The Patriots
The evolution of human warfare is a long and interesting history. Slowly and gradually, the methods of warfare, along with the tactics and thinking behind them, evolved alongside technology. Wooden spears and axes were among the very first weapons of war that humans invented. Then, to counter spears and axes, bows and arrows were created, along with wooden shields. Then to counter those, metal weapons were invented. To counter metal weapons, metal armor was invented, which gave way to the invention of metal tipped arrows and hammers to breach or bypass that armor. Then catapults were invented to bypass any close ranged fighting entirely. After catapults, cannons replaced them. Then finally guns came into existence, which made all forms of heavy close ranged combat based warfare obsolete. Then soon, further weapons and armor were created to counter or bypass the threat that guns presented.
This cycle of constant evolution in weapons was not immediate or even apparently noticeable to the world. Every couple of years, someone in the world found a noticeable flaw in the way war was currently being fought, and either improved it or found a way to exploit it. In response, someone else in the world would either counter that very invention with one of their own, or build on top of it. And just like the weapons, the methods of thinking and fighting adapted with them. The age of chivalry was dead because fighting in close quarters was the only method through which a soldier could fight, and that method died once heavy ordnance and powerful ranged weapons became commonplace. Anyone who tried to follow obsolete methods of warfarewas quickly conquered, annexed, and forcibly brought into the modern era of fighting. Through this practice, warfare never became stagnant and was constantly evolving.
The issue lied in the fact that no matter how immorally destructive or hazardous to Earth that warfare became, it would still continue to advance all the same. Biochemical and nuclear warfare was all the proof one needed to ascertain that as a fact.
xxXxx
An entire decade of planning was finally bearing fruit. 5 years of rigorous training was finally paying off. The combined efforts of hundreds of men and women were finally bringing forth results.
The Crysis project had reached completion.
Inside a secret U.S. military facility within Nevada, history was being made. Dozens of scientists and analysis experts were watching 3 men being enveloped in an exoskeleton. Everyone was silently marveling as the exoskeleton part of the armor closed in around the three men and tightened snugly against their bodies. Following the exoskeleton were attachable plates of hexagonal patterned armor. Mechanical arms attached to the ceiling came down, holding individual plates of nanobots that were compacted into a formation that resembled plated armor. Those plates of armor were fitted inside every single crevice and opening the exoskeleton left. By the time the arms retracted, the three men's heads were the only part of their bodies not completely engulfed in armor. Finally, individual helmets were lowered down by two mechanical arms per person. With a single clasp of air, the helmets sealed off any external atmosphere from the outside world, making the wearers reliant on the air cleaning units installed within the helmets themselves.
The U.S. had long since been invested in this project.
The selection of who they chose to wear these 8.4 million dollar suits of armor wasn't random or carelessly chosen by any extent. The best of the best men that the U.S. had to offer were screened. Navy SEALs, Delta Force Commandos, Green Berets, Rangers, Marine Special Operations, Special Operations Group, and so on; every single elite ground based unit had their members screened and weighed against each other for temperance, mission completion rates, loyalty, experience, and mental fortitude. After all, they were entrusting those men with power armor suits that cost a little over half the price required to build a jet fighter. Not only that, but they expected those men with these suits to go into combat with monsters and abhumans. Obviously only the most tried and tested soldiers available could be trusted with such a foreboding and dangerous task.
In the end, the top members of the SOG, SEAL, and MSO had been chosen to operate the nanosuits. With such varying operation methods, the three man unit had an extremely large skill set to go off of. The Crysis suits were expected to function under any sort of operation parameters, to be able to adapt to any combat situation, and ultimately be the 'All or Nothing' unit of the United States.
The actual capabilities of the armor made this assessment far more grounded and logical than one would initially assume. It was common knowledge that there was no such thing as technology that made one's body physically move faster or become stronger, unless of course, that technology was physically attached and wired into the user's very nervous system. Attempting such a thing with technology was needlessly dangerous, and risky in countless ways. So rather than try to make the wearer himself better in physical ability, they made effort with which to make any movement significantly less. When the operator of a Crysis suit lifted a 2,000 pound object, to the wearer it only seemed as if they were lifting 50 pounds. It wasn't because the wearer himself had gotten stronger, but rather that the suit was alleviating most of the weight and effort to lift the required weight. Inversely, anything that weighed 1,950 pounds or below to a nanosuit operator seemed absolutely weightless. The ground covered by a single step in nanosuit armor was greatly extended because the suit added a slight jolt and extension to each step. The durability and stamina of the user greatly increased because their muscles weren't taking the full effort of every bodily movement, but actually distributing most of that effort to the armor itself. The nanosuit saw to it that every single movement was made easier, which left the wearer wasting only a fraction of the energy he normally used for a specific task.
