Sequel time, part 6!
Disclaimer: I don't own Vandread.
#6: Severing Normalcy
"So, what is the meaning of life?" Jack asked, moving his pewter dog to the space counted out by the dice.
"To go out in a massive and spectacular way, that will still be impressive in 20 years." The older Jack said, doing the same.
"No, not my life, all life, I'll buy it." He picked up a property card.
"I don't know, I'm just a manifestation of your opinion of the way things should be. HA, I get a card, and you go to jail!"
"Damn it!" The little girl yelled, and placed her piece on the jail space.
They gapped at the little girl, but slowly drifted back to the game as the shock wore off.
"You know, she is going to kill you." The older Jack said.
"What… Who?"
"Go already!" The little girl fumed.
"The green haired lady."
"Who, Gasco?"
"No."
"Missy?"
"No, the one who looks like her." He pointed at the small girl, who was sneaking some money out of the bank.
"What do you mean?"
"Just a feeling."
"Well, you know what they say, better to die at the hands of a friend, then to give that satisfaction to the enemy." Jack said, putting a hotel on one of his properties.
"Who says that?" The young girl asked.
"I don't know."
"Then why did you say that we know what they say?"
"Damn, what the hell is this? Haven't you ever heard of poetic license?"
"No."
"Well then, you won't know what I mean tell then… Oh damn it!" He looked at the board, and saw four hotels on the space he just landed on. He looked down to begin counting out the money, but saw his hands fading. "Well, looks like we're about to land, see you later, new game next time, no continuations!" Jack yelled, as he disappeared from the field.
The drop ship his a spot of turbulent air, and shook violently. Jack woke at the bump. He had been fighting and getting his but kicked for three days now, and hadn't had much sleep other than the drug induced one he had gotten when he had had his head kicked in. First the Green haired Missy girl, then the orange haired kicking dude, and now he was descending onto the surface of the planet where the red Controller awaited. He shook his head, and wiped the trail of drool snaking out the corner of his mouth.
"What an idiot." Barnette called, crossing her arms over her safety harness, which was lifting and separating, to say the least.
"Yeah, well, you'd be a bit dim if you had got your head kicked in yesterday."
"No, you were an idiot before then, to."
"Really? Then at least I'm consistent." Jack gave a stupid grin. "So, about last night, was it as good for you as it was for me." This caught the attention of the other occupants of the compartment, who were all thinking they were following in Jura and Vinn's footsteps. Meia and John were there, as were several seasoned soldiers who all grew up with men and women, and they figured they were going to get a raunchy story from their CO.
"What do you mean? I was doing allot better than you, I was on top the whole time!" Judging by this, the men weren't going to be disappointed.
"Worked just fine for me, I was just glad to be doing it with someone else for a change."
"You mean you did it by yourself? How do you manage that?" Meia gapped at Barnette, and after hearing some of the things the others had said, it sounded as if Barnette really had done what everyone was thinking. John just placed a hand on her shoulder, and shook his head.
"What do you think I have hands for? I do it with myself almost every night! It's easy, but allot of the time, it's over really quickly." The group watched, waiting for details.
"I just don't get it, how do you play one sided monopoly?" Barnette said, and the rest let out a collected, exasperated sigh.
"Well, it's not always monopoly, it used to be chess, but I lost at that too." Barnette was set to reply, but the pilot's voice broke over the intercom.
"Touchdown, all ashore that's going ashore." The ramp descended, and the troops piled out. They were on the edge of a city, a large palace dominating the center. A large wall with a section blown out separated them from the city. As the thunderous roar of the ships faded, the sound of war took its place. The crackle of assault weapons fired by hundreds of people trading fire was the loudest. The rumbling of armored vehicles faded and rose, as they zipped around the city, followed by explosions. Spaced slamming confirmed the presence of resilient armored exoskeletons, which were unharmed by the paexis energies. The thumping of stationary machine gun placements, or pillboxes, filled the air and a large explosion followed. Jack had ordered a first strike team to head in and weaken the defenses the best they could, but this city was more a giant war factory than anything. They at leased managed to secure a section of the city, fortified it, and were holding it fairly well.
