Author's Notes:
Yesterday was my birthday, i enjoyed a delicious birthday cake in the company of my parents and sibling at their house. Took the entire day off as well.
A bit of updates: I started the Gate - Jietai Kare no Chi nite, Kaku Tatakeri story like i said i would. But don't worry, babies! RaK comes as 1st priority, it is however nice to do something else once in a while to prevent idea depletion and too stuck in one genre.
I'll be rolling out the subsequent chapter and the usual short together soon.
"Did I ever tell you the story of the Giant that became Rook Islands?"
"It's a really funny story my sister used to lure those weak-minded lambs into her flock. See, there was this Giant who was a peaceful muthafucka chilling under a lake. Contrary to the folk story that it ate anyone that came near to drink from it, they just didn't wanna share the lake with a monster like'im."
Brody sharpened his machete engraved with strange Rakyat symbols whilst he continued on with his story.
"So these little fuckers called out this powerful warrior from a certain northern kingdom. Now I wonder where could that be?" He played with his answer.
"Spoiler alert! He chops off BFGs head and somehow it lands on the ground becoming the Rooks. The warrior fornicates for days and out sprout the Rakyat people over hundreds of years. And that's where the story ends… or does it?" He said with a chuckle.
"Yunno, I used to believe in that shit once. Till I eavesdropped on my sister with the elders one day, by accident. And oh the things they taught her-..well… let's just say she had a different education program for us boys and girls. One of the biggest ancient scandals to rock those tiny islands, and then- (pop)…. Just like that, little Vaas Montenegro's dreams crumpled into thin air. Of course, they found me, and you know what happened next? They hunted me, because I knew the truth and they were afraid of what I could do with that. Can you imagine, them? Scared of lil' old me? They were afraid a kid could breakdown their hundred years of tradition… of lies." He laughed.
"So…. Like any smart little boy would do, I hid. Pretty good at it too, those adults who call themselves warriors hardly ever venture out from those shit temples of theirs." He snorted upon recalling their incompetence.
"Then they got frustrated and did something that I'll never forgive them for. One day, while I was still at large, I heard my sister call out to me. Asked me to meet her at the chasm with a lake underneath. I loved her, of course. And I knew she loved me. So I went…. And-…." (Bang) Brody kicked the chair as he stood up.
"Muthafuckas! And Muthafuckin Bitch!... She sold me out." A grin was permanently plastered onto his face that gleamed with madness.
"And who came swopping in like the greatest anti-hero there was then gritty Hoyt. Real fucking lunatic, him. He'd actually tracked and observed us because he wanted to sell us, me include to some really disgusting fucks over in the Arabian nights. But… like all silverlinings, he found little Vaas to be a bit interesting. See, he was having a problem with the natives in regards to land rights so it was a pain in the ass while you were making money and these fuckas were damaging your good and honest drug and sex trade. I had a problem with the Rakyat, so we had sorta the same goal. I knew their "sacred" locations and food caches, so moooving the clock forward, I hunted those Rakyat fucks but I never did get to my sister. Those elders were dead set on making it difficult for me, although they did pay with their lives. It was enjoyable while it lasted…. And then, that guy came."
He paced around.
"A big flabby pussy when I nabbed him and his hard outershell brother. But my sister seemed to have a soft spot for cunts, like I was years ago. And so, snow white became her soulja boy. Even now, I thought he was a cunt. But you gotta love that drive he had tryin to kill me, it was the funniest thing since. Like a gay guy getting beaten by a fluffy bunny. Ha!"
"Now….. where was i? Oh yeah. Giant scandal, she fed him with the same fucking lie like she did all those drifters that came there. And whaddu know. He actually turned out pretty fucking good and Citra saw that as well though she barely had any expectations. The next time I saw him and knocked'em out, I saw what she'd done to him. Jason Fucking Brody was to be her breeding vessel, that was some Nazi Aryan superman shit she was brewing right there in his ink and the stupid white boy didn't even know." Brody shook his head and face palmed remembering something so embarrassing.
"So you see, Jason reflected the warrior and I was supposed to be the giant. At least that was the story, but you wanna know the truth? That warrior was the giant's kid."
"There! I said it. Johnny killed daddy. And that fucking bloodline coarses through the Rakyat. So you see, all that talk about them being strong and powerful. It was all a fucking lie, they were nuthin but descendants of backstabbers. Now picture how lil'Vaas felt, who wanted to be an upright and noble warrior for his sister?"
