Hey guys welcome back, this is chapter 9 of the story.
I hope you guys enjoy this part of the story. :)
Jack and Aloy has been walking for an hour and a half now. Jack checked his map to see if they were getting close. As they walked Aloy spotted something at the distance.
"Look," Aloy pointed.
They both stopped and Jack took out a pair of binoculars and brought it to his eyes. He saw a small wooden shack being guarded by a bunch of guys. Jack zoomed in closer and saw concealed weapons.
"I think that's the target," Jack said. The two got a little bit closer planned out their attack.
"Ok this is what we're gonna do, I suggest that you stay here and pick off some of the guy while I sneak in through the-," Jack was cut off, "What the?" Aloy somehow disappeared from his side. Jack looked over the huge area in front of him and tried to find Aloy, as he looked he saw her already sneaking around the back. Jack took a rifle suppressor and inserted it on the end of his rifle barrel. Aloy began silent killing the guys while Jack picked off some of them with his rifle. After a minute or so all the guys outside were taken care off, Jack moved forward while Aloy entered the shack. Aloy saw a bunch of barrels filled with weird berry like objects. One of the bandits came out of hiding, quietly approached Aloy, and tried to stab her, if it wasn't for Jack who came behind, and shot the guy.
"Next time, don't just run off, and be more careful," Jack told Aloy.
"What is this stuff," Aloy pointed at the barrels. Jack picked up a pinch full of the weird substance and examined it.
"I knew it," Jack said.
"What is it?" Aloy asked.
"Its one of the evils done by humankind of the Old Ones, it's called synthetic drugs, but whatever this one is its very strong," Jack said.
"What does it do?"
"Consume it, it would get to your head, corrupts your mind, it makes you wanting for more, and more over and over again. Sadly that's how it destroyed lives."
"Why didn't your people try to stop it?"
"We did, we tried, but not everyone listened. Governments around the globe would illegalize it, but it wasn't enough, not even a death sentence," Jack said. "Keep searching the place, maybe there's a data log or a note or something," Jack said, and they started digging.
A minute later Aloy opened up a cabinet, and found a data log. Jack came over, and retrieved the information.
"Hmm, they call this stuff Psycho, and it looks like they're paying their men with it, no wonder they just agreed to run into meridian with bombs strapped onto them," Jack said.
"Why would they do that?"
"I told you, it corrupts your mind, you don't know what you're doing until after you just died. You think that you'll still get paid even when you're dead, hell you'll even forget about death," Jack replied.
They kept looking for some more stuff until they had to leave. They had a debate on whether they should bury the stuff or burn them. Burying all of them would take too much time and effort so they decided to burn them since it was faster, and it didn't give off any harmful gasses. They collected all of the blaze stockpiles, covered the shack with it, and roasted it.
"So where now?"
Jack pulled out his map, and marked the point of the shack with an X, and he picked out the next locations.
"Hmm let's go here," Jack said, and they were on their way.
Weeks later…
Jack and Aloy was going around the land and destroying the New World Order outposts. The Order sent out war parties to track and exterminate them but it all resulted to failure. With the amount of things they blew up it's no surprise that there would be news on them.
At sunfall one of the New World Order officers runs the hallways of the castle to the throne room, when he arrived there he went over to the person only known as the Damned. The Damned wore a mask preventing anyone from seeing his face. The officer then knelt down and bowed his head.
"What is it?" The Damned asked.
"Our outposts are being destroyed by a couple o' great one," The officer replied.
"Have you tried sending our troops to terminate them?"
"Yes I have but they seem to always be one step ahead of us," The officer said. "What do you suppose I do?"
The Damned stood from the throne of the former shadow carja, and began to think.
"You go now, I have a plan for this," The Damned said.
"O' great one, do you mind if asked for some more Psycho?" The officer asked.
"Very well then, since you have served with much loyalty, I will give you some," The Damned pulled out a small metal box, and took out a small portion of Psycho, and gave it to the officer.
"Thank you very much O' great one," The officer said and left. The officer went outside, and started to consume the substance. After that he began to experience some weird things.
