To Look Back and Cry
By Sabersonic
Chapter 4: Depression
A Crongus Warrior roared at the police that were currently surrounding the Elementary School. The children and the faculty were huddled together in a single group and guarded by three Crongus Warriors. The other Warriors were striking a fighting stance, growling, snarling and waving their weapons at the police. Five policemen and a negotiator were trying to get to the Crongus to negotiate demands, but they were unable for the Crongus made swipes at the policemen that almost took their limbs. They continued to approach them like approaching a wild animal and continued to be thrown back by the threatening swipes. The police have no idea as to how to handle the situation.
"This is Sylvia Noventa of the Earth Sphere Federal News Network and we are live at a scene of the worst hostage situation ever. This normal elementary school, in Brussels, has been under hostage control by unknown soldiers. The local police are trying everything they can do to negotiate demands with the unknown soldiers, but failed at every attempt as they could not get near the soldiers for threat of injury from the soldiers." Then a Tyrannosaurus Rex-like roar (From Jurassic Park) boomed. "The situation is not improving."
Suddenly, a man horribly screaming was heard.
"Officer down! Repeat, officer down!" The unfortunate police officer had his left arm torn off, pieces of his shredded arm hanged from his elbow. The disarmed officer fell down and the others were rushing to help, but another Crongus Soldier grabbed him by the shin, claws digging into the flesh, and pulled him towards the other Warriors. They tore him up, all the while the officer screaming for mercy. Finally the screaming stopped, and all that was left of the man was an empty, bloody ribcage with a head still attached to it that had half of his face ripped off. The Crongus Warriors roared as they displayed the remains of the officer in the air, warning other policemen of getting too close to the Crongus.
"I am not negotiating with animals!" And with that, the negotiator ran from the scene, not wanting to be killed savagely like the unfortunate officer.
"This has been a terrible turn of events. Several of the soldiers had just killed a police officer, brutally, and are displaying his remains as if they are warning the police if they come too close. Many worried parents and family members of the hostages are waiting for them to come home, but the situation seems unlikely to happen." Then Vor, the humanoid, made an even louder roar as another negotiator tries to speak to the Crongus Warriors.
"We are here to discuss your demands for the hostages." The police officer avoided a death swipe. "We do not want anymore harm done to the hostages. Please let them go peacefully." Then the negotiator cautiously steps forward.
"What are your demands?" Another death swipe avoided. "What do you want us to do in exchange for the hostages?" A roar sent chills down the negotiator's spine. Then another scream was heard, this time it was the SWAT team that was brutally massacred. They were trying to get close enough to see if they can rescue as many hostages as they could without being detected, but it seemed it had failed. No one was going to escape from the Crongus. "Please, give us back the hostages in peace." Then the Crongus Squad Leader reared up and roared an ear-piercing shriek that made many ears bleed.
"The police now have the negotiator trying to find out the demands, but it seems that the attempt is not working. What will save the children from these horrific soldiers? No one knows."
The Preventer Elite have arrived at the scene, just noticing the situation. Heero finds the situation all too familiar. The Crongus have captured the elementary school as a temporary camp and the children would be used as either target practice or sacrifices to their gods. He also notices that the Crongus are hanging the massacred SWAT team members upon crosses and let their bodies hang from the crosses, a boundary of their territory.
"Oh god, that is sick!" Duo said, horrified of the scene. "And those are the Crongus, Heero?"
Heero nodded.
"Normally, they hang a boundary alive." The others didn't know what that meant, but were afraid to ask. "I'll try and rescue the hostages."
"But how-" Heero then pressed a few buttons on a devise upon his left arm and then some transparent liquid quickly covered him, oddly enough making him invisible. Heero then slipped towards the hostages from behind one object after another, using the Crongus swiping at the police officers as a distraction.
The children whimpered and quietly sobbed as they were being held against their will, the faculty trying to calm them. Then a girl's shoulder was tapped and she turned around, finding no one.
"Mister Tink-" But Heero silenced the small child by placing his finger upon the girl's lips. He then made a quick scan of the child with a small holographic projector, activate it and switched the real child with the hologram one and covered her in the personal stealth field. He carried the child from one hiding spot to another towards the other Preventers and set the child down and quickly went back to rescue another hostage. "Thank you Mister Tinkles," the child thanked quietly, the other Preventers Elite tried to hold in their laughter. Heero returned with a young boy in the sixth grade.
"Thank you Sam."
