-Advance Wars 2
--Lash Factor
---Chapter 2: Special Treatment
Waking up after getting caught is probably worse than death for a soldier. No matter what happens. You just know they're going to pump you for information. And if that doesn't work, blood will suffice. But not them. Not Black Hole... They were different.
I was tied to a chair. Arms to the arm rests and legs to the legs of the chair. Not to mention the thing was bolted to the ground. I saw two things. A table full of fun looking instruments, and by fun I meant your stereotypical table full of medical hacksaws and knives. And then there was Lash just sitting there and grinning at me. She looked so excited. Like the next hour was going to be filled with unimaginable torture for me...
"Your rotten little CO Andy destroyed my Black Cannon. His guys also took down Flak's forces in the region. Not to mention the rest of your team escaped." She reported to me.
Why was she telling me all this? Wasn't she supposed to tell me they were suffering and dying or some crap like that?
"They saved another section of your country!" She told me in a happy voice throwing her hands up in the air. "It almost calls for a party!"
But then she got serious and narrowed her eyes. She stood up taking a scalpel from her table and walked up to me.
"But oh yeah, they forgot about little old you!"
"Yeah? Well, one guy was never very important..." I told her weakly. "I'd rather get caught so the rest of my team can take you down."
"Well, that's ok! Cause now I have you all to myself. It's gonna be great!"
I knew I was in trouble. Locked in a room alone with Lash when she has all her equipment with her... That's just wrong. That's when you want to start clawing at the walls or something.
"What ever you say..." I responded slowly.
"What if I told you that they were looking for you right now? Scouring the country side?"
Truthfully, I didn't know. There could have been a million different comebacks I could have told her. Like you better start running, or you better enjoy our moments together then. But no, I didn't know what to say. She acknowledged this and walked back to her tray of fun stuff searching through the metallic instruments for something.
"You and I are going to have such fun together." She giggled. "I never was lucky enough to catch the enemy. And you know Flak. He pulverizes his prisoners before I can take them off his hands. But I was lucky this time. I got you right as Flak got you."
Finally she found what she was looking for and turned back toward me. A hypodermic needle. Fun fun. There could be any amount of chemicals in that thing. Anything from truth serum to plain old poison. Lash took her chair in her other hand and scooted it up to me. I was pretty freaked out at that moment. She was so excited that her hand was shaking. But then it stopped, she was just playing around with me.
"Oh god..." I muttered. "Just stick me and get it over with."
She nodded and became focused sticking me in the shoulder and injecting the full contents of the needle into me.
"Tee hee hee! You're a pretty boy aren't you? Well when I'm done. You'll still look pretty... Lash style!" Lash laughed as she began to leave.
She took off just like that and I began to wonder if she just turned me into a bomb or some crap like that. There was no telling what Black Hole could do. The next couple days I felt like I had ridden a merry-go-round for a year without getting off. The room weaved and bobbed and looked like I was staring at it through a bubble. I don't know when Lash returned, but she came back with someone else. Someone I hadn't seen in the briefings. Some long faced guy with a slack appearance and skin as white as snow.
"Hey Adder! This is my new pet I wanted to show you!" She gestured toward me. "We picked him up in Orange Star!"
Adder eh? Never heard of him. I felt like a science project on display now. I just felt like... crap... Adder had his hands in his pockets and walked up to me. Now I noticed his purple hair. Great... Another one for the freak show.
"I bet you're in so much pain." He grinned at me. "And you know, the worse part is. We don't even want anything from you."
"Huh? You mean no interrogations? No softening me up or anything like that? What? You guys don't like to get your hands dirty?" I was asking them in a slurred speech.
Both of them gave a hearty laugh and glanced at each other. Adder took his right hand out of his pocket and snapped his fingers. Lash picked up another needle full of his green crap and handed it over to him. Adder handled it delicately and sauntered over to me. Ah! He just plain jammed it into my arm, not even so much as a blinking an eye! When he yanked it back out I couldn't help but gasp.