"Its all fucking lies, man! All of it. But yunno what? They were right about one thing, the strong prey on the weak. They just couldn't tell the difference in strength."
Brody huffed as he felt like he told an epic, he downed a cup of water on his working table.
"So there you have it. Summary? The world is a fucking lie."
"Brody!" A voice called out whilst knocking on his door and opening it. A senior havildar came through.
"Mohan wants to see you."
"Da-tata!- Didn't I say that I'm busy? Tell'em I'll be there when I get there."
"Now, Brody! Just because you're a Deva does not give you the right to ignore Mohan's orders! It's already enough that you don't contribute to the routine labor."
"Hey man, chill. Haven't you forgot? I'm like your Demon magnet, there are a million-an-one reasons that guy literally hates me for what I've done and he'll be flinging everything away just to chase me."
"Whatever, get going."
"Alright, Alright-… jeez. What crawled up your ass? Snow? Or maybe "those guys" stuck a-."
"Just get to the temple sanctum! I'll have someone clean up after you."
"Thanks! You're the MVP!" He cheerfully left the interrogation chamber and dashed off into the corridor to listen to what Mohan had for him.
The senior havildar sighed and lamented why and when did this foreigner's personality change so much. It could only be him showing his true colours, he guessed. As he stepped into the room to get a better grasp of what was there to tidy, but mess was understating its actual amount of rotting remains.
Seated and tied up to a chair was a rotting corpse of a man that'd died quite some time ago. It was impossible to tell what he looked like because there was no skin, no hair, no eyes or anything left.
It only served to make the havildar shiver as he clearly heard him monologuing to someone inside this room.
But now, it was clear he was only talking to a dead man.
…..
…..
"My liege, you must reconsider!" One of the many of his subjects in the throne implored of him.
"I will not." He said with absolute authority, as his stroked his sister's head lying on his lap in tears.
It had been announced throughout the City, that the Princess was to be betrothed to the Yaksha Crown Prince. But it had not been her parents that arranged this nor was it her brother now king. It was done by her true biological parents whom were once hostages and had abandoned her for their own safety.
The subjects were unnerved after what their liege had done just recently and for good reason.
And on the same day as the announcement, the Yaksha spirited her away from under her current familys' noses to be immediately wedded at the Yaksha home grounds by the Luna lake, Jalendu. When the King of Akaash heard from his spies what had happened, he marched alone into the Yaksha sanctuary and blasted through their defenses one by one till he reached the ceremonial ground where the nuptials were to be exchanged. The Yaksha guard apprehended and caked the grounds with their blood from where he shrew them.
The Yaksha King fought with him one on one valiantly but his old age weighed in as a factor that deprived him of any hope of overpowering a furious Rakshasa King blessed by the Mountains and Valley. At a prime moment when her brother was about to finally subdue the Yakshas' sovereign, the Crown prince tried to backstab him. It was unfortunately not enough as his Astra gorged the Yaksha King's torso and delivered a mortal wound which would never recover, he swung the sword behind and cut across the Crown Prince's perfect features, permanently denying facial perfection to the Yaksha Crown Prince.
The next victims that entered his target were his sister's true parents which he smashed into pulp despite their immortal bodies. Only then did he depart with his sister in his arms back to their home.
"I am incline to agree with his majesty on this." The General of the East declared contrary to the mass of ministers vying for peace in the valley.
"You warmongering fiend!"
"How dare to try to upheave our thousand years of truce!"
"I wager you were the one who tickled the Yakshas' into being so audacious!"
They accused him on after another.
"You'd better hold your tongues before you try to accuse me. You clearly see that the Yaksha were trying to claim our lands and rights into Shangri-La by legal right of marriage with our Princess. And yet, you still press our lord to make peace with scoundrels! Damnable defeatists! I wonder who's the real traitor here!"
The adjutants of the General of the East quarreled with the ministers over what the right action to take. The other two Great Generals were seated in silence while one had been dispatched to access the situation with the apparent breaking of ties with the Yaksha Kingdom.
"…. Forgive me….. forgive me…." The Princess of Akaash cried herself to sleep on his lap repeating the same words over and over for putting him in such a difficult situation.
But all he did was show compassion and sympathy for her situation, being kidnapped and forced into a marriage she didn't want. As treacherous as the Yaksha were for pushing the boundary for more right over the lands they called home, it was one thing he couldn't forgive them for.