The Preventer Elite barely contained their laughter and Heero felt like he could just die of embarrassment. He would never hear the end of it from the braided baka as he returned to get more of the hostages. Every hostage he saved, he always been called by some childhood name of an invisible friend. Names like "Snuggles", "Bubbles", "Jack" and there was even a teacher who called him "Mister Hackney"(0.0). Soon, he rescued all but one hostage, a little girl of the age of six, and he was about to leave when one of the Crongus discovered that their hostages were taken from them.
Lead Warrior Kaugh'Naugh! The sacrificial guards are gone! one of the guard Crongus growled.
What!?!! Find them, find them now!! the Lead Crongus Warrior screeched. The squad split up to find the missing hostages, but not before killing the policemen and the negotiator, believing them to be distractions.
Heero slowly stalked away from the Crongus, but then froze when a Crongus noticed a flux of light around Heero. The Crongus Warrior slowly approached Heero, not knowing what the light flux was. It sniffed the area of the light flux, unsure if the phenomenon was natural or artificial upon this planet. The Crongus' staff weapon scratched the personal stealth field generator and the stealth field fell, revealing Heero Yuy holding a little girl. Heero didn't know what do to and did the only action that he could think of: he made a swift kick at the helmet of the Crongus Warrior's Encounter Suit, and ran as fast as he could.
A Sapien Soldier! Open blaze!!
The Crongus Warriors fired their Plasm rifles at Heero Yuy, but he blocked it with his personal energy shield and used it to protect the child. He finally made it back to the other Preventers, but the Crongus were hot on his tail. A huge motorcycle-like object then arrived and transformed into a huge power armor suit and fired Energy Discharge Pulses at the Crongus. That sudden attack drove off the Crongus Warriors, but the Lead Crongus Warriors then made a huge roar and about fifty Crongus Warriors flew from the doors and windows and opened fired.
"Here sir, take this!" The power armor threw an Energy Pulse Discharge Rifle with Grenade Launcher at Heero. He caught it and opened fired upon the Crongus. The power armor launched energy grenades that sent the Crongus Warriors flying, but they were still able to fight back. Several Police Officers shrugged and opened fire upon the Crongus. Though the bullets passed through the Crongus, they were pushed away hard. The Crongus kept on attacking until a roar of a jet engine that sounded alien, followed by several shots of energy, destroyed a majority of the Crongus. The craft landed upon mecha legs and transformed from a half jet/humanoid form into a full battle ready robot that looked like it was build around a jet aircraft. The mecha fired its laser from the sides of the head and onto a group of Crongus Warriors, discharging their bio energy and exploding. The mecha then pulled out an Energy Discharge Pulse Gunpod and opened fired upon the Crongus. Three Crongus Warriors then pulled out seed-looking objects and threw then into the ground, which later erupted into tentacles that wrapped around the Crongus Warriors and formed into 18.2-meter humanoid Bio-Fighters. The humanoid Bio-Fighers each had: an energy staff with energy blades upon both ends, huge crests upon tri-jaw heads, dog-hind legs with horrific looking claws, gatling guns-like weapons in the chest, a huge weapon arm with a blade weapon on the elbow and a tri-plasm cannon atop the claw/hand. The Mecha made a fighting stance and prepared for a fight against the Bio-Fighters when two more mecha arrived, each armed with a huge shield and rifle pods that were capable of launching grenades. The three mechas then fought against the three Bio-Fighters and new UCE soldiers arrived to fight. For several minutes, the two forces clashed against each other. Energy Discharges and Plasm Bolts flew across the air and explosions filled the ears until the Crongus retreated through personal wormholes.
"Wow, did you see that?" one child almost screamed.
"Cool, I wana be like them!" The children cheered as the other UCE Soldiers got acquainted to each other. Five soldiers walked up to Heero and saluted.
"It's good to see you again, Boss Man!"
Heero gave the soldier a death glare.
"I mean Wing Commander Yuy, sir."
"It's a pleasure meeting all of you again as well."
The Preventer Elite walked up to Heero.
"You're a Wing Commander, Heero?" Duo asked.
"Yes Duo, I am."
The pilot of the Jet Mecha then came down from the cockpit, holding what seemed to be a three-year-old girl. Heero walked up to the pilot. "You took your daughter with you, Jennifer?"
"Well, actually, she just snuck aboard the Naval Air Fighter." The little girl in the young woman's arms giggled.
"Hiya Unke Heero!" the girl greeted.