"I bet you're wishing you had Lash inject that last one eh?" Adder asked me. "Shows you the penalty for being witty."
"Nothing like a woman's touch..." I gasped.
"Hm... Resistant to the last I see. You still have a lot of work left Lash."
He gave me this grin, never once showing any one of his teeth and backed away tossing the needle to the floor and breaking it. I'll never from this point on forget that laugh... that smooth laugh... My eyes began to burn. Whatever he stuck me with was going to make me go blind!
Eventually I closed my eyes to stop the pain. By the time I managed to open them, they were gone. I could only think back to Adder. If they didn't want me to talk, then why was I still around? Did they just like watching someone suffer that much? Needless to say they were doing a damn good job of it. I wondered if Adder would be making any return visits with Lash, probably when he could spare the time I guess. Lash's visits went on like that for who knows how long.
Every day she showed up, she would inject me with something else. Again and again until I began to wonder where this was all going. An inventor I knew she was, some mad genius with the means and money to experiment. Then one day, I remember she came in with Adder again. They were pretty quiet just looking at me with amazement.
"See Adder?" Lash said finally. "See how good he looks now? He just needed some reformatting!"
Reformatting? What was I? Some kind of tool for them to tweak?
"Well, Lash." Adder seemed at a loss for words. "For once, I'm impressed. Are you going to show him to Hawke?"
"Naw, Hawke is way to busy teaching Green Earth to play dead." Lash explained. "Soon I'll be sticking it good to Blue Moon. Tee hee hee! It'll be the most fun I've had in a long time!"
Adder had moved in front of me looking down like he usually does. Like I'm some cockroach or something. Like he would step on me if I wasn't under Lash's constant supervision.
"Soon you're going to idolize Black Hole." Adder told me darkly. "You're going to worship Lord Sturm like you will me."
"I'd rather die."
I froze upon hearing my voice. How much it had changed. Instead of sounding like a normal human, I more croaked than anything else. I had such a hoarse voice. It reminded me of Flak when he was screaming out angrily at the top of his lungs, only it wasn't as loud.
"You would, wouldn't you?" Adder noted. "I heard you snuck into one of our bases using a Black Hole suit. But soon enough, you'll wear that suit indefinitely."
"I'll go to hell first." I muttered.
"Poor, poor fool... Haven't you heard?"
Adder paused and I couldn't help but look upwards at him with slightest bit of concern. Was Orange Star getting crushed or something? I hadn't heard anything about them after that initial report by Lash.
"You're in hell already." He finished finally.
"Ok Adder. That's enough for today. As much as you love to hear yourself talk. I still have some finishing touches to do yet!"
She pushed Adder out and was gone. When it was all over, I wish I could have told you I fought the good fight and resisted all this stuff. Well, I probably could have if it was like I expected it. But this was different. They didn't torture me directly. They just injected me with stuff and let me sit. Came in every once and awhile and bad mouthed me. Adder was worse than Lash. Maybe cause it looked like he knew everything.
Days just blended into times. I didn't know what day it was. The only thing I could see was the table and the wooden chairs. And the poor lighting. I guess the final time I was in that room was when Lash came in with Adder and Flak. The gang's all here I thought. This is it. My last day. When Flak looked at me, he could only drop his big dumb mouth open and stare.
"He looks like the boss!" Flak seemed to realize.
"Why, what an intelligent observation you made Flak." Adder scoffed at him. "I'm surprised really."
"Come on say it! Say it! Come on! You have to say it!" She demanded from Adder and Flak.
Me? I still didn't know what the hell was going on. But Lash soon picked up a flat object and moved in front of me. That smile... that smile... all of them with that smile... Why didn't it bother me anymore? It seemed perfectly acceptable. I didn't care I realized. I rather enjoyed their smile. It was so... fulfilling.
"Fine Lash. I can't stand it anymore. You're a genius. Now show him what he looks like after your makeover!" Adder ordered.
