Chronicles of Drakmoon
Part 4 to It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Chapter 6 (part 4): Laser Wings
Over seven hours have gone by, and not a single werepyre has been spotted doing any sort of suspicious activity. Sure, we've encountered several grunts and low-level subordinates, but other than that, nothing big has happened. After we retook the hotel and saved Mossin and Chevsky, we teamed up with each other and began to scout Drakmoon forest. This has happened before…I get this feeling in the pit of my bowels that makes me think something bad is about to happen. Of course, it could just be indigestion or gas.
"I don't get it. First we get caught up in a hotel ambush, and the next thing you know, everything just gets quiet like nothing every happened!" said Mossin.
"Something stinks here, and I don't mean that literally." said Chevsky.
"Good. I thought one of you guys would've smelt the garlic on my breath." muttered Mossin.
The four of us began to walk down a dirt path, kicking up several puffs of dirt with our tails and crunching the leaves with our bare feet. Everything was silent and completely peaceful. Actually, if you get past the gloomy atmosphere and the fact that this forest is ruled by thousands if not millions of evil creatures like dragon and werewolves, this would be a nice place for even a human to live.
"Whoa!" coughed Sheemer. "I know that rank odor from anywhere! It's Dakvar and his small band of cronies!"
The rest of us sniffed the air several times and groaned loudly, holding our noses. Believe it or not, but there's stenches even wolves like me can't stand. I never knew a werepyre could stink this bad!
"Who's this Dakvar bloke? He reeks as bad as Stinky does!" I asked.
All of us were staring several yards away next to a tree, seeing a fairly bulky werepyre wearing an orange and yellow striped shirt and dark blue shorts. His nose and fur color was red. Surrounding that werepyre were three more gruff lookin' beasts, all of whom smelled horrible.
"Dakvar's a member of Howlblane's weapons smuggling syndicate. He ships in all of the weapons from all over Mars, making deals with human arms traffickers from Earth. He's pretty low on the syndicate's food chain, but I think Kingswerst would be impressed if we bagged him." said Chevsky.
"What's with the funky smell?" I asked.
"Dakvar tends to bathe in his own excrement." said Sheemer.
I shrugged. "I guess that makes sense. Predators tend to be distracted and/or deemed unable to smell because the poop masks theirs scents."
The four of us quietly crept through the trees and began to find a way to ambush the smelly werepyres before they caught our scent.
"Awright…Sheemer?"
"Yeah?"
"You take this M24 and go hide in that tree over there. Take out one of Dakvar's bodyguards so you can startle them; they'll be confused by the noise. After that, Chevsky, Mossin and I will take on Dakvar and his remaining two guards."
"What about Dakvar?" asked Chevsky.
"Don't kill him. I got this gut feelin' that he possess some valuable information. We're gonna have to interrogate him."
"If you say so."
I tossed Sheemer the M24 and he quickly jumped up onto a tree branch, cocking the sniper rifle and taking aim. Meanwhile, the two rookie werewolves and I holstered our knives and looked down upon the four werepyres from a large rock, waiting for Sheemer to fire.
"Wait for it…" I warned.
Sheemer fired the shot and it zoomed right through a werepyre's nasal cavity, shattering his skull and spreading blood all over the place. The werepyres became very alert and took out their weapons, looking for the assailant.
"What the fuck was that?!" shouted Dakvar.
"NOW!!" I shouted.
The three of us jumped off the rocks and charged towards the werepyres, ready to slice them into pieces. Dakvar turned around and fired his pistol at us, which we narrowly avoided. I jump-kicked Dakvar in the face and his body was tossed to a tree. Chevsky cut a werepyre's wrist and he dropped his pistol in the process. He quickly took out his own knife and the two of them began to viciously slash their knives at one another, until Chevsky was slashed across the chest. The werepyre used this to his advantage and was about to stab him in the face, at least until Sheemer blasted the werepyre in the chest. The werepyre groaned loudly and clutched it with his left hand, gravely injured. Chevsky quickly recovered from his wound and stabbed the werepyre in his heart, violently twisting the blade and shattering his ribs. Both Mossin and I were dealing with the other werepyre, who was shooting several blasts of shotgun shells from his Saiga-12 Russian shotgun. Mossin tried to jump over the werepyre to slash him in the back, but the werepyre hit him with the butt of his gun and knocked him down, ready to blast his brains out.
"Shit!" yelled Mossin.
