .45 he had picked up to check his ammo count, "Five Pokémon." He gazed up into the night sky strewn with bats as he had taken a knee and checked himself for any injuries. "Seven something possible."
Perhaps he could have a bonus per head counted. However he caught himself in that muse not wanting to become the common mercenary scum. 'I'm better than that.' He told himself in his weary mind.
The Mightyena had dug deep into his torso and lower back with its claws, sharp claws piercing skin and bleeding where the Kevlar vest hadn't covered up. It was an excuse enough to down a container of painkillers from his bag. He wasn't intent on getting himself addicted, but the cool relief that rushed into his veins was much needed as he continued the deadly stride toward the center of the camp.
The shotgun was whipped up and closed with a fresh batch of shells from a plastic bag in his pockets as one by one the tribals had tumbled out of the camp's tents in the middle of their looting and pillaging, hands off their weapons and on their head. It was a useless remedy, covering their ears, so Mikita had prescribed each and every one of the sufferers with a cure from his "medicine stick", booming out relief as only the more aware ones caught a glimpse of the lieutenant before they took pellets upon pellets from his gun.
No matter how or why they infiltrated this camp, no matter how much or little planning they had performed beforehand, they never anticipated an ex-soldier to be in the Rocket camp regardless of what they had intended.
Gun fire erupted through the camp at each end and Mikita knew that the Zubats were their saving grace, their ability of flight and their use of supersonic attacks tipping the raid in their favor. The Rocketeers that he had regrouped in his corner of the camp were inexperienced, frightened, and perhaps even driven mad judging by the blank stares of those who survived.
"You'll get over it." Mikita had said sternly to the huddled Rocketeers taking cover behind a tent before the center of the camp. The fighting had been raging on for over an hour now, the Rocketeers having scavenged weapons and offered some resistance. Only now enough had been killed for them to fall back to the center tent and begin working away at the main tent. The shadows of the scientist that hid inside the tent were seen, cowering, trying to talk the tribals out of it to no avail.
A few Zubat had fallen from the sky and their corpses had sprinkled the dirt ground. However death was more apparent in the minds of the Rocketeers. Many of them, guns held shakily in their hands had taken their first life today and lost friends undoubtedly. They were shivering with the what-ifs in their minds, nerves only cooled by the medicine in Mikita's bag.
"Have you, lieutenant?" A young man had said from the group, voice sad and shaking.
He took a short glance over his group of broken men, their outfits blending in with the darkness only fended off by starlight and the flames from their tents; their pale faces the same twisted expression.
'Had I been like this?' Had he broken down after his first firefight? His first kill? His psyche hadn't remembered or perhaps he had forced himself to forget, but either way the answer to the question the Rocket Grunt had asked was yes. He had very much gotten over and gotten used to death.
The center building of the camp was a fairly well built tent. The rigid construction and fibers keeping out the raiders and their attacks against the new-age fabric had bought whoever had taken shelter inside them time. Just as he imagined those tribals had known exactly what they had been going for and where it had been. Because of that fact they hadn't blown the tent to bits or lit it on fire with the Typhlosion and Houndour they had, but the sound of a chainsaw coming to life signaled that they hadn't much time left.
The Zubats had been fended off and scattered, as much as that had led the Rocketeers to a disadvantage it had gotten quieter and the lieutenant had been able to gather his thoughts.
Archer had contacted him minutes before, something about how a flight will probably deployed from New Mexico City up North; however the UNGA brass had been difficult and terms were not sealed yet.
With that good news came bad: That meant the schedule he had now had to be advanced tenfold to not be intercepted by the UNGA that had been inbound, their arrival due in the early Afternoon. Mikita expected an explanation after this, perhaps even a bonus, but right now he had reverted back to an officer that he had been and looked over to his 'men'.
Mikita singled out a pair, "You two, flank them far right and draw their attention. Stay under cover but stand your ground. We'll clean them up from behind and any other of Rocket remnants will take that as their cue to move in."
They hadn't asked questions and darted right with their captured rifles. Among the survivors he had picked up a Magneton from the engineers, it hovering with a tiny metallic buzz.
He had once tried to kill one of these during a patrol. Needless to say shooting a metal object with electromagnetic properties hadn't turned out as he intended and he ended up being shot by his own bullets.
A hand went over the dent in his skin where one of those bullets had passed through and he also remembered how effective how it was on the battlefield. Mikita had gazed over to it and the Magneton immediately snapped to attention, waiting for orders.
As a trainer who lived far too close to the Safari Zone when he was younger he also remembered the amount of Pokémon dialects he had picked up because of that. Ranging from Khangaskhan to Piplups, he had been able to understand, interpret, and communicate. All Pokémon usually had understood the language of their region, English having survived as the dominant language throughout time, however it could not have been said for vice versa for most of mankind. Except of course, the trainers, something he once was.
Unfortunately Magneton didn't use typical speech methods as far as Pokémon went. It had used scratches of its screws and the snaps of electricity to talk, which Mikita couldn't interpret coherently.