"Friends, brother." They ceased their jabber when he opened his mouth.
"Retire for the evening, in the morning I will brief you on our next point of action."
"Your Majes-."
"I said go home, Jagrva!" He boomed to his long-time friend and General of the East. His subject immediately stepped down and left respectfully. The Ministers and Generals did the same.
"Bhaaii (Brother)." He called to the General of the North who was the last to leave the throne room.
"Y-Yes, Bhaiya (Elder Brother)?" He said with honorifics dropped, the King shared a very special bond with the youngest of the brothers in his family.
"Take her to somewhere she can rest." He held their sister asleep out to the younger sibling of theirs to carry off and deposit her in her chambers to rest.
Left to his lonesome, he travelled in the dead of the night to the residence of the old Former King of Akaash to seek words of wisdom in a dire time and was surprised to see the Lord Regent there as well, his father.
"Your excellency, and Lord Father."
"We've been expecting you." The aged Rakshasa said.
Sharing the events with them both, the former king sighed and shook his head. His father wore an expression of worry.
"Are you prepared for the consequences?" The old one asked.
"When I struck down Lord Yaksha, I was already declaring war with them."
"Then do you know what is to come?" He nodded.
"I've sent Commander South Gate to confirm it. But I would wager the Yakshas' plea to the naïve Vanara and mortal men to aid them in liberating their Crown Prince's bride."
"…." The old Rakshasa nodded in satisfaction that he was at least aware and prepared for the worst.
"Lord Harish will unwittingly lead the apes to act as their frontline pawns, that stubborn ape doesn't listen to reason once he believes he's on the side of justice. And mortal man's Demon Banishers could not be more content with harvesting more soul stones from our corpses."
As he said, the monkeys would naively believe the Yaksha they were on the road to righteousness. Vanara Chieftain Harish already had an enmity with him for slaying his brother in arms decades ago during an invasion repelled by him. The Demon Banishers had an unhealthy habit of gathering soul stones from their remains to increase their powers on par with more powerful beings' magical might and spiritual sense. This new generation of Demon Banishers did not have the wisdom or temperance of the last, they only desired the build up of power and it was going to lead to their down fall soon.
"Then I wish you the very best of fortunes, I have also approached the seers on this and received a divinitation on your behalf." He couldn't say how lucky he was that this former king was so willing to guide him during his reign and even doing things in his benefit on his behalf. That being said, he did not believe that his fate was swayed by the machinations of others. He would listen to what the former King would advise him, and he would cut through all obstacles to attain the answer he was looking for.
"Let us hear it then."
…..
…..
The trek into the mountains helped to clear much of his thoughts until the fighting began. Ajay had climbed ahead of the rest who were down below still climbing at a slower pace. It gave him some time to reflect.
Reflect on whether isolating Daisy's options for help would finally send her on her way home. Jason Brody was a lost cause, the fact that he let that person possess him showed he didn't hold any regard for anyone any longer. He was ready to die, and Ajay was ready to give him what he wanted.
Pagan had actually called for him a day ago, but Ajay deliberately ignored it under pretext he was in the battlefield or publically known as a division exercise.
The armies would have sortied by now on their aerial insertions to paradrop a Battalion of Garud Commandos and an even smaller group of GRU spetznaz who'd been trained in the handling of portable nuclear devices. The Jatayu were also sent out ahead with Samson and his boys. De Costa apparently had training by NATO in handling similar US nuclear weapons the joint armies used to have in their arsenal, in all likeliness it was the same type of bombs.
Even with how close the Americans were from Point 2153, they had the advantage of flying into those zones via Ilyushin and Antonov cargo planes as well as with helicopter support. At this stage, the US forces were unaware of the movements of their forces as a result of a sudden electrical storm brewing over the mountains. It didn't usually happen this time of year so there was only one explanation.
The Rakshasa knew they were coming.
And it was in their nature to kill all infidels, especially conniving humans. They probably were aware of the metallic surveillance device called a surveillance satellite orbiting the earth at twenty thousand kilometres above ground. It worked in his benefit that the US no longer had ground intel and would end up resorting to depending on local inhabitants for information which would be varied depending on their communication skills.
The GPS and longwave communications had all been distrupted by that unnatural storm cloud looming over them. If an AWACS aircraft or UAV were in the area, its radar would also be disrupted due to its proximity to Point 2153. But Ajay had his forces prepare for such an event and the men were trained heavily before he began to issue state-of-the-art systems into their arsenal.