The Damned walked over to the wall of the throne room, and pressed a button; a passageway was revealed along with stairs going down. He went down the stairs, and retrieved a lantern glowing with red light.
"I need your help old friend, we are being messed with."
The damned brought the lantern outside, and attached it to an antenna tower.
A day later the Order set up something for Jack and Aloy.
Jack and Aloy were heading over to their next target. The place was completely empty when Jack looked at it from a safe distance. They were walking closer when a radio signal landed on the ground in front of them. Jack stopped Aloy and they both drew out their weapons. Jack approached slowly to where the radio signal landed, and began stepping on the ground.
"Its nothing let's go," Jack said. But then then ground started to shake and Jack almost lost his balance; at first they thought it was an earthquake, but then a machine came out of the ground.
"Oh hell, get to cover," Jack said. He grabbed Aloy, and ran cover.
The corrupter saw them and began firing at them with its grenade launcher. Aloy shot fire arrows at the machine while Jack switched to armor piercing rounds and unleash a volley of shots.
"That's an FAS-ACA3 Scarab," Jack said.
"A corrupter," Aloy said.
Jack aimed high to try and hit the critical spots on the main body of the machine while Aloy kept setting it on fire and aiming for the legs.
"Don't even try with the legs, armor is too thick for a bow and arrow," Jack said. Aloy then began to focus on the weak spots on the main body.
The corrupter kept resisting each shot they threw onto the machine until Jack gave up trying to shoot it.
"Thats it im not wasting my time anymore. Aloy keep distracting it, I have a plan!" Jack said. He took out a ready made C4 from his bag, armed it, and ran over to the machine. He jumped and threw the explosive at the body of the machine; the explosive stuck perfectly on the body of the machine.
"Aloy get down!" Jack said.
Aloy ran behind a boulder and took cover while Jack ducked down, and took out a detonator. He pulled out the safety and squeezed the detonator. The machine turned into a fireball of burning steel and fire.
Jack and Aloy got up and examined the wreck.
"I thought you killed these things," Jack said.
"Not all of them were activated, some were missed, but even though they shouldn't be activating, I stabbed HADES with the master override," Aloy replied. "But."
"But what?" Jack asked.
"But the master override didn't really kill HADES, but only kept him from doing any harm," Aloy said.
"And?"
"HADES might still be alive, he can't do damage right now, but with some help he might be able to get back to his full potential."
"So you're telling me that not are we just facing a bunch of really high goons, but we might also have to face a machine designed built only to kill ?" Jack asked.
"Yeah basically," Aloy replied.
"Well, shit" Jack said.
"I said might, and what does that word mean?"
"It's an expression, it means our situation just got a hell of a lot worse than what it was an hour ago," Jack replied.
The two stood at the spot for a minute thinking on what they should do.
"Can you track where the signal came from, with all the stuff you have?" Aloy asked.
"I can, but i'll need the brain of the corrupter and judging how big that explosion was the brain is most likely destroyed," Jack said.
"Then what do we do, we need to find out who did this," Aloy said.
Jack thought for a second.
"I have an idea, but you may not like it," Jack said.
"What is it?" Aloy asked.
"We could go to sunfall and dig the guys there for answers," Jack suggested.
"Are you crazy? We'll die," Aloy said, "but it's all we can do, let's do it then."
"Awesome, we'll leave for sunfall tomorrow. Lets meet at meridians entrance," Jack said.
The two went to their separate ways to grab the things they need, and get some rest before they leave tomorrow.
At first light Jack grabbed his stuff and headed to the rendezvous point at meridians entrance. Once he got there he saw Aloy already there leaning on a pole waiting while looking bored. Jack waved over to Aloy and walked over to her.
Aloy yawned, "What took you so long?" She asked.
"Guess I overslept," Jack said, " You ready?"
"Yeah let's go."
The two set out for their objective.
