Please note that this story is currently undergoing revisions, which is a gradual process and not an instant one. As you read, you may find some minor inconsistencies (nothing major or plot related). This will almost certainly be because the chapter in which the inconsistency is in has not yet been revised.
For people first reading this, I'm not gonna lie, I wouldn't have written an Isekai story if I was starting it this year. But I wrote this eight years ago, when I was a cliché noob, and it's too late to change everything now. So, it is an Isekai. But I'd like to think that it's a little better than the generic setup the genre puts out. I've at least put more thought into the OC MC than most of these shows do. I promise I put a lot of effort into the story as a whole, even though the premise is a tad generic in its foundations.
From the open doors of one of the few Black Hawk choppers still serviceable after Armageddon, a soldier clad in full body black armor and an airtight helmet peered down into the depths of the freezing Atlantic Ocean, now mostly irradiated and filled with rotting life. The stink of a billion dead fish was something no amount of filters could mitigate, but on the bright side, the stench was so terrible it pretty much eradicated your sense of smell after a minute or two. It was the one silver lining this soldier could discern in what was otherwise a horrific travesty the likes of which the world had never seen.
This soldier's code name was Archangel: a silly gimmick name he himself found ridiculous and unnecessary. But, someone with more authority than him wanted operatives in the field to go by code names, and so it was. The logic behind it was a mystery to this particular soldier, and he didn't care to investigate.
Besides, small things like that didn't really warrant much attention from this helmeted soldier. He was man that had seen more conflict and strife in just over two decades of living than most people saw in a lifetime. Being born in a turbulent, chaotic era that just so happened to lead up to the end days kind of kept one's focus on bigger, more important things in life. Surviving, primarily.
The early 2000s had started on a horrific note with the attack on the World Trade Center and the Twin Towers, but in hindsight, it had been a relatively tame beginning to a downward spiral that was the apocalypse. War after war against ideals that could never truly be defeated, natural disasters that seemed to strike without end... by the time a massive solar flare had engulfed the Earth a few years back, it was a wonder that there was any society left to be destroyed.
Archangel probably could have avoided involvement in all of those events but the last one on that list of catastrophes, but following 9/11, he had gone out of his way to get involved. Both of his parents had been killed in the attack, at a point in time when he was just old enough to still have fond memories of a happy family and a happy childhood. Oddly enough, it was actually better to lose family when you were too young to remember them: you weren't as angry about it in that situation. Being old enough to remember what was lost only served to nurture great hatred, and Archangel had once possessed plenty of that. He had hated them, those fanatics that would slaughter hundreds of innocents for some ridiculous 'higher calling.' He despised them so intensely that he wanted to make a career out of killing them.
He'd trained hard to achieve that goal. His spare time was spent mastering the art of soldiering, but more importantly, the art of marksmanship. He trained with a rifle every day he possibly could, mastering a craft that would ultimately entail blasting very large holes into people that he despised. By the time he was seventeen, he'd gotten disturbingly good at it. That was too young to formerly enlist in the military of course, but certain paramilitary groups hadn't particularly cared about that age restriction. He was damn good with a rifle, and looked old enough to pass for eighteen. So for a time, Archangel was able to revel in the chance to exact revenge, even though the people he killed during that time were often quite far removed from the ones that had wronged him in the distant past.
How long he may have continued down that path of senseless hatred was a mystery. He hadn't gotten the chance to find out, thanks to his cousin. She'd come to live with him not long after his parents had died. Over time, she had essentially become a sister to him. And that sister had picked up on some very dangerous signs regarding her adopted brother.
The long and short of it was that she had helped him see the truth of the matter: his hatred was warranted, but he was directing it at targets far too specific. It was easy to despise a particular group of people because the terrorists that had wronged him came from their race. But there were terrorists everywhere. Every country, every race, every creed had evil individuals that would murder innocent people to achieve some asinine personal goal or vendetta. His sister, who had likewise taken on a military career to help keep her brother safe, helped him alter his perspective. It stopped being about revenge against any one group. He no longer hated those specific people: he despised anyone that would kill the innocent just to push an agenda, religious or otherwise. He still killed, and he still felt no regret or remorse for them. But it was a righteous fury, anger that grew from a desire to defend, rather than a lust for vengeance.