Unlike the highly mobile US army, Arjun had issued out copper-plated optic fibre lines to the three armies for telegram communication via morse code. It was the quickest way of updating their situation to visual signaling. The 17th Signallers Battalion had a big part to play in keeping the field command posts connected to the central command in Sagarmatha and the important job of providing the artillery batteries twenty klicks out on their fire missions. But they were now better off than the Americans who'd nothing but their skill to reply on. Perhaps the bombers might sortie, but they had no functional IFF to their friendly forces. It was a perfect opportunity to wreck havoc amongst their lines without them knowing and as such, the hunters had been deployed in vast quantity to kill off their recon assets.
Ajay had orchestrated the stage, now he only needed everything to fall in place and he could crush the US expeditionary force without their central command even knowing what happened until all they received was radio silence.
"I never thought this day'll come. You're fighting our own home now."
"Kyrat is my home, Kyrat is your home too." He smiled as Ajay indicated him as a part of his homeland.
"Maybe…. But I was born and raised in Montana, bro. I can't forget the folks there, it made me the man I am today."
"Did it? Then why were you floating around from the Rooks to here? If the states gave you everything you needed, why did you drift here looking for company and attention? They gave you nothing!"
"No, Ajay. They gave me everything that I needed….. The problem was me-."
"You are not the problem!" Ajay said in anguish.
"I'm glad…. that even up till now, you're still on my side." He stared out into the open of the mountain range.
"You're gonna kill'em aren't you, and they're gonna die because of us."
"They're soldiers, it's what they do. They die because some ignorant fool sent them to their deaths. Its their Commands' lack of understanding that not all of this world belongs to mankind that'll lead to their downfall."
"It didn't need to be this way."
"They were the ones that pushed it to happen." He argued.
"You know that isn't true, Ajay. You provoked their response because you couldn't forgive them for the hurt they'd done to Kyrat. You know that the fellas in power now had nothing to do with what happened twenty years ago."
"Their mantle of power, their responsibility. They enjoyed the fruits of what their predecessors' sowed. Can you really say the bear no sin? Because they didn't dirty their hands to get it?"
"Really, Ajay. Wasn't it you who said the sins of the father don't pass to the son?" Ajay gritted his teeth as what he'd said was true and yet-….
"A government is an entity created by the collective interests of the people over the decades. I'm taking revenge against that system, the modern beneficiaries are just collateral. If they expect to prosper from that system, they can also suffer because of it."
"You've really shut your heart on this one, eh Bads?" He smiled back sadly.
"I won't change my mind on this. And neither will it be for Brody."
He remained silent as Ajay had made his goals clear, he walked up to the ledge of the cliff.
"If you won't change your mind on Jason, then neither will I. I know that somewhere in here…." He pointed to his heart.
"Jason is trapped and needs our help to free him…. And now, you have the ability to free him." Ajay didn't need him to remind him of what his current power was capable of. It hurt him even more to see that he was carrying such a heavy burden beyond what Ajay himself could hold.
"How-…. How can you still say that after Daisy!-… Riley!-.. your friends have forgotten about you?!" But all he got in reply was a warm smile.
"But you still remember me, don't you?" Pain, it was the only emotion he felt.
"… It's not fair-…. That's not fair!"
"What hasn't changed is that I'm still the eldest of the three tatbros, Ajay. Of course, I need ta stop the two young'uns from killing each other." He got off the ledge and walked to a small pass, it seemed that his time had come.
"If you were in the same instance as Jason, I'd do the same for you." He said before leaving Ajay to his lonesome.
Ajay kicked a rock and shattered it with his strength alone.
What he listened to, only increased is bloodlust for the Americans and Brody.
"Ajay." A voice returned him to reality. He composed himself by sorting out his posture and expression again.
"I'm here…. What took you so long?"
"Sorry, we had trouble with the cart."
"Can I take point this time?" Jeevan complained after having to heft the cart up slope.
Ajay waved for him to do so as he went to the side of the cart and assisted in pushing it and the yak up the steep cliff road.
"Maybe if you get off the cart, the Yak wouldn't feel so burdened up the cliff." He said to the only occupant in the cart who pouted.
"That's rude, I'm supposed to be the "wife" of the trader and you're just his freeloading brothers and father." She said in regards to their cover story.