It took them the whole day to get to sunfall and once they did they planned out what they were going to do; Jack kept a close eye on Aloy to make sure she doesn't just disappear like last time as they discussed the plan. The main gate was heavily guarded, and blowing a hole through the wall would result to the entire city being alerted. So they decided to sneak in through the back where it's not so heavily guarded, and made their way to the castle. The used the cover of the surrounding buildings to hide from the citizens and patrols; sunfall was a mess so it didn't matter if the were out in the open anyway. The eyes of the people were all bloodshot due to lack of sleep and drug overdose.
Once they were in the castle they started to search for any evidence on the machines. They got to an open area in the middle of the castle and there was an antenna tower and a lantern glowing a red light attached to the bottom. The lantern emitted radio signals which shot out of the tower.
"Well there's one thing, let's keep looking," Jack said.
They searched further into the castle until they got to the throne room. The room was empty so it was the best time to search it. There was a computer on the side of the room Jack went over to it began downloading all the information in it. As they waited for the info to be downloaded someone walked into the room.
"Good evening," The man said. Jack and Aloy quickly drew out their weapons and pointed them at the person, "I've been expecting the two of you, please take a seat the two of you must be very tired," The man nodded his head over to the sofas in the room.
"Are you the Damned?" Jack asked.
"Yes I am. I also know the both of you, and that means you Lieutenant Jackson R. Smith of the United States army Rangers... Eh how many tours was it again?" The Damned asked, while Jack just stood silently while he clutched his rifle.
"How?" He asked but was ignored
"Oh yeah only three tours with the 3rd ranger battalion before you were all replaced by machines. How unfortunate, I must admit that i'm a fan of the rangers too," The Damned said, and looked over to Aloy who also stood still, "And now with you Aloy anointed of the Nora."
"How?" The two asked in unison.
"How what?"
"How did you know, about us?" Aloy asked.
"I have my ways," The Damned replied.
"Okay I'd have enough of this, take off that mask lets see who you really are," Jack demanded.
"Very well," The Damned agreed, and took off his mask. What was revealed on the other side shocked Aloy.
"Sylens?" Aloy said.
"Sylens, the guy you said helped you save the world is the guy in front of us who also ordered the killing of hundreds of innocent carja citizens?" Jack said.
"Sylens what the hell are you doing?" Aloy asked.
"What is necessary," he said and poured himself a drink, "After the battle in meridian, and after you drove my lance into HADES a part of it managed to escape and once again find its way to me. I made it explain to me why it all of those things to try and start another Faro Plague and once it did explain to me it all made sense," Sylens sat down on the throne. "It told me that it was only trying to fulfil its intended function of resetting the earth if GAIA made a mistake and GAIA did make a mistake, it created world filled with humans but those humans did not have the knowledge of the Old Ones. Well as a contingency the other subordinate functions - including HADES - were filled with knowledge, just incase APOLLO was corrupted or in our case: someone turns on the team."
"What was in it for you?" Jack asked.
"HADES needed my help so I gave it help. It gave me instructions in making a hallucinogenic drug to get people to help assist me in helping HADES so that he could fulfil he his function," Sylens continued, "Come join me, Aloy I know that you're tired of being labeled a god, join me and together we can bring back the old world."
Aloy was tired of being called a god or the anointed and stuff like that, she just wanted to live life normally and the old world holds the key to that. But she also knows that the price is too great if she decided to bring back the old world.
"I'm sorry Sylens but the price is too much for me to pay, so i'm going to have to go against you," Aloy replied.
"Okay then; what about you Jack? I know that you want your world back," Sylens asked Jack.
This was a really tough question for Jack. On the outside he showed nothing but in the inside he wanted the world of before his world to come back to him. He wanted air-conditioning, internet, TV, insulated houses, warm water, and other things back to him. But he has been in the new world long enough and seen enough things to challenge his want for the new world.
"Sylens, you right about me wanting my old world back so I think i'll go with you," Jack said and pointed his rifle at Aloy while she just gave him a look of disbelief.
"Jack what are you doing?" Aloy asked but got no response.
"Wise choice, now end it," Sylens ordered.
"Jack don't do this," Aloy said.
Jack thought about his decision some more.
"You know what, I think i'll pass. I think I like my new world better," Jack said.