Beyond the simple physical enhancement however, was another feature of the nanosuit. Every single fiber of the nano-plating on the armor was a fully self-functioning robot. Of course, the nanobots only had the ability to shift a single centimeter in any direction, but it was more than enough for the intended purpose. Every 100th nano-fiber in the Crysis nanosuit was designed to spot any approaching projectiles and order the others to shift toward the point of impact in response. In this way, the nanosuit would form a double layer of armor at any point where a bullet, punch, knife, or any such impact may come. Not only did this dampen any impacts against the user, but it also acted as an improvised shock absorber for when the suit operators fell from heights, as well as add more mass and force to any blow the operator would launch in close quarters fighting.
The final feature of the nanosuit was cloaking. This wasn't necessarily new, as the PWCD had been using such technology for years. It wasn't perfect technology either. It was well known that cloaking tech functioned off the possibility of bending light rays around an object rather than letting it simply strike an object head on. This was hard to reproduce as the closest anyone had gotten to bending light rays was bending microwaves, which were much slower and controllable than light rays. The PWCD had gotten around this by using some form of energy outside the electromagnetic spectrum to throw off light rays entirely. They weren't very open about how they had managed this, but at the very least agreed to apply this strange method of perfect camouflage to all the completed Crysis nanosuit armors, by their own selected staff of scientists and engineers.
With highly reactive armor, semi-augmented capabilities, perfect camouflage, and the skill and experience with which the operator himself brought to the table, every Crysis nanosuit user was a potent threat that could shatter the resolve of even the bravest enemies. Their only real disability was the fact that they were hard pressed to not overexert themselves while armored. After all, the operators of these nanosuits were soldiers who were well versed in the limitations of their bodies, and to suddenly find themselves with such excess energy when doing even the most strenuous activities left them somewhat hyperactive. They had to go through a short adjustment process so that their bodies could come to terms with the fact that their muscles weren't getting tired from the movements that typically wore them out. It was only a small issue that would be fixed once the operators actually got their boots on the ground in a real battlefield, and not in some simulation. Their chance was coming quite soon, too.
These men weren't cladding themselves in nanosuits for a simple test run.
Plenty of that had been done already. Any and all of the initially desired tests had reached a conclusive result by now. Stress tests for the armor, along with strength and endurance tests for the operators had already been carried out. Weapons handling and firing tests had been conducted to test whether or not Crysis suit operators would break their weapons accidentally, to which further training was taken to make sure the suit operators could manage handling movements and actions that required a more gentle touch. By now, it was fully obvious that any kinks in the Crysis program were ironed out. The Crysis nanosuits were now ready for war.
And now they would get their first taste of combat.
The Crysis units may have only numbered 3 men so far, but they were being armed heavily enough to completely outfit an entire squad of soldiers for combat. Each Crysis-equipped soldier was carrying a heavy machine gun as their primary weapon of choice. Since their normal choices of assault rifles and submachine guns felt like plastic toys in their hands, they felt the need to have weapons that at least had a tiny bit of weight to them. As a result, modified, man-portable versions of the 'Ma Deuce' Browning, CIS 50MG, and the venerable minigun were all being carried around by the nanosuit operators as casually as a normal man would carry around a feather. Their choices of secondary weapons were what most would consider hand-held cannons. 2 of the men had gone with high-caliber handguns; the Chiappa Rhino revolver pistol and the AF2011 double barreled pistol. Most curiously though, the squad leader of the Crysis nanosuit operators had gone with a sawed off, double barreled shotgun as his secondary armament.