It was by far the most important lesson his sister had ever taught him.
Moreover, by helping him redefine the guiding principle of his life, his sister helped Archangel's repressed better side manifest more regularly. Not to say that he had been some bloodthirsty maniac who only thought of killing and war before that: but the times in which he smiled and laughed alongside his friends, the times he sat down and painted some scenery from the now gone world he had been born into, became far less uncommon. He still shot people on the field of battle. And he still hated certain types of individuals that he barely considered people. But it didn't utterly consume his life. He could do his job and still go home to friends and family, enjoying his life with them as if he had never seen battle at all.
With so many people having died in the past twenty years, Archangel knew that life was far too short to forego that happiness that was good times with people you loved.
This was the kind of man that rode towards Greenland in a chopper along with a squad of his fellow commandos. Most of the world had collapsed when the massive solar flare, an event they had dubbed 'Nova', had washed the planet in flame and right fucked the atmosphere around it. The few vestiges of humanity that had survived the cataclysm and were capable of doing so had mostly gathered into one massive group of survivors on the far side of the planet where the damage was, relatively speaking, less severe. Those with military experience had been assimilated into a motley force dubbed The Last Watch. While they had more or less tried to organize themselves into a traditional military system, this organization only had one job: protect the only refuge humanity still had on this now wretched Earth, a city called New Eden, the result of a project that had been going on for years prior to Nova actually happening.
Unfortunately only one bulwark against the radiation was completed before everything went to hell, years sooner than scientists had predicted. Because of this, New Eden was all humanity had to begin their arduous and grueling task of one day reclaiming the hellish world they now occupied. Without it, the already slim chance of human recovery was reduced to zero. For that reason, members of The Last Watch eliminated anyone and everyone that would threaten the safety of the floating city.
This particular squad of Last Watch soldiers was being deployed to what was left of Greenland because reconnaissance had discovered the presence of an extremist cell there. Not everyone had embraced the idea of reforming some sort of society after the apocalypse. Some survivors went out and formed bands or cults or whatever they felt like calling themselves, and a lot of them didn't like the sky-bound sanctuary that was New Eden. Maybe they were just miffed that they didn't get to live on a floating city with radiation shielding. Then again, they had gotten the short end of the stick. The tensegrity sphere that housed New Eden didn't really have enough room for anyone else. Shitty as it was, they couldn't let anyone else into the sanctuary without compromising the long-term sustainability of the whole race.
Archangel understood why people still stuck on the surface would be disgruntled about this: New Eden was one of the only places left on Earth with consistent protection from radiation, some degree of self-sustainable agriculture, and acceptable water filtration capabilities. Threats to this last bastion for humanity were absolutely unacceptable. All enemies of the floating sanctuary had to be eliminated, lest they cause the destruction of what little was left of mankind. That was why a squad of commandos from The Last Watch was about to deploy into a radical terrorist base and kill everyone. Recon had revealed the presence of EMP weapon development at this crude facility, and that was enough of a warning for the Watch. New Eden was literally one of the only things left to target with an EMP in the first place.
The voice of the chopper pilot broke the relative silence within the aircraft, beating of the rotary blades notwithstanding. "ETA until we reach the drop zone, two minutes! HQ predicts an atmospheric dead zone will pass in about two hours; it won't be bad enough to kill you inside the facility, but get caught with your pants down and you're toast, so you guys had better make infiltration quick."
One of the soldiers in the chopper, outfitted identically to Archangel, acknowledged the warning with a simple 'affirmative.' His name was Vasily, but while on missions, they all referred to the Russian man as Cossack, because protocol said so. The grizzled old man was the current squad leader, and a reliable one at that, though Archangel had no personal experience with him. The Last Watch didn't have enough soldiers of every critical skillset to let people form dedicated teams that were always together. Commandos were often mixed and matched as missions demanded, so it wasn't that rare to end up in a squad with people that you didn't know, or didn't know well at the least.