"What do you expect, we're only helping Jeevan because your upkeep alone is worth the salaries of four of us." Vasu and Han Feng shared a snicker at Maya's expense.
"Tsh… Ridiculous. I should've just followed the rest on the forest route." But it had been her choice to roll with them instead of the Hunter cadres moving in to distrupt the American scout and recon teams. Their bows made for silent kills and the inability to identify the attackers.
Maya passed a glance at Ajay whom was too busy directing their cart of "wares". She saw beneath the mask of his was a lining of distress hidden so well that not even the sharpest of eyes could discern. But she could, she'd been watching him longer than any of them had, perhaps even Saras wouldn't notice. It wasn't an affliction he suffered from in the form of physical wounds recovering.
These phantom pains had done their toll on his emotional fortitude, no charm, talisman, or emotional support could ever hope to patch it up tears so great that one uncareful step would send hims mental fortress crumbling.
But depending on the conditions, it would either unleash or trap the demon god forever.
"With all due respect, sir. The situation is Fubar." A captain shouted at his superior officer at their temporary base in the mountain range.
"You'll fall back when I say you fall back, Hunters!" The superior officer held the rank of colonel in the US army.
But the captain wasn't satisfied.
"I'm not gonna let you waste fifteen hundred men on some spooks assumption!"
"You don't even know the half of it, sonny." The hardy colonel wasn't backing down.
"Sir, with all due respect, you're an asshole."
"I know, and that's why they sent me. This mission comes down from the Commander-in-chief himself. So in case you haven't got with the program, we are finding that package. We are finding those sons of bitchs who threatened us. And we are gonna find this Badala and bring that bastard back!"
"So get your shit together soldier! Or a court martial'll be the least of your worries." He shoved the reluctant Captain of his Scout sniper group.
The disgruntled Captain packed his gear and stomped off out into the wilderness once more to rejoin his party. On his way out, he happens to pass by a caravan of locals being escorted in for questioning on the local environment. There were about five of them, four men and one woman.
They were now relying on the goodwill of the inhabitants to get intel on the surrounding if they had any hope to recover the devices now that the Navstar and their longwave comms hard problems penetrating that thick storm cloud that brew in this area. He had a dark feeling but he couldn't put his finger on it at all.
(bump) "Uh-Hey!"
"Owt! Khaki ssamanga. (do forgive me.)" One of the locals bumped into his should whilst he wasn't paying attention. The local went to catch up with the rest of his relatives, he gazed at the local for a while as he felt something strange about him for a moment.
"Hey." He called the corporal who was one of the few escorting the locals to the Command Post to pay them off on having ground info.
"What can I do you for, sir?"
"Where did they come from?" He pointed to the locals.
"Those guys are called Sherpa, there's like literally millions of 'em roaming around the mountains to trade for a living. I guess todays their lucky day, huh?"
"Yeah…." He didn't disagree, the Colonel would likely pay them handsomely to get what he needed to return on schedule.
"Hey, sir….. rumor're going around a bunch of Jarheads were inserted here months ago who're the ones who sent that signal."
"Where did you hear that?"
"A friend of a friend of mine told me." He shrugged his shoulders.
"Let's hope they stay as rumours, Corporal. For both our sakes." He said before leaving the camp with the supplies he'd picked up earlier. The escorting corporal had no idea what the officer was going on about he simply wanted to hand these locals over to the Colonel directly. Since one of them was the first to speak fluent English which made it a hell of a lot easier to ask the locations of the surrounding terrain.
The sherpa's entered after the corporal into the tent command post where their highest-ranking officer awaited them.
"Well, hello hello." The Colonel got up from his seat over the comms which were showing no sign of recovering and gave up for the time being.
"Tashi Deleg. Nge Min Vasu Nga Akaash surhau. (Hello, I'm Vasu. I hail from Akaash.)" The eldest of the Sherpa replied.
"Um…." The colonel turned to the corporal expecting an answer as to why he said they could speak English.
"My father says hello back, sir. I'm Jeevan of Kyrat." Said the youngest of them all whilst extending a hand to the officer.
"Pleasure, Mr Jeevan. I'm Colonel Patterson, US 75th Rangers. I just want you to know you have the gratitude of our country for doing this, we'll make sure you're properly compensated for the trouble." He shook the hand and turned to the rest of his relatives.