Apparently the leader of the newly dubbed 'Patriot Squad' was planning to get in close to the enemy once his handheld Browning ran dry on ammo or stopped working.
xxXxx
Eight enforcers had been simply passing through the war-torn remains of Hiroshima. Through the acquisition of a private helicopter, they were going to make their way just outside of a U.S. military base and attempt to set up a bounded field that would be rigged to kill every member of the U.S. marine camp. The soldiers there had fought against magi enforcers before, and had potentially told their superiors everything. They had to be eliminated immediately. Then they would ultimately set it up so that Youkai witches took all the blame for the brutal attack. Normally the magi would never use such a blatantly open method, but the Youkai provided the perfect scapegoats to cover any of their publicly witnessed magic. After all, the witches had already made an army of murderous plants attack the Japanese population. Who's to say they couldn't do something like this as well? The monster species would likely be sent to extinction as a result of this attack, but if the magical world continued to survive as it had, then so be it.
At least that was the initial plan.
It wasn't known how anyone outside the Magus Association and Holy Church had caught wind of this mission, or if they even knew for sure who they were attacking to begin with. It wasn't known what exactly had fired the missile that took out the entire tail of their helicopter. It wasn't known what exactly the intent was for the attack. All the magi knew was that one moment they were crossing the nearly abandoned city of Hiroshima, and the next moment a guided missile struck the helicopter in the tail.
Sitting at the blown out window of an apartment building was a single Crysis nanosuit operator, who had a recently fired Javelin missile launcher resting on his shoulder. The super soldier watched through his expressionless visor as the vehicle made an uncontrollable tailspin to the ground. He noted with interest that quite a few of the occupants were falling out of the vehicle and scattering across the entire area as they landed. None of them died from the fall, as they all seemed to know some sort of magic that physically enhanced their bodies or at least cushioned their landing enough to not be life threatening. Wordlessly, he placed a single hand up to the side of his head to turn his radio on. Nanosuit helmets doubled as gas masks, but this feature made it rather difficult for the wearer to speak clearly as a result. So to fix this issue, a voice amplifier was built in to either talk out loud or only to people over a communications link.
"This is Patriot Actual to Joint Special Operations Command. The target vehicle has been shot down, but most if not all of the occupants survived the landing safely. How do we proceed?"
"JSOC here. Find and neutralize all of those Magus operatives, Patriot team. You heard the intel. The PWCD reports that they're planning mass murder and genocide on the U.S. armed forces stationed in Japan, and possibly the Chinese garrisons as well by paranormal means. The PWCD already has operatives in place to intercept them, but we're the first line of defense. Those magi can't be allowed to escape and complete their mission. JSOC out."
"Roger JSOC." The Crysis suit operator changed frequencies, linking to his fellow squad mates."Patriot team, a force of 8 abhumans classified as magi have been scattered across the vicinity, all of them within a half-click distance of the crash site."
"Copy Patriot Actual. Does JSOC want prisoners?" One of the other Crysis nanosuit operators questioned from the other side of the link.
"Negative Patriot 3. The magi are a significant threat to all the armed forces in Japan so long as they're alive. Hunt them. Kill them."
xxXxx
When the Vatican made a military alliance with the PWCD, they had a number of things to discuss and organize. The major concern was that they were under a ceasefire with the Magus Association, who the PWCD and the UN had both secretly declared as enemies. While the UN was unaware of the true power that the Vatican had over the world, the PWCD was made fully aware and sworn to secrecy from the UN. This wasn't because the Church doubted the UN's ability to digest the information, but because the Vatican saw a great chance to feed vital information from the Magi to the UN, PWCD, and the rest of world's militaries about the Magus Association's activities. Under the conditions of the ceasefire, the magi had to inform the Church of any extremely major movements they took so as not to disrupt the Church's own dealings and operations. This also worked in reverse, however the Vatican didn't have to fear any potential allies or outside support that the Magus Association may have.
So they came up with an ingenious system. The Vatican took note of every major location, personnel, entities, movements, and other high value information of the Magus Association that they could possibly get without letting it slip that they were distributing magical information to non-magical humans, especially the PWCD of all entities. The PWCD would then distribute this information to individual countries, or the entire UN if need be, claiming that they had gotten the information from their own agents. The PWCD was lying to their superior body about the methods through which they acquired valuable information, and the Vatican was lying to both the Magi and humanity in general, which made being discovered less than ideal for either of them.
The Magus Association of course knew that their information was being leaked somehow, but couldn't figure out how. They made absolutely sure that the PWCD and their spies were nowhere near them when they moved, yet the PWCD was repeatedly distributing information that was steadily unearthing them. All the while, the Magus Association could do little in response without attracting the full militaristic attention of the entire human population on Earth.