Case in point was the third member of the squad, an Irish guy named Seamus. Dubbed 'Scorch' while on ops, Archangel actually had worked with him a few times before, since snipers were one of the least numerous professions in the ragtag amalgamation of Last Watch soldiers. But it would have been a stretch to say he knew the man. The most he knew was what had been revealed during their handful of operations together: the guy always did too much for too little. Too many explosives and too many bullets to achieve objectives and kills. Supposedly he'd gotten a little better about it since the last time Archangel had seen him, since munitions weren't exactly growing on trees anymore.
The one exception to this mix and match squad system was when soldiers had extensive experience that maximized their efficiency when working together. That was why there was one soldier on the squad Archangel always worked with: Shellcase, his adopted sister. With the two of them having worked together in military environments for years prior to Nova, The Last Watch understood that it was generally better to have them on the same team rather than splitting them up. Of course, that could be subject to change soon, seeing as how she was being considered for a promotion to Squad Leader. If that happened, Archangel probably wouldn't see her as consistently on missions.
Naturally, the marksman wasn't particularly happy about the notion, but he did believe she was up to the challenge. His sister had a cool head, unshakeable determination and an uncanny knack for getting the job done even when the situation wasn't ideal. She was also pretty good at keeping rowdy, insubordinate people in check, so that helped in the chaotic landscape that was The Last Watch and dozens of soldiers from various countries.
On the other hand, Archangel had no chance of getting promoted to Squad Leader. Not that he didn't have the qualities to be one: command had commended him plenty of time for leadership skills. But his role on the battlefield didn't mesh well with taking charge of an entire squad. His job was to sit far away from the immediate action and provide overwatch and cover, which didn't give him the best understanding of the exact situation on the ground. No, he didn't lead very often: he mostly shot people. Almost entirely shot people, really. But it was different than it used to be. Whereas he mostly fired a rifle for the sake of killing enemies in the past, he now did it to protect allies. Granted, that still involved killing the enemy, but the motivation was different, and that made all the difference.
Besides, he didn't like being in the thick of the action these days. He wasn't terribly suited to it after a mission a while back shot him through the kneecap. Moreover, what had happened during that mission had turned Archangel away from the horrors of close quarters combat. He had no desire to be out front, where the killing was more... personal. Maybe it was cowardly, but after that time, he preferred to kill the enemy from a distance that made it easy to ignore their existence as human beings, provided he considered the target a person in the first place.
One of the chopper's occupants leaned forward in the chair opposite of Archangel, leveling a reflective visor directly at him. Even unable to see her eyes, the team sniper could tell that his sister was staring a hole into him. And even though he knew what she was thinking already, he asked anyway.
"What?"
"You're thinking about it again, aren't you?"
"And what makes you think that?"
The slimmer figure of his sister pointed down at his right leg.
"Because you always bounce your right leg like a jackhammer when you're thinking about it. And stare into space like a zombie."
Stopping the subconscious bouncing of his right leg now that it was brought to his attention, Archangel nevertheless tried to deflect his sister's pointed analysis.
"That sounds like unrelated coincidences if you ask me."
Leaning back and crossing her arms, the woman across from him clearly didn't buy it. Not that Archangel was surprised.
"Jake, why would you even think that would work on me?"
"Hey, you're not allowed to call me that while we're on mission."
"I'm not calling my brother by a stupid codename."
Considering that he also found it kind of silly, Archangel couldn't really fault the girl for taking that stance. He never called her by codename either. But then again, that wasn't really the issue they were currently discussing.
"It's fine, Mission. It's not like I'm slipping into some sort PTSD trance."
"So you are thinking about it then?"
Sighing in defeat, the elder sibling simply conceded. He knew better than to resist his sister for more than a few minutes. It never ended well for him.
"Yes, I was. It happens sometimes, alright?"
Leaning forwards once more, Mission pressed a button on the side of her helmet that caused the tint of the visor to fade. This revealed the light jade color of her eyes, which would have enraptured men all over New Eden if only they weren't constantly glaring holes through them. A few strands of her now silver hair could be seen as well. They used to be brown, but Nova had seen fit to change that, albeit in a roundabout manner. Technically it was the cure for the radiation poisoning that had done it, not the radiation itself.
Either way, the slightly younger woman was clearly not pleased with Archangel's admittance of guilt, though her voice was a lot more gentle than her furrowed brow would have implied.
"How much longer is this going to gnaw at you, Jake? He had a gun."