Lash nodded and raised the flat surface in front of me. It was a mirror. I remembered what I looked like from so long ago when I was in the Orange Star Army. And I looked nothing like I did now. If I was still the same person when I was caught, I would have broken down into tears upon seeing my reflection.
But not now. All that injecting and all those talks, I had grown to admire them. Adder, Lash, even Flak. Part of me was deeply disturbed that they could have done this to me. But another part was just glad they had graced me with their presence. Finally she lowered the mirror and Adder snapped his fingers. Some soldiers I never noticed before stepped out from the shadows and untied me. I stood up slowly letting my arms drop down to my sides.
"Check it out guys! I'm soooo good! He's just like our regular soldiers, except with a mix of Orange Star in there! Tee hee hee! He doesn't need to wear the suit or anything at all to live in this environment."
Lash was talking a million miles per hour. It was like she couldn't believe she had done this. But I looked down at my arms and legs as they did. They were all bulked up, even more so than when I was caught.
"He's a freak." Adder grinned. "Suit him up. Then Flak can arrange a trip home."
"I can't wait till I see you smashing your own guys!" Flak grinned.
You don't know what a nightmare this was for me. I don't think they knew about it, but while I was following their orders and looking at them with the utmost respect... I was screaming inside. It's like a bad dream. You can see it all, you can't believe your doing it. But you are. Before long, I had put on one of those combat suits with the rocket launcher on the backpack and their high powered machine gun. After a couple weeks of Black Hole education, I'm being shipped out to defend this laboratory Orange Star had discovered. They certainly wasted no time on me.
I soon found out as I was grouped in my new unit. Lash had me kept in the Black Hole Factory, that massive structure that was the backbone of Black Hole's deployment power. We took the first Transport Copter that was out of the factory and headed towards Flak's forces. He was caught trying to defend a lab from Orange Star and needed to hold them off.
The T Copter set us down next to the laboratory as there was Black Hole soldiers running everywhere. Burning files and piling stuff into trucks. It was chaos. They certainly didn't think Orange Star was going to find this place, and deep down I enjoyed every minute of it. The panic that ran through their guys.
"Hey! What are you five standing around for!" Flak barked at us after exiting from the lab. "Someone is spotting for the invading forces! My Artillery and Rockets are getting marked! Take them out! Now!"
We all moved out at his command. moving up along this beach as Artillery came down on the other side. The bridge was being blocked by some tanks and infantry, but it wasn't enough. I could tell. From my previous experiences in Orange Star still intact, Flak didn't have the manpower to hold this facility much longer, nor the tactical expertise.
With our suits, we knew the exact location of every friendly unit we had. Now that was some Intel right there up to date at every second. An Artillery position north of us was flashing red indicating that there was hostiles near by. We entered the forest easy enough and began to search for them. It was going to take some time clearing this place, I knew. Time we didn't have.
"Troops! Noise to the left." Our squad leader reported to us.
The brush was pretty thick and we could easily hear the artillery pounding away a couple steps away from us. I had learned from Lash's little talks that most of Black Hole's major units were robotic, totally automatic only requiring personnel for maintenance. The only thing needed to run one of these things were orders from a CO. Personally, I always wondered why Black Hole's Rockets, Missiles and, Artillery never had any spotters.
"Heckler!" A soldier named Glock pointed out to me. "There's one in the tree! Take him down, quick!"
My suits infrared shown a person up in the tree with binoculars. Yeah, there was definitely a soldier up there. Without even hesitating I opened fire, but the guy I was aiming for knew it was coming and leapt down with machine gun blazing. He ignored me and took out Glock who was closer. Before we knew it, there was three more running out and putting down some cover fire.
This tactic seemed familiar to me. Too familiar. I aimed to do in the guy who was in the tree. But as he turned around, I caught a glimpse of his face. Rick, his name registered in my long forgotten past and I stuttered in my fire. He was quick enough to dodge it when I finally did start shooting and dove over toward the artillery.
"Heckler! Do not endanger artillery battery!" I heard the squad leader warn me.