Jack peered into the blown out section of the wall, and saw that things were going well for his side. The cold gray sky darkened steadily as the smoke from explosions and fires filled the sky. He screwed a long barrel and large scope to his large assault weapon, which was customizable to fit just about any situation. It could fire any kind of projectile ammunition imaginable, from regular slugs, to sniper rounds almost a foot long, which could pierce tree feet of solid steel with ease, to shotgun shells, and even a tube to launch grenades. If the situation got dicey, the gun had an air tube, so he could improvise a projectile from the environment into a deadly weapon. If the function needed to be summed up, it could put a column of dirt through an inch and a half of aluminum siding from a hundred feet. He sighted a solider on a guard tower, pouting fire at an area just out of sight. A loud crack emitted, and the round streaked forward, impacting the man's side, and blowing him apart with the force of the bronzed hollow point. The only problem was that a guard on the neighboring tower saw the thin trail of smoke issued by the projectile, and followed it to it's source. A muted cough issued, and the man toppled from the guard tower, leaving their entrance unguarded. Barnette shoulder he long, slender rifle, and dashed forward into the city, climbing into a complex building, with four other soldiers as escorts. She had developed an uncanny ability with sniper weapons, which seemed to coincide with the sniper function that fusing the 'Nirvana' with the green Paexis had done. She posted in the building, and began her precise work with the aid of two others, the remaining two covering their backs.
"Lets get two of you on those towers, and concentrate on the clusters of enemies. Take a pair of rocketeers up there to, to take the heavier troops, and weapons emplacements." Jack said, and the troops jumped into action. Another drop ship disgorged a fresh group of soldiers, and they joined the remainder. "John, you and Meia gather any offensive thing you can find, and bring it back to here, ASAP. The rest of you, I want a perimeter established, sandbags or what ever you can get to fortify this area. If the area gets to hot, fall back location is about a mile and a half that way, and is decently secured. We can't get ant drop ships in there, because they have got anti-air batteries all over, and their aren't enough people to chance taking them out." He said, and the newest group, except for one, jumped to their task. "Luke, you're in command of any option that doesn't conflict with the objectives I made. A soon as you have sufficient force, I want you to head over to the fall back position, through the forest, to avoid any turkey shots by enemy snipers. Until then, send a few troops from each drop to supplement the fall back, because they need all they can get. Once the anti-air batteries are down, call to the 'Supernova', and they will reroute the ships to drop at the fall back position. Good luck, and I'll see you when we get back." He shook his hand, as Missy walked up with more troops, her cloak still shining brightly white, even with the massive amounts of dust wafting about. Jack turned, and walked over the cracked pavement into the city, pausing to shoot anything that tried to impede his progress.
Luke eyed the group of soldiers under his command.
Half of you, follow the forest to the spot to the fall back position, and help them out, the rest of you start helping the others build defenses, and gather weapons." They filled off, half outside the city walls, the rest clearing debris, or scavenging weapons from fallen enemies or comrades. He then turned his attention to the green haired girl next to him. She was strikingly pretty, and wore her hair in an attractive spiked fashion. Her white cloak shone with almost a light of it's own. She looked up at Luke, examining him as he did her. This was only her third day with the group, and when she had been offered a place with this group, she couldn't help but except, but she still had questions.
"Why am I here?" she said, not knowing much of military protocol, so she didn't know if it was her place to speak, but she wanted answers that Jack wouldn't give. Luke starred at her, wondering if how much to tell her, and figured that she was one of them, even if it was just because that is what Jack had told him.
"Because our leader has decided to let you join us, because he believes that you should be." He said formally. It wasn't that didn't like her, but it was just that he felt that Jack had always been a bit generous to who he gave second chances to. Three days ago, she had attacked them, after all.
"Why?"
"Because he thinks that you will be loyal to us, even though you ordered that sneak attack on us." He said in the same formal voice.
"I didn't order that attack, I'm was a new recruit, and was just onboard because they needed a controller on the ship so that someone expendable would be aboard to slow Jack down when he got here."
"What do you mean, expendable?" Luke stated, unable to imagine what she had meant.