With the chopper they were riding in descending to solid earth below, it was nearly time for the squad of soldiers to deploy on their mission. With little time to continue the conversation, Archangel kept his reply as curt as he felt about the situation.
"Yeah, well, so did I."
The helicopter touched down on one of the few patches of flat land on the cliffs of Greenland that it could find, prompting all four of the commandos in the aircraft to shoulder their weapons and step off into the unknown. It was only a few seconds afterwards that their transport took off into the air again, the roaring beat of its blades gradually fading into the dark of the night.
Vasily and Seamus quickly began moving in the direction of their objective. Mission was to go with them, of course, but she made sure to give Archangel the sentiments any good sibling would.
"Be careful out there, Jake. If you die, I'll kill you."
Naturally, the sniper had to return the sentiment: both the genuine care and the sibling snark.
"You're the one in a more dangerous situation, so you be careful. Not that any man in their right mind would approach you..."
"When one finally does it's almost guaranteed you'll kill him."
"That's assuming you don't kill him first."
Unable to get too far separated from her two teammates, Mission began backpedaling in their direction, dropping any quips for one last comment borne of genuine concern.
"Be careful. I love you."
"I love you too. So watch your back."
Some may think it weird that two soldiers would utter such words prior to engaging in a mission, but they knew better than anyone that the words they parted with could be the last either one ever heard from the other. Knowing that, there was no way they would part ways before a mission saying anything else.
Watching his adopted sibling disappear into the darkness after their comrades, Archangel turned his gaze towards the elevated cliff face he would be turning into a sniper's nest. Aerial reconnaissance had proved that it would give him a good vantage point over the enemy facility. Unfortunately, this lead to the part of missions that always got on Archangel's nerves: climbing was such a pain when you had a bum knee.
Laying completely prone on the edge of the cliff he had previously sighted and painstakingly climbed, Archangel smoothly rested the crosshairs of his scope over the helmeted head of a nameless terrorist, patrolling the outer perimeter of a barbed wire fence that surrounded a large metal structure that looked like a big frisbee. This was the fifth time Archangel had gone through this song and dance over the course of the past hour and a half: killing any number of people in close proximity without their compatriots noticing was not easy. It took careful planning a fair bit of luck to catch the enemy in positions where no one would see or hear their demise, and if they had coordinated patrols, even doing that might result in breaking one's cover.
But the enemy was not coordinated. They were reasonably well-armed: submachine guns, assault rifles and grenades were prominent among their grunts. They even had detox packs, something that was very hard to acquire or produce outside of New Eden. But they weren't well-coordinated. Their patrols didn't check in regularly, and they didn't seem to notice or care when they didn't see one of their pals for an uncanny amount of time.
They were likely radicals with guns, rather than ex-soldiers. It raised a lot of questions as to this group's origins, but Archangel wasn't paid enough to investigate things like that. He just had to shoot them. And seeing as how they were terrorists looking to cripple humanity's last bastion, he really had no qualms with that.
Archangel concentrated on his breathing so he could get a stable shot at the head of his foe. The trick was actually to fire in rhythm with your breath, rather than holding it to take a shot. Better yet, he could aim pretty much anywhere at the target's head: the helmet he wore wouldn't protect him from a rifle caliber round, even with its speed mitigated by a silencer.
When the hidden sniper pulled the trigger, a nearly inaudible whistle pierced the night as the guard's head snapped backwards, his body crumpling to the ground in an inglorious pile of limbs. Archangel didn't bother chambering another round after the kill: that guard had been the last of the guards outside the facility. Honestly, he hadn't really needed to kill the last guy, considering that the rest of the squad had made it into the base already. But it never hurt to clean up.
Moreover, the last target posed a threat, as Archangel now had to infiltrate the facility himself. Normally that would be unheard of for a sniper, but the fact that an atmospheric dead zone was predicted to pass over them sometime within the hour meant he couldn't just sit comfortably in his nest.
Atmospheric dead zones were the result of the atmosphere getting blasted to hell by Nova. It was kind of like holes in the Ozone layer, except much worse, because these holes let hazardous amounts of radiation bombard the planet's surface. And since they moved around with the atmosphere, Earth pretty much had roaming death zones scouring the surface at all times, potentially being dozens of miles in circumference.