"Yeeb (Morning)." The Chinese one replied to Patterson's surprise, but then again it wasn't uncommon for there to be Chinese or Indians in the Himalayas as well.
"Uh- These are my family members. The gentlemen whom greeted you is my father, his acquintances call him Vasu. Over there is Han Feng my adoptive brother, my beautiful wife Maya-."
"Hahahahahaha!" The last one laughed continuously as Jeevan was about to get to him. The woman who was supposed to be the Sherpa's wife frowned when that one guy laughed clearly at her. The Colonel sensed something cruel about that laughter but tempered himself in tolerance.
"Is something funny?" He said as politely as possible.
"As a matter a fact, yes." Replied the last one to him and his guards' amazement, because of his clear-cut Brooklyn accent.
"No thorough cargo and body inspection, no path-finding and not even a hint of suspicion. Am I really encountering the elite forces of the United States Army? You grunts are so fucking naïve. Your friends are gonna be one-sidely butchered by them."
The guards raised their weapons to address the sudden appearance of a threat and further orders from their superior. But the people whom they thought were ordinary Sherpa grappled and covered their mouths. Overpowering them so quickly and easily despite them being the bulkiest and strongest of the Colonel's men.
"Scream or call for help and your entire camp will get annihilated." It was such a simple threat, but Patterson didn't doubt for a minute that what he said was true from the tone. So he sat back on the chair seemingly calm whilst the person disguised as a Sherpa paced around him.
"Who're you?"
"My name is not important, but what is is the next step which you'll take from here on out Colonel. Because you're not in Kansas anymore, and you certainly aren't in Pakistan. So I'll give you this one warning out of the goodness of my heart before you proceed onwards and invade my country." The Sherpa whom seemed to be in reign of the situation sat on his folding table in front of him.
"Pull back your forces and retract your claim from those warheads and I'll let you, your men and every US personnel stationed in Pakistan leave here alive."
The colonel's eyes danced as he'd not been told fully of the mission regarding the package and worst of all, his opposition was aware of the warheads presence.
"Do you-…" Before he could complete his sentence a hand clawed out and grasped his mouth to shut it.
"Do I what now? Know whom I'm dealing with? Absolutely. Because from the moment I sent that letter addressed to the President of the United States, the Kingdom of Kyrat-... I had already declared war on you."
The colonel was loss of words as there was a sudden recollection in his mind in regards to what this Sherpa who was clearly not one said.
A debrief at the Pentagon by the Secretary of Defense himself. A CIA categorized status "Leviathan" had threatened the security of the United States of America. It was the worst threat since Osama bin Laden, because this maniac was after a few nuclear warheads lost in the Himalayas since the '80s. What he wanted with them, they couldn't let him leave with those devices. He'd been on Langley's scopes since the most recent Chinese incursion into the Himalayas. They followed the Chinese named given to him, simply translated back into english as "Demon". Just like other status Ls that had codenames like Skinner, Jackal, Snow White, Kurozuka, Mistral and etc. There was a bounty on their heads each but no one was stupid enough to try assassinating them, each had a story so crazily insane that no lesser man should've survived and yet they did.
This "Demon" was placed on the top of the "Leviathan" catalogue and was someone based on the descriptions of one Force Recon Captain David Goh as someone they shouldn't have provoked. But he called that man by a name, and that name was….
"Badala….." When that name escaped his lips, the Sherpa who was Ajay in disguise grinned maliciously.
"Hello there. Seems Langley wasn't being such a dick as to keep that much from you." Ajay turned to his group and nodded. (Snap) (Snap) (Snap)
Went the necks of the personnel with the Colonel. He stared at their lifeless bodies for a moment before looking back at Ajay.
"Th- This isn't in my boundary to withdraw!"
"Of course it is, Colonel. You simply pull back your forces, I can't believe that you would actually care about your career more than your life. Not even the Chinese were this stupid."
"So I'll ask again. Pull back your forces, consider this karma for living in the states nearly all my life."
"You!-…."
"I'm gonna count to five, by the end of that count, I'll decide for you instead. Five."
Ajay didn't give the Colonel even a moment to think about what had just been said, he forced him to make a decision quickly for the sake of his men.
"Four…. Three…..Two-."
"Sir, I have a- wha-…. Intrud-!" An adjutant came into the tent uninvited and drew his sidearm after seeing the dead men on the floor and shouting for help.