I quickly grabbed Mossin and dragged his body out the way just a second before the werepyre tried to kill him.
"Damnit!"
The werepyre's out of ammo now…perfect. As he began to reload his shotgun, I punched him in the face three times and kicked the shotgun out of his hands. He returned the favor by kicking me in the torso and biting me in the chest. I kneed him in the chin and grabbed his tongue, slowly ripping it out of his mouth like it was a piece of taffy.
"Hey, Mossin! Catch!"
I threw the tongue at Mossin and he caught it in his teeth, chewing it slowly and swallowing it. As for the werepyre, I put him out of his misery by slamming him to the ground and stomping on his back, crushing his spine. Now that all the guards are dead, we can deal with Dakvar. Sheemer jumped out the tree and grouped up with the rest of us, walking around Dakvar.
"What should we do with him?" asked Chevsky.
Sheemer sighed and kicked Dakvar over so that he was lying on his back. Then he purposely sat on his face, wiggling his butt on his nose.
"Let's ask him when he wakes up." said Sheemer.
"That could be hours from now! How are you gonna wake him up--"
Sheemer hiked up his right leg and passed gas right on Dakvar's farce, causing him to smell the rotten gas and jolt himself awake.
"Yeah, that works." I chuckled.
Dakvar shouted out a muffled protest and tried to jerk Sheemer off of his face.
"You can get up now."
Sheemer got off Dakvar and let him get some breathing room, allowing him to cough and breathe fresh air.
"Who the hell are you guys?!" he asked.
"What does it look like? We're werewolves sent here to kill you!"
Dakvar scoffed. "Maybe that explains why your breath reeks of garlic."
Mossin stabbed Dakvar in the kidney, causing him to groan and cough up blood.
"At least I don't bathe in my own piles of shit Dakvar!" retorted Mossin.
"Y'know what, let's just skip past all of these comments about werewolves and bad breath and foul odors and blah, blah, blah, and how's about you just spill your guts an' tell us what Howlblane is planning, awright?" I said.
Dakvar sighed heavily, scratching the back of his head and trying to figure out what he should say.
"I'll talk to you guys after you take a bath--"
Before Dakvar could finish his slandering comment, I punched him in the throat four times until he fell on the ground. Then I kicked him several times in the face before stomping on his thigh and cracking it. I kneeled next to him and started to talk to him again.
"Let's try this one more time: What…is Howlblane…planning?"
"Fuck you!"
I took out a knife and growled gutturally as I slowly moved it towards his right eye.
"What're you doing?!"
"Let me tell you how this is gonna work. First, I'm gonna cut out your right eye, then I'm gonna cut out your left eye, then I'll cut out your kidneys and then I'll cut out your spleen. I'm gonna keep cutting you and cutting you and cutting you and cutting you until you tell us what it is we want to know!"
"You wouldn't dare!"
"I do this for a living! I'm a werewolf assassin and I'm proud of it! Throughout my past lifetime, I've slaughtered over 200,000 lives and I have no regrets, not a single one! So what makes you think I'll spare you?!"
That was a lie. There were hundreds of deaths I've caused that I've regretted in the past. But there were thousands more that I've killed without losing any sleep at all. I'm pretty sure if I kill this guy, I won't feel anything at all. Just another kill count for the Lycans. Maybe I should just kill him now and let Kingswerst and his lieutenants eat his corpse. I moved the knife to his retina and began to slice it.
"STOP! STOP!! Okay, I'll tell you! I'll tell you!"
"What's the plan hybrid!?" demanded Chevsky.
"Howlblane and his top lieutenants are supposed to take over the Frazlle Cannon and aim it at one of your Lycan affiliated cities!"
"Why is that a bad thing?"
"Are you an idiot? All those cities are owned by Kingswerst and are filled to the brim with Lycan production and personnel. Drugs, weapons, werewolf captains, money storage facilities, it's all in those cities. If any one of them gets destroyed, you Lycans will be set back for several months! It'll take you furry dogs forever before you can get the supplies back!"
"…My God. Where is the Frazlle Cannon?"
"It's…it's…"
"WHERE IS IT!!?"
"IT'S IN THE FREEZETAR WASTELANDS!!" screamed Dakvar, just as I was about to cut out his eye.
The four of us looked at the panting subdued werepyre, wondering what we should do with him.
"Oi, Sheemer! What's the bounty for this werepyre's head on a plate?" I asked.