Point being, one was supposed to pass soon, and Archangel was still outside. The gear of The Last Watch was very advanced: but while it would protect against moderate radiation, a direct blast from the great beyond was not within its means.
And so, Archangel slung his rifle over his shoulder and began the arduous climb back down from his sniper's nest, which required him to rappel down with gear he had set prior to engaging the enemy.
While gradually descending to the ground below, Archangel constantly checked the Geiger counter in his HUD, fervently praying that the thing would remain inactive. It would start ticking real damn quick when the dead zone got close. That ticking would become incessant when it was right above you, but it wasn't like you would live particularly long to be annoyed by it anyway.
It was just a testament to how urgent this operation was. Even though there was no indication that these terrorists were going to act against New Eden soon or even if they were going to act against it at all, the fact remained that even the possibility of an EMP attack could not be tolerated. It was such a dangerous possibility that the operation couldn't even wait until after this atmospheric dead zone passed through the area, which multiplied the risk involved exponentially.
Naturally Archangel was unhappy with the added danger to himself, his sister and his comrades, but he also understood the gravity of the situation. They all lived on New Eden, after all. Protecting it was protecting themselves in this now desolate world.
A ways down the cliff, the elite sniper paused as something changed in the audio environment. A clicking sound was starting to emanate from his suit's built-in Geiger counter. The soldier closed shook his head and took a deep breath, fairly certain he knew what was coming.
Someone made a mistake...
As he thought this, the Geiger counter started ticking fast enough that there was barely any interval between them.
Someone made a big damn mistake!
Knowing he needed to be inside the enemy facility in the next two minutes or else, Archangel completely ignored the prospect of climbing down to the Earth and simply jumped the rest of the way down. It was too far of a jump to be considered safe, but with a good landing facilitated by a tuck and roll that would have made a paratrooper proud, he avoided breaking his legs, though it caused his weak knee some pain.
Breaking off into a sprint as soon as he got back to his feet, Archangel reached into a pack on his back to withdraw a satchel charge. He had no idea what the security on the door he had to get into was, but chances were he wouldn't have enough time to bother with it if he wanted to survive. So he'd have to set an explosive with a very short fuse and hope for the best. Hopefully he could get far enough into the facility after the fact that the breach in its protection wouldn't still get him killed.
Running as fast as his combination of one good leg and one shitty knee could carry him, Archangel sprinted past the fallen man he had killed earlier, instead eyeing the solid metal door a few dozen feet in front of him at this point. The ticking of the Geiger counter was almost a constant whine at this point.
Archangel was vaguely concerned about blowing himself up, but honestly, it was a lower chance of dying that being stuck out here and getting bombarded with unfiltered radiation.
However, as he closed the distance, the Last Watch commando realized he wouldn't have to blow the door open: it was opening of its own accord.
Or rather, someone had opened it from the other side. Perhaps worried for the patrols outside that weren't coming back in despite the rapid approach of an atmospheric dead zone, one of the terrorist personnel of the base had opened the door to quickly check the situation outside.
Of course, the only thing he saw was a soldier dressed in a completely different uniform spiriting full-tilt at him from not all that far away. This may have been a problem, seeing as how this enemy soldier had a gun and Archangel currently didn't have his ready, but that was fine, as he knew the Golden Rule: from a distance of 21 feet, a knife was faster than a gun. And that wasn't considering that the guy with the knife was already in a full sprint and the guy with the gun was caught completely off-guard.
All of that being taken into account, Archangel chucked the armed explosive in his hand behind him and kept running, since there was no time to do anything else with it. The enemy in front of him fumbled with the shotgun in his hands, but by the time he had the safety off, Archangel had plowed into him, tackling the soldier to the steel floor of the facility behind him as their firearms clattered to the ground.
Thankfully, some automated system shut the door behind the duo now that neither of them was standing in the doorway. From beyond its protective steel, Archangel could hear the thud of an explosion caused by what he had left behind. But he didn't pay it much mind: he had to focus on the struggling guy beneath him, which was why he drew a combat knife from a sheath on his thigh as swiftly as possible.