"Fine." I muttered and removed my gun from my hand.
I had a knife anyway, and pulled it from a compartment on my suit. Slice and dice eh?
"Dammit Rick! I never was able to get you back for all this!" I yelled at him as my new mind made me amplify any hatred toward Black Hole's enemies.
He paused dumbfounded upon hearing my voice. That gave me an opportunity to take a swipe at his arm and the sudden burst of pain caused him to drop his gun. But with that he was back in action and dove at me. Now we were both on the ground fighting.
There was a quick moment when he thought he could take my knife, but I had a damn good grip on it. The best he could do is keep from getting stabbed and held my hands out from me as we literally kicked the crap out of each other. Hm... I knew that our unit was doomed. Flak's shoddy training doomed the other guys to Sami's expertly trained special forces.
I wondered how long I could hold out. Even if I killed Rick, I would be done in by his other surviving team members. Anger surged throughout my body and my with my suit, I began to kick harder than he could.
"Soon as I get up. You're eating lead!" I growled and tossed him off of me.
I headed back towards my gun scooping it up and setting it to full automatic. But then I realized how much better I could do and removed my rocket launcher. It wasn't common to use it on personnel, but I'm a part of Black Hole right? I was taking this guy down no matter what. Aiming it, there was no way he could avoid taking a rocket to the chest, but then he shouted out something peculiar.
"Heckler! Stand down!" He shouted out.
What the hell... I could vaguely regain my senses. I wasn't watching myself anymore, I could control my body. Although there was nothing I could to stop from launching the rocket, I re-directed it toward a much more appealing target. The artillery. Rick ran for his life as the rocket went screaming towards the artillery and hit one square in the side. I remember I was laughing, it felt so good to get back at those monsters in Black Hole...
"Heckler? Is that you?" I heard Rick ask me.
"Rick... Don't come any closer..." I gasped realizing I was losing control again. "I'm Black Hole now..."
-To be Continued...
-Concluded in Chapter 3: Lasting Impressions
--Lash Factor
---Chapter 2: Special Treatment
Waking up after getting caught is probably worse than death for a soldier. No matter what happens. You just know they're going to pump you for information. And if that doesn't work, blood will suffice. But not them. Not Black Hole... They were different.
I was tied to a chair. Arms to the arm rests and legs to the legs of the chair. Not to mention the thing was bolted to the ground. I saw two things. A table full of fun looking instruments, and by fun I meant your stereotypical table full of medical hacksaws and knives. And then there was Lash just sitting there and grinning at me. She looked so excited. Like the next hour was going to be filled with unimaginable torture for me...
"Your rotten little CO Andy destroyed my Black Cannon. His guys also took down Flak's forces in the region. Not to mention the rest of your team escaped." She reported to me.
Why was she telling me all this? Wasn't she supposed to tell me they were suffering and dying or some crap like that?
"They saved another section of your country!" She told me in a happy voice throwing her hands up in the air. "It almost calls for a party!"
But then she got serious and narrowed her eyes. She stood up taking a scalpel from her table and walked up to me.
"But oh yeah, they forgot about little old you!"
"Yeah? Well, one guy was never very important..." I told her weakly. "I'd rather get caught so the rest of my team can take you down."
"Well, that's ok! Cause now I have you all to myself. It's gonna be great!"
I knew I was in trouble. Locked in a room alone with Lash when she has all her equipment with her... That's just wrong. That's when you want to start clawing at the walls or something.
"What ever you say..." I responded slowly.
"What if I told you that they were looking for you right now? Scouring the country side?"
Truthfully, I didn't know. There could have been a million different comebacks I could have told her. Like you better start running, or you better enjoy our moments together then. But no, I didn't know what to say. She acknowledged this and walked back to her tray of fun stuff searching through the metallic instruments for something.
"You and I are going to have such fun together." She giggled. "I never was lucky enough to catch the enemy. And you know Flak. He pulverizes his prisoners before I can take them off his hands. But I was lucky this time. I got you right as Flak got you."