Most magi may think themselves above normal people, but even they weren't so foolish to think that they could handle a dedicated military attack with any amount of magic. All while they were frantically combing their organization for spies and hidden technological devices, they were still conforming to the ceasefire agreements they had with the Church, never once thinking that the closest thing they had to an ally was freely handing out their information to the PWCD.
And now that information trafficking was being put to great use.
The best part about the arrangement was that it wouldn't matter all that much if the Magus Association did realize that the Vatican was passing along their information to the PWCD. What would the Magi try to do in response, break off the ceasefire? Doing that would put the Magi in a place where they had to fight the Holy Church, PWCD, and potentially the United Nations as well. And that war would be highly disastrous to the Magi, as the Holy Church only knew the general areas and locations of the Magus Association's bases because a lot of it was common knowledge to those of the magical world, in addition to some of the deeper knowledge that the Church had unearthed. However, if the PWCD started to actively hunt down and flush out Magi from the general human population, the information that the Church was supplying gave them more than enough info with which to carry such a campaign out. The moment that the PWCD found themselves undermanned or in over their heads, the United Nation's coalition army and the steadily growing drone army would be on the call to attack.
If things escalated to that point however, then World War 3 would have officially begun.
Despite what many thought, no one was actually eager to get into another war, especially so soon after the massacre in Japan. The magi wanted to keep the practice of Thaumaturgy alive and well, which would be impossible to ever achieve if they ever got into a war of any sort with the modern world. The PWCD had just come out of the war in Japan with heavy casualties and losses across the board, including the loss of most of their Bunker and Terminator suits, and wasn't too eager for another large scale conflict. The Holy Church was primarily against the Dead Apostles, and while they would have liked to see the Magus Association fall, the amount of blood that would need to be spilled for that to happen was uncomfortable for even the most bloodthirsty executioners to think about.
So until the time came that war was officially declared, everyone was content with the current system of espionage going on between 4 different parties.
xxXxx
Barius Olva was fairly normal for an enforcer. He had been at the job for 5 and a half years. In that time, he had helped out on a few dozen dead apostle hunts and helped to kill or capture a few sealing designates. His magecraft was nothing groundbreaking or amazing. He simply happened to know how to use the right tricks at the right time. He hadn't done anything extraordinary, yet found himself on such an important mission that the fate of all the magical world potentially rested on the actions of him and his group now.
As his reinforced form climbed out of the wreckage of the helicopter, he felt that this assignment was already getting far out of hand. Something had shot down his team's only ride and scattered them across the city. What was worse, two of their team had died in the crash, them not having any mysteries that granted invulnerability to blunt force and impact caused damage. There were five other still living members of his team that were certainly alive, but he didn't have the slightest clue where they were. They had all fallen out the vehicle when the helicopter started going into a tailspin.
No wonder magi hated technology so much if this was something to be expected when flying through a city.
Crack!
Barius thought nothing of the sound. He was next to a recently crashed helicopter that had hit God knows how many random objects while throwing pieces and debris everywhere. He'd be surprised if something didn't spontaneously collapse near him.
"GAAAAAAGHCK!"
A metal hand came literally out of nowhere. With the gentleness of a grizzly bear, the hand clamped around his jaw and crushed the offending bone structure with little more than a nice squeeze. The pain was so immediate that he couldn't even scream. Screaming would've been extremely agonizing regardless, as his jaw was completely broken. A split second later, another metal hand wrapped around the back of his head, fracturing the skull at the points where the gauntleted fingers pressed. When the metal hands brutally twisted Barius' head to break his neck, his head was completely twisted backward to face the glaring helmet of an armored monster, the skin around the Magi's neck breaking and tearing after being stretched much farther than it was meant to go.
The body collapsed to the ground, blood and spittle flying out of his mouth, as well as pouring out of the flesh tears on his neck. The Crysis suit operator was only slightly thrown off at how much he had mangled the enemy combatant when trying to execute a simple neck snap. Ignoring the mangled body before him, he radioed in his squad, informing them of the current tally.
"Target down."