Throwing the full weight of his body behind it, Archangel drove his knife towards the chest of his masked opponent. Unfortunately, the man caught him at the wrist with his arms. His two, very beefy arms. Now that he was up close, Archangel realized that his foe was probably a weight class or two above him, which was really bad news in a hand-to-hand fight.
This was made even more obvious as the enemy soldier planted a knee in Archangel's torso and used it to lift and flip him over his head. Slammed on his back, the sniper had the wind knocked out of him, but he didn't let that stop him from scrambling back to his feet as quickly as possible as his opponent did the same. Archangel saw the larger man reach for a pistol at his hip, but he knew this was a mistake. They were still at close range, and Archangel still had a knife.
So he rushed the terrorist again, stabbing his blade into the wrist that was raising the pistol to firing height. A cry of pain emanated from behind the man's mask, prompting Archangel to reach for his own pistol with his free hand. Unfortunately, the terrorist wasn't so lost in pain that he missed that, taking his uninjured hand and clutching Archangel's own as he drew his weapon.
Archangel couldn't raise his gun any higher, but with the two of them face to face, he didn't have to. Even pointing at its current downwards angle, he could hit the enemy.
Pulling the trigger of the sidearm several times, Archangel managed to hit his opponent in the calf and the thigh with two of the shots, causing the man to collapse onto his one good leg, and loosen his grip besides. With an advantage now, Archangel used the leverage his knife provided him and heaved the man away from the facility door and deeper into the hallway, freeing up his hand to fire again.
Even though it was pointless, his foe tried to get back to his feet to resist as Archangel raised his weapon to finish him off. However, the sniper never got a chance to do so, as a flash of light and a resounding crack from behind the enemy soldier erupted into existence. The target before Archangel crumpled to the ground, soon to be lifeless. Walking up behind the corpse was the slim form of who could only be his sister. If there was any doubt, her words confirmed that reality.
"Kind of sad to see you struggling like that, Jake. Like a greenhorn straight out of boot camp."
Archangel pointed a finger at the fallen enemy. "The guy was like, twice my size."
"Don't be so dramatic. One and a half at best."
Holstering his pistol after a reload and grabbing his rifle off of the floor, Archangel walked towards the new corpse to recover his knife. As this incident had proved, you never knew when you needed one. After that he decided to pick up the shotgun his enemy had carried since the area of operations was much closer than it had been before.
"What are you doing back here at the entrance, Mission? You're twenty minutes early."
The slightly shorter woman shrugged. She was supposed to return to the entrance when Archangel was ready to rendezvous, but that was scheduled for a little later i the operation. From inside the radiation shielded facility, she had no way of knowing that Archangel would need to expedite the process of getting inside, thus needing her to regroup with him earlier.
"Call it sisterly intuition. Now come on, the rest of the squad is almost definitely nearing the objective by now."
Naturally the team had to employ radio silence while within the enemy base, so there was no way of knowing exactly where Vasily and Seamus were a this point, However, it was better to assume that they were close to the objective and would soon need help, rather than loitering around.
With an important mission to complete, the two soldier siblings left their usual banter for another day. While Mission may have managed to get here, there was no guarantee that they would not encounter any enemies while moving through the base and towards their objective. Getting to that objective wouldn't actually be all that difficult: the entire base was organized around it, after all. Just moving to the center of the facility would eventually lead them to their goal.
With that in mind, the siblings kept their weapons raised as they moved throughout dimly lit metal hallways, checking corners for potential foes so they could shoot first and continue living.
And yet, they didn't encounter any enemies. What they were all up to was a grand mystery, though Archangel could imagine a few possibilities. If his comrades were engaged within the facility, it was possible that all of the enemy soldiers had been called to defend it. It was clear that this was the case as the approached the furthest depths of the facility, where they could hear the sounds of a firefight unfolding.
Taking positions on both sides of the door leading into the chamber, the two Last Watch commandos opened it as quietly as possible, hoping to go unnoticed as they looked into the room. With little time to spare considering the flying bullets everywhere, Archangel surveyed the whole situation in seconds. Vasily and Seamus were pinned down behind computer terminals on the far left of the room, while the terrorists suppressed them with light machine guns and shotguns from the opposite end, which was littered with work desks and a few terminals of its own. Above them all was a twisting series of catwalks, and in the middle of the room was a large, generator looking machine with lots of coils. It was undoubtedly the EMP device.
