Emily Piggot Feburary 2nd 2001
"HOLD YOUR GROUND!"
Even with artillery strikes, missile strikes, machine guns and everything we were throwing at them, we were losing. The last remnants of the civilian population was being held at the Ellisburg hospital, 300 people, men, women and children were all that remained of a city of 40 thousand souls. We were all scared, all frightened. We were dying in droves, capes and normal humans alike. The national guard had been called in, every marine and whatever else we could scrape up had been called in, but the enemy was too numerous and powerful.
"Comfirmation people, Ironwood is being transported in by tinkertech jet, ten more minutes."
The capes my squad had been sent in with took a breath, for awhile I was worried that they were going to bolt. I put another clip into my M16 and pulled the trigger.
"You heard the man! DIG IN!"
Private Ruiz laughed.
"Never thought I would see the day were I hoped an Endbringer would attack a city."
"We can talk about the irony of that statement after we win!"
I threw a gernade into an incoming mob, the world continued to explode, to be bombed. All we had to do was continue holding down the library, god there were so many. So fucking many of them. Time seemed to move with agnonizing slowness.
"ETA IN TEN!"
"Fucking A!"
"Not now Kennedy! Live first, gloat later!"
We continued firing, our ammo was starting to run low I heard a click, fuck. Then another one, when my gun clicked my eyes opened in horror, the monsters streamed forward and then collapsed. All of the monsters collapsed. I looked at my radio.
"North Library, were out of ammo."
"What's the situation there?"
"Most of us are dead, some of us are bleeding out, the enemy in our location is down."
I waited.
"Rodger that, the highschool's still standing, casualties were massive but...everyone's reporting the same thing. Ironwood's locating the Tinker responsible for this, once that's finished he will start healing the injured and after that we bury the dead."
We walked around like zombies, those of us that could, a few of us had lost limbs or had been splashed with acid, burned or electrocuted. They were being managed so that they wouldn't bleed out.
"We won."
I leaned against the wall and put a canteen to my lips, god what a clusterfuck. A few of my men took photos of the now dead monsters.
"Thank god he's on our side."
I stared at Ruiz.
"Yeah, thank god."
I let the cool water sooth my nerves, we were all glad to be alive.
"I hope his wife gives him the best bl-"
"Don't be crude Ruiz, I'm going to ignore it for now because holy fuck that was rough, but we're PRT, we're held to a higher standard. Once your off duty you can say whatever you want."
He shrugged, I had a reputation as a ballbuster for field ops, it was important and even vital to have discipline. I saw some badly damnaged trucks come in.
"We're here for wounded."
We opened up the doors and handed them over and started the long march to the desginated safe zones. We all had unfocused eyes and walked around in the daze, it was starting to hit us all just how close we all came to death, one of our capes dropped to his knees and threw up. I sympathized, looking around at the sheer carnage caused by one fucking asshole? Yeah a part of me hated capes right then.
I mean, really fucking hated them, but our cape allies had stuck by my unit through the worst of it and we were only alive because a fucking Endbringer saved our asses. It was food for thought capes were ordinary people hooked up to some alien symbiot and that had to fuck with your head, on the other hand there were good capes and bad capes, good people and bad people. A whole lot of fucking evil Endbringers and one exception that had just saved my goddamned life.
"Fuck."
I saw the dead bodies of Marines, Army personal, national guardsmen, police, capes and civilians, in death we were all the same, a horrifying humbling monument. Then in the distance, I saw him. The wounded were presented to him like a pagan sacerfice and then were helped to their feet. It almost felt like I had invaded some religious ceremony.
I saw civilians, the few who had survived the massacre, they had blank looks on their faces and then my eyes narrowed at a sleeping man incased in wood.
"Nilbog."
I uttered the words like a curse, other PRT officials looked at me, other members of the brass. Someone motioned me to a superior, a few other officers were gathered, there were 6 of us in a room. The old man looked around.
"The Thinkers have spoken 275 survivors civlian, 90% of allied forces dead."
I noticed we were alone.
"Tomorrow we're going to transport Nilbog away, he is going to attempt to escape at midnight."
We understood the message.
"He isn't going to make it to his trial, he is going to die resisting arrest, after that I guarantee there will be promotions for the brave heroes who prevented his escape, am I clear."
The five of us nodded our heads and watched as other emergency personal came in to try to do anything to fix the damage. Ellisburg was a dead city, it was never going to come back. I waited patiently for the drive, I watched as the shackled monster was put into a van and then the five of us joined him, keeping a close watch on him him.
When midnight came the five of us put our guns into full auto and unloaded our clips. I probably should feel some guilt for that. For killing him, but honestly letting that psycho get a trial, get more attention? No...no he was an animal and when you're dealing with an animal you put them down.
When I got home I had a commendation and a fast track to a directorship, I had escaped with my health, half my team survived, most people lost a lot more. The PRT spinmasters were at work trying to salvage this clusterfuck. "Oh sorry, most of a city died but hey, at least we killed the fuck out of the asshole responsible for this right?"
I couldn't sleep, so I went and read through the public Endbringer files, what we knew about their culture. It was a culture of might makes right, of survival of the fittest, and a view of everything being seperated into predator and prey. I tried to make sense of what had happened at the massacre.
But maybe it was really that fucking simple, there was civilization and barbarians. There was a quote by Ironwood that he switched sides because we had stronger ideals. I had never really thought about it, but now my mind dealt on the subject. Animals, villians and other assorted garbage, they looked strong, but really who was stronger?
The other two Endbringers lived on the run, spending their time hiding underground or in the ocean, our monster lived in a global city with his wife. So who was better? I felt more in control now, things made a sort of sense now. Shit ideals have shit results, when I put on my uniform for my debriefing I felt a little more solid, a little more sure of myself, after all idea's are bulletproof.