"Hello Jean, nice meeting you too." Then he turned to the rest of the UCE soldiers. "Okay, listen up! The Admiral is making preparations to get us back to the fleet. Until then, I am in command until someone of higher rank says other wise." There were no objections from the other soldiers. "Good. Now, we also have permission to stay at the Preventer Headquarters until we do get back to the fleet. Our objective as of this moment is to find other soldiers who were left behind during the last battle. If they are allies, we take them in. If they are the enemy, get rid of them. Do you get me?"
"WE GET YOU, SIR!!!" the other UCE soldiers chorused. Several Preventer trucks arrived to take in the UCE Soldiers and their equipment. The Preventers were uneasy with the UCE soldiers, as most of them weren't even human.
"I can't believe the fleet left us behind like that!" a humanoid dragon said. The humanoid Dragon stood over two meters.
"Just be thankful that the Admiral gave us these weapons, you moron," a furby Alien scolded the humanoid dragon. The furby alien was around 45 centimeters tall, had rabbit like hind leg, and a long, lion like tail.
A Squid-like humanoid said, "I just hope that they have enough room at their headquarters." It had three tentacles for legs, arms with tentacle-like fingers, huge lips and a bone skull and stood a meter and a half.
"Hope they have anything good to eat there. I'm starving," a two-meter tall Grey alien piped up. It had double-jointed arms and legs, three toed hooves, four fingers, and a huge head with large black eyes with small nostrils and mouth.
A human-sized Tyrannosaurus alien stretched, complaining, "By the spirits, my vertebrae aches." It looked like a normal T-Rex but it had long arms with four clawed fingers each.
"God, the press is going to be crawling over this," one Preventer muttered to another. The trucks then reached Preventer Headquarters and the UCE Soldiers were then showed around the Headquarters. The equipment was being stored in a nearby Preventer base, with technicians eager on wanting to find out how the weapons worked. The soldiers then started to exchange war stories with each other to see who's was the most dangerous. Many of the female Preventers, mainly the younger recruits, were looking upon Jennifer and her daughter Jean.
"Oh, she looks so cute."
"Isn't she just the sweetest?"
"So adorable."
"She looks just like you."
"Do you know who the father is?"
"Truthfully, I don' know," Jennifer replied while Jean hid behind her mother, not used to all this attention. She was probably the only child to be raised near the battlefield. Jean was almost entirely raised by the entire 27th Black Falcons Wing since her mother had to go on constant missions involving the Crongus Edante. Jean was afraid that one day, one of those missions would take her mother away from her and leave her alone. Although she knew most of the Wing, she had no family to fall upon. Her mother, Jennifer, was apparently a war orphan from an attack from the Crongus on a UCE colony. Her father, whomever it could be, was nowhere to be found. The only father figure in Jean's life was Heero. Although he was strict upon military discipline and order, he always had time to raise her whenever her mother was away and she loved him for it.
Heero was looking over the data from the last battle and trying to find out if there were other UCE soldiers left behind from the last battle. About 350 soldiers were left behind, a small percent to the entire personnel count of the 148th Earth Expeditionary Force Armada Group. He also suspects that there are also a larger percent of Crongus Soldiers here on Earth. Heero don't know what the Crongus were planning, but he did not care. His mission was to stop any Crongus campaigns in other dimensions that were hostile to the Galactic Alliance.
'I wonder how's the 148th is doing right now?' Heero pondered as he looked over the data.
~*~
Upon the near side of Jupiter, the 148th Earth Expeditionary Force Armada Group "Kamikaze" was again under attack from another Crongus Raid. It was the same tactic that the 148th had been able to predict to a point: the Crongus would send Bio-ships through Jupiter's atmosphere and open fire before they were about to reach the other side. This time, a large fleet of Crongus Bio-Mech Model 5s appeared and opened fired.
The Bio-Mech Model 5s, or Titans, by the UCE Intel, were huge organic beasts that are around 1.6 kilometers in height and are armed with only a single Plasm weapon in the shape of a gem as a distance weapon. The Titan is also capable of other attacks, ranging from grabbing and ripping, stabbing and slicing, to body slamming into an enemy capitol ship. The UCE Capitol Ships were able to attack the Titans and defeat them by means of firepower, but as the Titans come to close range, the only way to fight back were the Robo-Cruisers.
The Robo-Cruisers were 1.6 kilometer Capitol Ships that looked like mobile suits in basic form, but armed with weapons that were standard to Capitol Ships of it size and a Sonar Blade used for melee combat against the Titans. Several Robo-Cruisers and Titans were destroyed before the Crongus activated the fall back beacon on the other side of the gas planet. The 148th again had a moment of peace before the Crongus attacked again.