Finally she found what she was looking for and turned back toward me. A hypodermic needle. Fun fun. There could be any amount of chemicals in that thing. Anything from truth serum to plain old poison. Lash took her chair in her other hand and scooted it up to me. I was pretty freaked out at that moment. She was so excited that her hand was shaking. But then it stopped, she was just playing around with me.
"Oh god..." I muttered. "Just stick me and get it over with."
She nodded and became focused sticking me in the shoulder and injecting the full contents of the needle into me.
"Tee hee hee! You're a pretty boy aren't you? Well when I'm done. You'll still look pretty... Lash style!" Lash laughed as she began to leave.
She took off just like that and I began to wonder if she just turned me into a bomb or some crap like that. There was no telling what Black Hole could do. The next couple days I felt like I had ridden a merry-go-round for a year without getting off. The room weaved and bobbed and looked like I was staring at it through a bubble. I don't know when Lash returned, but she came back with someone else. Someone I hadn't seen in the briefings. Some long faced guy with a slack appearance and skin as white as snow.
"Hey Adder! This is my new pet I wanted to show you!" She gestured toward me. "We picked him up in Orange Star!"
Adder eh? Never heard of him. I felt like a science project on display now. I just felt like... crap... Adder had his hands in his pockets and walked up to me. Now I noticed his purple hair. Great... Another one for the freak show.
"I bet you're in so much pain." He grinned at me. "And you know, the worse part is. We don't even want anything from you."
"Huh? You mean no interrogations? No softening me up or anything like that? What? You guys don't like to get your hands dirty?" I was asking them in a slurred speech.
Both of them gave a hearty laugh and glanced at each other. Adder took his right hand out of his pocket and snapped his fingers. Lash picked up another needle full of his green crap and handed it over to him. Adder handled it delicately and sauntered over to me. Ah! He just plain jammed it into my arm, not even so much as a blinking an eye! When he yanked it back out I couldn't help but gasp.
"I bet you're wishing you had Lash inject that last one eh?" Adder asked me. "Shows you the penalty for being witty."
"Nothing like a woman's touch..." I gasped.
"Hm... Resistant to the last I see. You still have a lot of work left Lash."
He gave me this grin, never once showing any one of his teeth and backed away tossing the needle to the floor and breaking it. I'll never from this point on forget that laugh... that smooth laugh... My eyes began to burn. Whatever he stuck me with was going to make me go blind!
Eventually I closed my eyes to stop the pain. By the time I managed to open them, they were gone. I could only think back to Adder. If they didn't want me to talk, then why was I still around? Did they just like watching someone suffer that much? Needless to say they were doing a damn good job of it. I wondered if Adder would be making any return visits with Lash, probably when he could spare the time I guess. Lash's visits went on like that for who knows how long.
Every day she showed up, she would inject me with something else. Again and again until I began to wonder where this was all going. An inventor I knew she was, some mad genius with the means and money to experiment. Then one day, I remember she came in with Adder again. They were pretty quiet just looking at me with amazement.
"See Adder?" Lash said finally. "See how good he looks now? He just needed some reformatting!"
Reformatting? What was I? Some kind of tool for them to tweak?
"Well, Lash." Adder seemed at a loss for words. "For once, I'm impressed. Are you going to show him to Hawke?"
"Naw, Hawke is way to busy teaching Green Earth to play dead." Lash explained. "Soon I'll be sticking it good to Blue Moon. Tee hee hee! It'll be the most fun I've had in a long time!"
Adder had moved in front of me looking down like he usually does. Like I'm some cockroach or something. Like he would step on me if I wasn't under Lash's constant supervision.
"Soon you're going to idolize Black Hole." Adder told me darkly. "You're going to worship Lord Sturm like you will me."
"I'd rather die."
I froze upon hearing my voice. How much it had changed. Instead of sounding like a normal human, I more croaked than anything else. I had such a hoarse voice. It reminded me of Flak when he was screaming out angrily at the top of his lungs, only it wasn't as loud.