"Not much. Just a little over four grand. He's not that high on our hit list." he responded.
I shrugged. "Every penny helps!"
I jabbed the werepyre in the eye and violently scraped the inside of his eye sockets, scooping out his eye. Then I slashed his face diagonally so that his other eye was scarred as well. Dakvar was dead.
"Damn, Wolf. You're pretty fuckin' badass!" said Chevsky.
"I just figured out a nickname for you: Screw-eyes!" said Sheemer.
Wylckik and many, many other werepyres were inside the main Frazlle Cannon control room, trying to figure out how to fire it at one of Kingswerst's cities. So far, the plan was going very badly; Wylckik and Scowlblane accidentally broke the triggering mechanism, so they needed to find an alternate way to fire the cannon.
"You mind giving us a help here Scowlblane?!" shouted Howlblane.
Scowlblane simply leaned over and broke wind next to his older brother.
"That's about all the help you're getting from me." chuckled Scowlblane.
Howlblane sighed exasperatedly. "Fine, just don't touch anything. I don't want you breaking another valuable mechanism to this cannon."
Wylckik shouted when he was shocked in his hand after touching an electrical circuit box. Amazingly, this risky maneuver is what powered up the cannon again. All of the lights began to flicker into motion and everything sprang back to life in a mere few seconds. Wylckik laughed devilishly.
"I got it! Howlblane, I got the cannon to work!"
"Excellent. Now all we have to do is choose a target before anyone realizes what our plans are."
"How's about we target Hilmont? That's Kingswerst's central city devoted to deliver him weapons and food. I think one of his generals is located there too." asked Kluvax.
Kluvax was a werepyre with orange fur and beige wings, wearing dark brown shorts and a short-sleeves shirt. He used to be a Russian human being, but a werepyre bit him when he traveled to Mars and he's been a werepyre ever since then.
"No, Hilmont is too populated to destroy now. If we destroy Hilmont now, it'll just give Kingswerst a reason to declare war on us now. But if we destroy a smaller city, such as Brakcon, he'll think we're holding Hilmont hostage and will have no chose but to succumb to our demands." said Howlblane.
"Skunky, press that button right there, it'll activate the rotation of the barrel." said Wylckik.
Skunky pressed a large blue button and heard a loud whir and rumble from above him, indicating that the cannon began to rotate and spin.
"Okay, now turn this knob at the exact same time I pull this green lever. I think it should arm the weapon."
Skunky breathed heavily and put his hand on the knob, waiting for Wylckik to pull the lever or start a countdown.
"3…2…1…NOW!"
Skunky quickly turned the knob just as Wylckik yanked the lever down. The cannon whirred again and a loud beep was heard on the transparent console. The arming mechanism was now in motion.
"Okay…now let me see here…"
Wylckik grabbed a lever near the console and began to move it left and right, trying to move the cannon to a well placed position in order for it to take out Brakcon. It took a while for him to find the latitude and longitude of the center of the city, but when he found it, he pressed another button to lock the laser cannon into place. Now, it was ready to fire. Wylckik chuckled again.
"This is it. You ready?" asked Wylckik.
Howlblane walked over to the console and looked down at a red button that said fire on it. He laughed and smiled devilishly.
"Goodbye motherfuckers." said Howlblane in a calm, but tad psychotic tone.
He made a fist and pounded it right on the fire button. The bunker rumbled and shook a while before a loud yellow laser beam zoomed from the bunker into the sky, aiming right for the city of Brakcon.
"???"
"What is it Mossin?" asked Chevsky.
"I thought I just heard something--"
Everyone one of us gasped loudly when we looked up and saw a mighty laser beam head straight for some city not far away from our position.
"Oh my God, that's heading right for Brakcon!!" yelled Sheemer.
Before anyone of us could do anything, we were blinded temporarily bright yellow flash hundreds of miles away from us. We also went deaf and could only hear a loud tone ringing for a full 30 seconds before we could hear again. But at this point, I'd be better off not hearing anything, since what we heard was a distant explosion. It looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off and instantly incinerated Brakcon beyond recognition.
"We have to tell Kingswerst now before that laser does anymore damage!"
"If we do that, it may take hours just to find him. By then, it'll be too late!" I said.
"So what do you think we should do?" asked Mossin.
"Lasers that powerful take at least a half hour or longer to cool off and reload itself. We need to get to the Freezetar Wastelands and find that cannon as soon as possible!"
To be continued…