Inside the bridge of the "Divine Wind", Admiral Takagora Akira was not happy of the current situation.
"God damned them! The Crongus are trying to wear us down before they kill us all!"
"We all know that Admiral Takagora. We just need to find away around it," the First Mate said. She had been the First Mate aboard many ships in many famous battles. She knows the Crongus' tactics all too well.
"We may need the help from the Galactic Alliance and reinforcements. We can't keep this up." The Admiral also knows the Crongus all too well.
~*~
Curse the Sapiens! Curse their will to survive! Curse that Nijo Quoti! the Crongus Admiral of the 14th Imperial Invasion Force Group yelled. The humans were more resistant than it had originally though. Before it came to the Milky Way Galaxy, it had heard stories of an unbeatable species in an insignificant part of the universe. This species, calling themselves Humans, were a true test of the Crongus Warrior spirit. They said that when a Crongus died by the hands of a human during battle, then that Crongus has been deemed worthy by the Deities of the Space Tunnel Plane to become ascend into the Holy Relm of Eternal Warriors. He believed those words and still dose so up to this moment in time. The Humans are a formidable fore and it would take more than overwhelming odds to defeat the humans.
Calm your fury milord Admiral Suri'Quantauk. I'm sure that the fleet will destroy the 148th, the High Officer said.
At the expense of our kind!? No, there must be a way to defeat them without sacrificing our kind or our resources.
But milord, we have endless resources and our numbers greatly outweigh the Sapiens. Plus our kind have been driven to defeat the Sapiens, so we cannot lose--
But we are not victorious! We win, they win. It is endless!!
Another Crongus High Officer then walks up to Admiral Suri'Quantauk.
Milord Admiral Suri'Quantauk, the High Command of this Galaxy Campaign wants your report on the mission at hand.
~*~
Within a large chamber, Admiral Suri'Quantauk stand over a lighted and then touched a floating orb. Then a transparent liquid wraps around him and turns into a second skin. After that, other liquid forms formed up, morphing into the shapes of Crongus High Commanders. Admiral Suri'Quanauk saluted by first beating his chest with his right fist with the thumb, index, and pinkie extended and then brought the hand into the air with the thumb and index forming a closed circle and remaining fingers curled away from the circle. The High Commanders did the same salute to Suri'Quantauk in return.
Great Warlords of the Campaign of Galaxy 13492207--
What is the progress of the mission at hand? one of the Warlords interrupted him. Suri'Qantauk knows that it is the Warlords right to interrupt him.
I am unable to conquer the designated--
Your mission was to conquer the target planet for future use of the Campaign. We need that planet for its large Sapien population for our needs of the Bio-Factories throughout the Dimentions. The tone of the head Warlord wasn't pleased. Suri'Quantauk would have to expect painful consequences from this. I should have known better than to trust this assignment to the inexperienced.
I believe that it is time to reveal the great force of the empire. The Imperial High Guard. This was a great surprise to all the Crongus Warlords and the Admiral. The Imperial High Guard is the elite of the elite. No force could stand up to them successfully. This started the debate between the Warlords.
The Imperial High Guard? That is completely impossible. We couldn't send for them even when the situation demands it. We would need the full approval of the Praetor and the Imperial Crongii. We have learned not to be underestimating the capabilities of the Sapiens ever since the bombing raid upon our home world. Since then the Imperial High Guard have been at high alert. Tycrolni needs the Imperial High Guard more than we do.
Suri'Quantauk listened upon this debate. It may be young, but it was not stupid. It knows of the human's attack upon the home world and Tycrolni's need for the Imperial High Guard. Oh, how it missed Tyrolni. It missed the great eclipse when Vicolen, the mother gas planet, blocks the sunlight of Grel'Viltaku, the mother star, and makes a bluish/green ring that came once a pass for three Grel'Viltakus. Of how Suri'Quantauk missed the juvenile Grel'Vitakus of dashing across the plains filled with wild Shen'Shada plants and the methane skies made it feel almost complete with--
Admiral Suri'Quatauk. That brought Suri'Quantauk out of its memory pass. It would have to return to his quarters and meditate the memories again. We will meet again at the 1/7th Grel'Vitaku at the next Grel'Vitaku for our action of this situation. Do not be late. And with that, the holo-fluids dissipated back into the holo-disks and Suri'Quantauk was alone within the communication bay.
~*~
Okay, I admit it. That wasn't the best I could have written. But that's all I could have done at the moment. Hope you thought differently.