He and his sister hadn't been noticed yet, giving them a chance to plot a course before acting. And so, Archangel addressed his sister.
"We have a chance to get to the EMP device while the enemy is busy. Dismantling it is our top priority. Agreed?"
"Agreed. No point in keeping radio silence at this point though. Let's get Seamus and Vasily to offer some covering fire."
Archangel got on comms to do exactly that.
"Vasily, we're at the entrance to the room. We'll throw a flashbang, then you suppress them in that moment so we can get to the EMP device. How copy?"
There was only a moment of silence before the Russian man's thick accent came back over the radio.
"Copy. We're ready when you are."
With the enemy all focused on Vasily and Seamus' position, Archangel and his sister were free to attack them from an unexpected angle. Rather than alert them right away, Mission pulled the pin on a flashbang grenade, alerting her comrades over the radio before throwing it in the general direction of the enemy.
Something people didn't know about flashbangs was that they were much more potent than games and movies made them seem. After landing in the general vicinity of the enemy, it popped with a deafening bang that made even the Last Watch commandos ears ring from their distance. That was to say nothing about the flash that completely bathed the room in white for a brief moment.
Needless to say, a number of the enemies were stunned, and they would be for several minutes. Archangel and his sister began a low, crouching sprint towards their objective as Vasily and Seamus began spraying bullets at the enemy in an effort to suppress any that weren't stunned by the grenade. With very few bullets coming their way during their sprint, the tactic must have worked out pretty well.
Once they reached the cover of the actual EMP device, Mission got to work on opening one of the many panels that would be needed to place an explosive charge inside the equipment. Archangel watched her back, though there was little chance of anyone coming around the corner with the effects of the flashbang and their comrades' covering fire taken into account.
Over the cacophonous roar of all the gunfire, Archangel could hear someone shouting in a foreign language somewhere above him. He looked up to identify the source of the alien voice, and saw what may have been an enemy commander on the catwalks that crisscrossed the upper level of the room. Archangel had half a mind to shoot him, but there were too many obstacles between him and the target, who was also doing his utmost to keep a low profile. Still, he was going to keep an eye on the man just in case he had a weapon.
Seeing that his soldiers were making no progress against the invaders, the possible commander Archangel had spotted pointed at a technician cowering behind a control panel before shouting at him as well.
The technician yelled back frantically, his tone of voice speaking more volumes to Archangel than his foreign words. Whatever the commander had just told him to do, this technician thought it was a bad idea. And if he thought it was a bad idea, so did Archangel. Scientists generally knew what was scary and what was not.
Either way, as the Last Watch sniper observed the fearful man begin some sort of procedure on a nearby computer terminal, he knew that it was not for the best interest of him or his team to let the technician live.
So he did what any good soldier does. Leveling the barrel of his stolen shotgun at the non-combatant, Archangel squeezed the trigger without hesitation. Unfortunately, shotguns were by no means precision firearms, and as much of the spray hit the machinery around the target as the man himself. Archangel did not think this was a serious problem until the EMP device behind him began emitting loud sounds of whirring and circuit sparking, accompanied by smoke from several of its ventilation shafts. Obviously the procedure he had just interrupted was not supposed to be halted halfway.
Foreseeing something really bad happening, Archangel turned towards his sister, who was right next to the machine. With the device making a lot of noises that pointed to a critical failure of some sort, Archangel ignored everything else in favor of determining how he was going to protect his sister. With almost no time to get the two of them away from the device, there was only one thing left for him to do: he threw his body over his sister's, putting as much of his mass between her and the malfunctioning machine as possible.
As a loud explosion and a flash of light enveloped all of his senses, it was all he could do to hope that Mission could get out of this alive, at the very least. Unfortunately, his hopes weren't particularly high for either of them.
This is the first revision this story has had in quite some time. Hopefully, it's improved it significantly. I know this chapter had literally nothing to do with Queen's Blade, but don't worry, it's the setup chapter, and the only one. The next chapter jumps right into things. I just prefer to actually give the main character some sort of meaningful background before thrusting him into an alternate universe.