The super soldier then turned to glance at the wreckage of the helicopter. The belly of the vehicle was gutted wide open, revealing the mangled corpse of another magus enforcer who had died in the crash. The cockpit of the vehicle itself was busted in, revealing the torn and shredded body of the pilot. It was another magus who had tried to reinforce his clothing to survive the impact. When he crashed, the glass must've blown inward and cut up his unprotected face, as well as imbedding pieces of glass in his windpipe and neck arteries. When he was knocked unconscious by the crash, he silently bled out in his seat and died while he was out cold. Or at least that's what had seemed to happen. The nanosuit operator would go over there to check for a pulse just in case, or maybe just give the body a good punch to the head. Helicopter crashes were usually a lot worse than this, especially when they were actually shot down. It spoke volumes about how 'powered up' these Magi were, if so many of them could so easily survive a crash like this.
"Be advised Patriot team, 2 magi have died in the crash. There are 5 still magus operatives functioning within the city."
xxXxx
Seras was not a happy woman.
As she looked around, she found herself in the local park of Hiroshima. The forested area looked extremely dead. The soil was ruined by a combination of the monstrous plants that had torn themselves from the ground and high explosives that had saturated the general area. Then outside the park were a few buildings that were sporting pockmarks, explosive residue, and general structural damage all around.
If she thought Japan was an ugly country before, then she couldn't even think up a name for it now.
But she wasn't unhappy for the looks of the area. She was unhappy because her mission which would bring her fame and glory in the magical world had just been sabotaged before it could truly even begin. Now her team was scattered across the city and probably being attacked by whatever had shot them down. That left her with the thankless task of trying to round up all the still living enforcers, burn the evidence of their presence here, burn the bodies of their fallen, and kill whatever had shot them down before escaping.
With an annoyed sigh, she flipped back her brown bangs in order to reach her magic crystal ear piece, calling up the other members of the enforcers who were wearing them.
"All enforcers, call in. Let me know that you're still alive." She irritably stated.
"It's me, Avarion. I'm still breathin'."
"Cowl here. What's up?"
She waited for a moment. Then she realized that no one else was answering but those two.
"What, it's just you two!?" She yelped.
This was bad. There had been eight of them that had come. The amount of prana that was needed to make a volatile bounded field that could kill entire armies needed at least four people fueling it, and those four all needed to know exactly what they were doing. That was the predominant reason that the team had been so large. Four would be needed to set up fields on their end, and one more to watch over every magus as they finished their preparations. Even if there were just the four of them, the mission was still doable, but now extremely difficult. With just three men, the task was nearly impossible.
"It may not be all bad Seras." Cowl stated from his end of the line. "It's possible that the other enforcers just lost their ear pieces in the fall or the crash. Either way, there's a good chance we aren't alone."
"I agree with Cowl, Seras. We should at least try-BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!"
Seras flinched in shock at the sound. Her eyes widened as she realized she had heard gunfire, and it was apparently pretty close by to wherever Avarion was. The idea of hearing loud gunfire mid-conversation was so surprising to her that she didn't realize the obvious earlier. Then she paused as she noticed what she was hearing, or rather wasn't hearing.
Any noise whatsoever.
"Avarion? Avarion! Answer me dammit!"
"What the hell was that?" Cowl stated, slightly unnerved by what had just happened.
"*CRUNCH!*"
Avarion's line went dead.
xxXxx
Patriot 1 stood over the blasted apart corpse that used to be a magus enforcer, holding a strange crystallized object in his hand.
The poor guy didn't have a chance. He had seemed to have his reinforcement magic up, but when the bullets started coming that amounted to little. .50 caliber bullets tended to rip apart their targets with a single hit. The Magi had just so happened to catch a full four round burst to the chest, courtesy of a hand held 'Ma Deuce' Browning. Frankly, the nanosuit operator was surprised that there was even a torso left.
Voices were coming out of the crystal-like device as if it was a head piece or something similar, but there were no wires or such for that to be possible. Regardless, it was transmitting, which meant that it could potentially be used for tracking purposes.
Without any apparent worry or care, the Crysis nanosuit operator squeezed the thing within his palm and felt the object turn to powder beneath his armored grip.
Shaking off the bits of crystal dust on his hand, he reached up to touch the side of his helmet and radio his squad.
"Patriot team, there are a total of four Magus operatives still functioning throughout Hiroshima. Flush them out and eliminate them."