Time slowed down, Jack pulled out a frag grenade, pulled off the safety pin with his teeth, let the safety lever fly and threw the grenade at Sylens. Jack lowered his rifle and grabbed Aloy, and covered her from the blast with his body.
After the grenade detonated he got off Aloy and surveyed the area.
"He got away, dammit," Jack muttered in frustration.
"You, saved me," Aloy told Jack.
"I couldn't do it, I couldn't kill you, I wanted my world back, but I knew the price to pay," Jack replied.
"Thanks I guess," Aloy said.
"No problem," Jack responded.
"That was a very unwise move Jack," Sylens said through some kind of PA system, "by doing what you did, i'll make sure that you and everyone who saw you will regret it! 1000 psycho will be give to whoever can catch the intruders!"
The doors began to bang violently until they broke down. A horde of crazy men with weapons came in and looked at the two.
"There they are get them!" One of the said, and they all started running up to them.
"RUN!" Jack yelled and they both started running for their lives.
The two kept running and running while not looking back. They lost the horde for a little bit so Jack stopped to lay down a bunch of claymore mines.
"This should hold them back for a little bit," Jack said and continued running.
The claymores detonated killing some of the attackers, and causing the ceiling to collapse and block their path, but they quickly rerouted to another path.
Jack and Aloy arrived at a large space of the castle where at the end was an open area, and beyond that was a hundred foot drop to a lake. The horde caught up to them, and blocked all exits.
"Were trapped," Aloy said as she continued running.
"No where not, run straight and jump once you get to the end," Jack said.
They kept running until they got to the end and they jumped. They fell a hundred foot down into the lake with a huge splash as they impacted. The horde threw projectiles, shot arrows, and observed to see if they were still alive. No one resurfaced.
"Their done for, let's go home," One of them said and all of them walked away.
Jack and Aloy resurfaced and quickly caught their breaths. Jack checked himself for injuries and noticed he lost something.
"Hold on," he said and dove back down to retrieve what he had lost and quickly resurfaced. "Almost lost my rifle back there."
As they floated on the water a boat approached them. They both thought that it was an enemy boat, and prepared, but they then discovered it was friendly.
"Good evening," Atlas called out to them as he steered the boat closer to the two. Atlas's men helped pull the two out of the water and into the boat.
"Thanks for coming," Jack told Atlas.
"No problem, I owed you anyway," Atlas said. "Who's the fine lady?"
"Atlas this is Aloy, Aloy that is Atlas," Jack said.
"Hey," Atlas said.
"Hi," Aloy responded.
"Alright Atlas get us back to meridian," Jack said, and Atlas nodded.
Once they got back to meridian Jack and Aloy reviewed the data gathered from the computer.
"Okay lets see what we got here," Jack said and put down a holo-projector.
The projector showed a map of the world with a radiation symbol on the top right corner. Small red dots began to appear all over the map, some in land and some in sea. There was a counter on the top left corner, and it counted up to 15,000 when it stopped. Then the word armed was displayed on the entire map in bold red letters.
"What are those red dots?" Aloy asked.
"That is the number of weapons of mass destruction still in the world," Jack said.
"Weapons of mass destruction?"
"Yup, the Faro Plague wasn't the only way life on earth would've been eradicated," Jack said. "And this weapon of mass destruction is one of worst ones, we call it the nuclear bomb."
Jack cut to a video showing the nuclear bomb, "The thing is designed to blow up entire cities and those guys want to launch all of them."
"How do we stop it?" Aloy asked.
"Well we gotta get to the central control panel, hack one of the satellites - if there's still any satellites - and send a message to all of the launch platforms and they should all stop," Jack explained.
"Where is this central control panel you speak off?"
"Lemme see," Jack brought up the map and tried to find it. "It's in...Washington DC."
"A city?"
"One of the largest."
"Well what are we waiting for let's go then," Aloy said.
That's it for now everyone, and I want to ask you guys a question:
Rear turret cannon or missiles, please leave your answer in the review column.
Anyway guys I hope ya'll enjoyed and I'll see ya'll in the next one. :)