Chapter 11: The Pulling of Strings
The raingun fired, but the shot went wide, obliterating the fronts of several already ruined buildings. The squad scattered just as the drone mounted Burst Cannons opened up, shredding the street where the guardsmen previously stood. Eva and Jacob ducked down an alley, intent on circling around to the gunship's blindside. Dan and Renald ran the opposite direction, bounding through the rubble of a destroyed building. Michael, however, wasn't given these options. Or that is to say, he didn't take either option. Instead, he ran straight for the tank, carbine blasting away on full auto.
Now, this was wholly uncharacteristic of Michael. Normally, he'd have ducked behind some rubble and tried to slink away or something. Normally. However, this wasn't one of those situations that would fall under the category of "normal". Somewhere in his head, hidden under the fear and that little voice of reason screaming for him to stop running AT the thing with the huge gun, he had given up. The way he figured, he was an Imperial Guardsman now on a war torn world in a war torn universe. He was probably going to die in some way or another. Most likely involving either fire or excessive pain. So, he figured, hey, what the hell? If he was going to die, he wasn't going to have it be by a gut shot and bleeding out into the dirt. He was going to go out in such a blaze of stupid glory that there would be stories told about him.
But of course, he wasn't thinking any of that. What he WAS thinking was "Oh my God Michael stop running we're going to die oh my God you're stupid oh shit oh shit oh damn". Apparently the Tau pilots couldn't quite comprehend what he was doing either, as the Burst Cannons stopped firing as the young man closed in. Next thing he and the Tau knew, he had one foot on the sensor array on the nose of the ship and his hands grabbing for a ledge or a recess in which to grab onto. This close in, the Hammerhead couldn't fire at him, let alone attack him. He hauled himself up onto the front of the Gunship, which was now waving side to side, trying to shake him off. Behind him, he heard yelling. Probably his squadmates either cheering him on or damning him for a fool. Up he crawled on his belly, making his way for the top hatch. Once there, he fumbled with the latch, trying to get it open. With an annoyed growl, he tossed the bulky Tau carbine away and worked the top hatch with both hands. The hatch came up and the Guardsman reached for his Autogun. Looking up at him from the Hammerhead's top hatch was a very surprised, very scared looking Tau. Bringing his rifle to bear, Michael managed to squeeze off a few rounds just as the Hammerhead's gunner pulled a pulse pistol and shot Michael square in the chest, knocking him backwards off the Hammerhead. The shots he had fired however managed to not only take out the gunner, but ricochet around the inside of the gunship, killing the crew as well.
Michael opened his eyes. Something was...off. He wasn't laying on the ground of a ruined city with blood pooling around him from the sucking chest wound he had supposedly just gotten. Instead, he was sitting in a very nice library with a crackling fire. He took a moment to look around and realized that his clothes were different as well. Instead of a dusty, bloody Guardsman uniform, he was dressed in clothes reminiscent of early 1900's England.
"What in the Nine Hells?" muttered Michael.
"Oh, good, you're here." came a voice from a previously unoccupied chair. The speaker was...well, a bird. A large one. With a headdress and robes. But the speaker wasn't really a bird either. It seemed to...shift. It took a moment for Michael to understand just who he was looking at.
"God fuckin' damnit," he said to the Chaos God.
"Ah, you know of me. Just as-"
"Please, don't say 'just as planned'. It's so damned cliche." Tzeentch narrowed his gaze at the young mortal. Had this little bag of flesh just sassed the Changer of Ways? Why yes, yes he had.
"You dare speak to ME in such a way?" asked Tzeentch, his voice like ice.
"Yes, yes I do." replied Michael, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms. "Way I figure it, you're either going to mutate me, corrupt me, or somehow fuck my shit sideways, or you have a plan for me and I'm your little puppet until you tire of me. Either way, I'm fucked, so a little sass is the least I can do."
Tzeentch was quiet for a moment as he assessed the situation. "This is...interesting," began the Chaos God, "I want to turn you into a gibbering lump of flesh, but it seems that...I cannot." The Chaos God flexed his talons. "It's as if someone, or something, is keeping me from harming you. It's almost as if..." Tzeentch paused again, then a sly smile crept across his beak. He knew what was happening, for he had peered beyond the walls of reality to see what was REALLY happening. Even for a being such as he, there were still things that could pull his strings on a whim, be it for personal gain, entertainment, or even to tell a story.
"Well, regardless of sass," continued Tzeentch with a wave of a clawed hand, "You are going to be my pawn. Simple as that."
"And if I refuse?" asked Michael, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, you cannot," replied the Chaos God. "You can try, but there are forces at work here beyond even MY power. But, all the same, you are going to forward my agenda. But don't expect me to tip things in your favor all the time like with that tank."
"That was you?" asked Michael, though he knew the answer as the question left his lips.
"Of course. Anyway, here's the deal. I'm getting into very dangerous territory with this, but if you follow through with this...job, then I'll send you back to your own time." Tzeentch reached down onto the coffee table that sat between the two chairs, picked up a tea cup that had apparently just appeared there, and took a sip, "It's about time you got back."
With no time to yell a complaint, Michael opted instead for a very quick flash of the finger before everything went white.
"Emperor's breath, he's alive!"
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuck," groaned Michael as he opened his eyes. He tried to sit up, but his chest felt like it was on fire. He wasn't dying, but he was in a hell of a lot of pain, almost blindingly so. The pulse pistol had, amazingly, been stopped by the flak armor. He tried to force himself up, but his right arm wouldn't respond. Rocking his head to the side, he noticed that he in fact did not have a right arm any more. What he could see of the street beyond his bloody stump was that it was strewn with what he could only assume was the Hammerhead. His mangled arm lay a few feet off, hastily wrapped in some cloth of some sort. Apparently after the "lucky" ricochet incident that killed the Hammerhead crew, the gunship crashed into a building which caused something to explode which, when all things were said and done, resulted in Michael having one less arm.
"Eva, make sure that dressing is on tight. Don't want the boy bleeding out before we can get him back to the base."
Michael managed one more annoyed, pained, barely comprehensible groan before slipping back into unconsciousness.
Author's notes: Yeah, wasn't quite sure how to deal with this chapter. We've got Michael sassing a Chaos God, said Chaos God being aware of the 4th wall, and some pretty bad borderline Gary Stu'ing. I suppose that's what happens when you force yourself to write at 2AM and on an empty stomach. I promise the next chapter will be a little more plausible.