(Stab) Maya stabbed a knife into his jugular and filled his mouth with blood as he collapsed. But this brought about the suspicion of the rest of the camp.
"It seems your men have done that for you. Too bad."
"So now what? You're alone in our camp." He said in the greatest of composures despite sweating.
"No, sir. You're all alone in our home grounds." Ajay replied.
"You won't get away with this, you may take me hostage but they'll kill you." He said to Ajay.
"Oh, I'm not going to take you hostage and neither are my forces taking POWs out of the eleven thousand gathered at the border."
"Th-Then-…hurrghhh!" Ajay grasped his neck and lifted him in the air with an inhuman strength.
"I'm gonna misled your main force into fighting our enemies for us."
"I'll never-….urgggghhh…" He struggled to say he wasn't going to hand him the codes to their comms.
"I don't need you to, Colonel. Your blood will tell me everything." The Colonel of the Ranger's eyes widened as Ajay brought his neck towards his jaw. And as Ajay bit down upon his soft flesh, digging deep into his neck. Fangs that hadn't been that length before stabbed right into his veins and drew out the lifeforce that defined him. In his blood, his DNA, and in that, the memories that made up the life of Colonel Arnold Patterson. From the cradle to his grave, these memories rushed into Ajay as he devoured them.
Everything from his family life to the Army conducts of formations and military procedures adopted by the United States Armed Forces. Confidential secrets, encrypted codes, all of the cards that the US Army had at its disposal in this region and at home. And even one meeting with the president himself. They were once his, and now they were stolen by Ajay. A man that they'd forced into becoming a monster to beat them. As Patterson weakened, he could feel everything that was happening as the memories flew by in his mind and vanished. He now understood why someone as tough as Marine Captain David Goh resigned from the Military after failing to convince them not to fight with Badala.
He tried to scream but his throat lost all its strength, so he withered continuously. Until he turned into a mummified corpse of a man before he was flung onto the floor.
"…." Everything he learnt about the Americans was within his expectations.
As appalled as the group was to what Ajay did, they knew he was even more disgusted for doing it. Yet, it was necessary for their plan to follow through.
"Let's mess this place up before the main force arrives."
By now, the camp garrison were gathering around the Command Tent to entrap the individuals that infiltrated their grounds.
"Get out with your hands up!" An officer shouted whilst standing behind a row circle encompassing the Colonel's camp quarters.
And as he requested, out came one such person. The men stared at the individual with adversity. Cladded in some sort of dark advance protective suit, donning a strange mask was someone that spelled he was the type to jump head strong into a fight. But they stayed their hand and fingers off the triggers until their commander said otherwise.
"I don't see those hands! And where's the Colonel?!"
"I don't need to, and don't worry about him. You'll be joining him soon." Ajay responded to their utter disbelief as he spoke in an American Accent contrary to the Geography and it wasn't a fake one but every bit natural.
He unslung his slayer that rifle them up and aimed with preciseness at his weakpoints, assuming there were any.
"Kill 'em." At these words, out of thin air materialized three individuals cladded in full protective armour and took the initiative by firing their weapons and charging at the soldiers.
(Babababaam)
"What the hell?!"
"Return fi-arrghh!"
By the time the first one initiated a retaliation against these suddenly appearing enemies, twelve had fallen. The whole area lit up with bullets and shouts to direct that firepower towards that stationary target and those assassins.
But as quickly as they appeared, a smoke screen from smoke grenades discharged and a combination of active camo fabric sewn into their garbs by Chang-san from the captured camo cloaks made them lose their targets almost immediately.
They would reappear to slay a few more men and vanish with the wind again, proving difficult for the Rangers to displace heavier ordnance to bear on a target that wouldn't keep still behind cover. So they turned it to the one target they could still see.
(Boom) (Boom)
Shots fired ripped apart those that it was pointed towards, killing the crew of the heavy weapons.
They tried to use grenades, they tried indirect fire from automatic weapons and large caliber rifles, portable LAW launchers. But he drove straight through the firepower and cleaved through them effortlessly. Ajay had built up a tremendous amount of bloodlust from his burdens that casted fear upon their souls inadvertently. And these unfortunate souls would have to make do as a means for him to release much of his fury to clear his thoughts for the road ahead against a more frightening foe and mislead the expeditionary forces' Main contingent straight into the enemies' backyard.
It was here that the beginnings of the Great reaping of man, though foreign to the lands had commenced.