"You would, wouldn't you?" Adder noted. "I heard you snuck into one of our bases using a Black Hole suit. But soon enough, you'll wear that suit indefinitely."
"I'll go to hell first." I muttered.
"Poor, poor fool... Haven't you heard?"
Adder paused and I couldn't help but look upwards at him with slightest bit of concern. Was Orange Star getting crushed or something? I hadn't heard anything about them after that initial report by Lash.
"You're in hell already." He finished finally.
"Ok Adder. That's enough for today. As much as you love to hear yourself talk. I still have some finishing touches to do yet!"
She pushed Adder out and was gone. When it was all over, I wish I could have told you I fought the good fight and resisted all this stuff. Well, I probably could have if it was like I expected it. But this was different. They didn't torture me directly. They just injected me with stuff and let me sit. Came in every once and awhile and bad mouthed me. Adder was worse than Lash. Maybe cause it looked like he knew everything.
Days just blended into times. I didn't know what day it was. The only thing I could see was the table and the wooden chairs. And the poor lighting. I guess the final time I was in that room was when Lash came in with Adder and Flak. The gang's all here I thought. This is it. My last day. When Flak looked at me, he could only drop his big dumb mouth open and stare.
"He looks like the boss!" Flak seemed to realize.
"Why, what an intelligent observation you made Flak." Adder scoffed at him. "I'm surprised really."
"Come on say it! Say it! Come on! You have to say it!" She demanded from Adder and Flak.
Me? I still didn't know what the hell was going on. But Lash soon picked up a flat object and moved in front of me. That smile... that smile... all of them with that smile... Why didn't it bother me anymore? It seemed perfectly acceptable. I didn't care I realized. I rather enjoyed their smile. It was so... fulfilling.
"Fine Lash. I can't stand it anymore. You're a genius. Now show him what he looks like after your makeover!" Adder ordered.
Lash nodded and raised the flat surface in front of me. It was a mirror. I remembered what I looked like from so long ago when I was in the Orange Star Army. And I looked nothing like I did now. If I was still the same person when I was caught, I would have broken down into tears upon seeing my reflection.
But not now. All that injecting and all those talks, I had grown to admire them. Adder, Lash, even Flak. Part of me was deeply disturbed that they could have done this to me. But another part was just glad they had graced me with their presence. Finally she lowered the mirror and Adder snapped his fingers. Some soldiers I never noticed before stepped out from the shadows and untied me. I stood up slowly letting my arms drop down to my sides.
"Check it out guys! I'm soooo good! He's just like our regular soldiers, except with a mix of Orange Star in there! Tee hee hee! He doesn't need to wear the suit or anything at all to live in this environment."
Lash was talking a million miles per hour. It was like she couldn't believe she had done this. But I looked down at my arms and legs as they did. They were all bulked up, even more so than when I was caught.
"He's a freak." Adder grinned. "Suit him up. Then Flak can arrange a trip home."
"I can't wait till I see you smashing your own guys!" Flak grinned.
You don't know what a nightmare this was for me. I don't think they knew about it, but while I was following their orders and looking at them with the utmost respect... I was screaming inside. It's like a bad dream. You can see it all, you can't believe your doing it. But you are. Before long, I had put on one of those combat suits with the rocket launcher on the backpack and their high powered machine gun. After a couple weeks of Black Hole education, I'm being shipped out to defend this laboratory Orange Star had discovered. They certainly wasted no time on me.
I soon found out as I was grouped in my new unit. Lash had me kept in the Black Hole Factory, that massive structure that was the backbone of Black Hole's deployment power. We took the first Transport Copter that was out of the factory and headed towards Flak's forces. He was caught trying to defend a lab from Orange Star and needed to hold them off.
The T Copter set us down next to the laboratory as there was Black Hole soldiers running everywhere. Burning files and piling stuff into trucks. It was chaos. They certainly didn't think Orange Star was going to find this place, and deep down I enjoyed every minute of it. The panic that ran through their guys.