"Magneton?" He asked of the Pokémon that wasn't his own, it responding with a slight nod of its three eyes.
"I need you to move ahead of us, I know you probably don't have experience of doing this but I need you to grab the bullets they fire at us in mid-air and at least stop them," It was slightly taken aback by what Mikita had just said, using itself as a shield seemed a cruel at first, though a few seconds later its eyes calmed and saw his reasoning. "If you can, try to harness their momentum and send them back at them, got it?" Most of the Rocket group had stared at the Russian in an unbelieving look about what he had proposed, but they hadn't disagreed with the protection of the Magneton.
With a determined buzz and shine in its eyes the Magneton believed the lieutenant and he returned the sentiment with a fire in his silver eyes as well, smirking under his medical mask. He acquired a new rifle, a Galil, from the tribals he had downed. More effective than a Kalashnikov, but also something he had been issued during his deployments in what was Africa or the regions of Sumeria in the Mid-East. It was a detail stuck in the back of his head ever since he came across that pristine AR-15, but he was in the heat of combat, and so those details had to stay there.
The first shots from the two Rocketeers were heard and all at once everyone had tensed up as the sound of the chainsaw stopping and the tribals moving toward the fire signaled their move.
With one aggressive yank of his bolt, Mikita pushed forward with his Rocketeers.
They rounded the tent, Magneton at point and they opened fire at the distracted tribals and their Pokémon.
"Concentrate fire on the Pokémon!" Bullets the Magneton could stop Pokémon attacks it could not. An alert Quilava had spit flames at the Magneton, the flames on its back flared and alerted the rest of its group, the glancing blow missing the Magneton and instead taking out a Rocketeer in a heated boom.
He had forgotten to actually tell the Rocketeers how to shoot and so they stood and took the brunt of their rifle's recoil. Their shots hadn't been any better than the tribals in that firefight, though their number had beaten them back. All of the Rocketeers knew to minimize collateral damage, their rate of firing going down as the tent was in the foreground of their targets.
In that moment the chainsaw the tribals had brought was raised under fire and brought through the tent's material in one messy go.
"Go!" And then the Rocketeers had all stepped up their game at once with the war cry and piled out to surround the center tent. Normally they'd all been dead, but the Magneton hadn't disappointed and every bullet that had been fired in their direction was sent back. Waves of redirected bullets fell upon the enemy and they had fallen in turn in a bloody mess, as was the negatives of going shirtless or bare into battle unlike Mikita had been. He had taken a bullet or two in the firefights that night, but the Kevlar on his chest stopped the worst of injuries. Unfortunately that fact was true throughout the Rocketeers that night and many had fallen despite his quick medical aid to some.
Mikita had stepped up his rate of fire and in one sweep with the combined fire of the Rocketeers they finished off the remaining Pokémon and tribals outside the tent in a bloody spray, muzzle fire illuminating the night like fireworks.
If not for the group of tribals emerging from the tent with James in a choke hold and at gun point the tribals would've all been dead between the combined fire of the reorganized remnants of Rocket and their Pokémon. Mikita's own sights had been trained on the head of the tribal holding James hostage, but his hand was trembling, an attempt to blow a hole in the man's brain useless.
"Sookin syn." He swore in Russian, disappointed with his aim in the situation. "Hold fire!" Mikita shouted to his remaining allies, left arm up and fist balled signaling the ceasefire.
They had the Professor as a hostage as they arrogantly walked out of the front of the tent, another tribal holding a steel box and the rest pointing their weapons at the Rocketeers.
'A Mexican Standoff' that was the term he had come to understand in the Academy about these impasse situations. Every gun that was held by a living man in the camp was raised and fangs were barred by the living Zubats. James struggled to get out of the man's grip, but to no avail.
Mikita had never seen eye to eye to the causes of local rebellions or terrorist or mercenaries, but he had certainly not seen eye to eye with the man who had held James hostage.
He had none.
"What the hell?"
"Watch your mouth you gringo." The presumed leader of the tribals hadn't moved his gun but if he had eyes he would've been directly staring at Mikita. However despite the baring disability he had Mikita knew he was somehow looking at Mikita.
"Make any sudden moves and I pop this capullo." No-Eyes had spoken with a Hispanic accent, indeed whenever he had heard them command their Pokémon they had been either speaking Portuguese or Spanish. Despite the language barrier his threat was fully understood by every Rocketeer in the crowd. No one had phased, no had said a word, and only the occasional puking of a worried Rocket Grunt had marked the silence.
"What do you want?" Mikita cleared his Russian accent for the moment, making sure his words were understood.
"Mon ninos."
"Translations?"
A stray voice from the crowd behind him had answered what he had had indirectly known courtesy of Archer's intel. The tribal holding the metal case had raised the package in his hand for all to see before proudly proclaiming that same words that the leader had said:
"Mon ninos."
"Mon ninos."
"Mon ninos."
"My children."