"Hey! What are you five standing around for!" Flak barked at us after exiting from the lab. "Someone is spotting for the invading forces! My Artillery and Rockets are getting marked! Take them out! Now!"
We all moved out at his command. moving up along this beach as Artillery came down on the other side. The bridge was being blocked by some tanks and infantry, but it wasn't enough. I could tell. From my previous experiences in Orange Star still intact, Flak didn't have the manpower to hold this facility much longer, nor the tactical expertise.
With our suits, we knew the exact location of every friendly unit we had. Now that was some Intel right there up to date at every second. An Artillery position north of us was flashing red indicating that there was hostiles near by. We entered the forest easy enough and began to search for them. It was going to take some time clearing this place, I knew. Time we didn't have.
"Troops! Noise to the left." Our squad leader reported to us.
The brush was pretty thick and we could easily hear the artillery pounding away a couple steps away from us. I had learned from Lash's little talks that most of Black Hole's major units were robotic, totally automatic only requiring personnel for maintenance. The only thing needed to run one of these things were orders from a CO. Personally, I always wondered why Black Hole's Rockets, Missiles and, Artillery never had any spotters.
"Heckler!" A soldier named Glock pointed out to me. "There's one in the tree! Take him down, quick!"
My suits infrared shown a person up in the tree with binoculars. Yeah, there was definitely a soldier up there. Without even hesitating I opened fire, but the guy I was aiming for knew it was coming and leapt down with machine gun blazing. He ignored me and took out Glock who was closer. Before we knew it, there was three more running out and putting down some cover fire.
This tactic seemed familiar to me. Too familiar. I aimed to do in the guy who was in the tree. But as he turned around, I caught a glimpse of his face. Rick, his name registered in my long forgotten past and I stuttered in my fire. He was quick enough to dodge it when I finally did start shooting and dove over toward the artillery.
"Heckler! Do not endanger artillery battery!" I heard the squad leader warn me.
"Fine." I muttered and removed my gun from my hand.
I had a knife anyway, and pulled it from a compartment on my suit. Slice and dice eh?
"Dammit Rick! I never was able to get you back for all this!" I yelled at him as my new mind made me amplify any hatred toward Black Hole's enemies.
He paused dumbfounded upon hearing my voice. That gave me an opportunity to take a swipe at his arm and the sudden burst of pain caused him to drop his gun. But with that he was back in action and dove at me. Now we were both on the ground fighting.
There was a quick moment when he thought he could take my knife, but I had a damn good grip on it. The best he could do is keep from getting stabbed and held my hands out from me as we literally kicked the crap out of each other. Hm... I knew that our unit was doomed. Flak's shoddy training doomed the other guys to Sami's expertly trained special forces.
I wondered how long I could hold out. Even if I killed Rick, I would be done in by his other surviving team members. Anger surged throughout my body and my with my suit, I began to kick harder than he could.
"Soon as I get up. You're eating lead!" I growled and tossed him off of me.
I headed back towards my gun scooping it up and setting it to full automatic. But then I realized how much better I could do and removed my rocket launcher. It wasn't common to use it on personnel, but I'm a part of Black Hole right? I was taking this guy down no matter what. Aiming it, there was no way he could avoid taking a rocket to the chest, but then he shouted out something peculiar.
"Heckler! Stand down!" He shouted out.
What the hell... I could vaguely regain my senses. I wasn't watching myself anymore, I could control my body. Although there was nothing I could to stop from launching the rocket, I re-directed it toward a much more appealing target. The artillery. Rick ran for his life as the rocket went screaming towards the artillery and hit one square in the side. I remember I was laughing, it felt so good to get back at those monsters in Black Hole...
"Heckler? Is that you?" I heard Rick ask me.
"Rick... Don't come any closer..." I gasped realizing I was losing control again. "I'm Black Hole now..."
-To be Continued...
-Concluded in Chapter 3: Lasting Impressions