"Cage knows that I stood no chance to defeat you guys, but he put me on the ship after finding that I had the Green Paexis in me, and just put me their as a speed bump, so to speak." She said sheepishly. Luke had never heard of something that horrible done, and he was apparently on the evil side. In all his time serving under Jack, he had never seen him treat any troop or person as expendable.
"That is terrible!" Her face lit with a creeping red blush, not used to this kind of attention, always being treated as something to be looked down upon.
"That is why I decided to help you guys out, because even after I what I was associated with, you all treated me like I was somebody special, and when I attacked Jack, he never raised a hand to hurt me." Luke looked at her, and placed a hand on her shoulder, which caused her to turn another shade of red.
"Well, we may be what you consider the evil side of this, but we at least give everyone the chance to be a person." She looked up into Luke's blue eyes with her delicate crimson ones, brimmed with tears.
"Thank you." She croacked, trying to hold back from crying.
A purple light illuminated the cracks in a large door, and with a muted explosion, the doors burst open. Jack walked into the large room, only to see a mirror that stretched the entire length and height of the room before him. Instead of his reflection, however, a man in a white cloak with short, vibrant read hair stood waiting.
"What's with the mirror?" Jack said casually, walking to within a foot of the reflective surface.
"It is symbolic." The man's voice was strong and cold, lacking any kindness at all. Another effect of the Paexis energy, Red, standing for strength and war.
"Symbolic for what?"
It show's the only way to beat me."
"Ok, first off, if we want to get anywhere with this, your just going to have to tell me what it means, because I suffered from some serious head trauma yesterday, when my head got kicked in, so I'm not to sharp today."
"Fine, it mean's that the only way to damage me, is to inflict damage to yourself. To kill me, you must kill yourself, and stuff like that." Jack took that instance to slam his fist into the smooth glass. It dented like a metal, and with a shimmer of silver, reformed into the original, unblemished surface. "You wanted to know, all your efforts will be futile, the only way to kill me, is to kill yourself.
"We'll see about that." Jack reconfigured the gun, so that the muzzle was a large tube, and with a whoosh, a grenade flew out, and exploded, scorching the surface, which returned to normal in a shimmer of silver. He tried different ammo, until he gave it up as futile, after his most heavily piercing sniper round didn't even work. He flicked his wrist, and a small knife slid into his palm. "So, if what you're saying is, that if I stab myself with this knife, you'll receive the damage I get?" He asked.
"Yes." Jack Drove the knife into his left shoulder, and blood spurted in the reflection arm, same place, staining his ivory robes red, as he grabbed it in pain. He gave a respectful huff. "Didn't think you had it in you."
"You'd be surprised at what I'm willing to do to continue my journey." He pulled the knife out, and smeared the blood on the mirror, casting away the pain and rush of warm blood. He drew a small series of lines enclosed in a circle on the mirror.
"What are you doing?" The red haired man asked, eyeing the design.
"An experienced controller like you doesn't know?"
"I only use my powers to destroy the evil ones, not for vanquishing the light."
"Well, if you say so. This is a special circle that when used properly, can modify the properties of an object, to do all sorts of things." He placed his right hand, palm flat on the blood circle. Purple energy traced along the lines, etching them in the mirror. Purple light strobed, and an explosion erupted from the area. When the dust settled, several small cracks appeared where the circle had been. They then flashed silver, and repaired. "That is how this mirror was created, and how the powers connect the two off us via damage link." Jack said, admiring the piles of rubble his explosion created.. One piece of rubble didn't match the rest, though, but he didn't notice it. It was a small, metallic cube. Barnette walked into the room through the shattered door.
"Hurry up and finish this!" She called, not noticing the man standing behind her, pistol leveled at the back of her head. Jack watched the muzzle flash behind her head, heard the retort echo around the room, saw the blood seep from the hole in her forehead as she collapsed. He ran over to her after laying waste to the gun touting man, until he was nothing more than a red smear on the floor, and rolled her over face up. Her lifeless eyes saw nothing, staring straight up, still showing the shock generated by the round that had ripped through her skull. The man behind the mirror collapsed, grabbing his chest, as a pain worse than anything he had ever felt before tore through him, the pain of a broken heart. His vision blurred, and he blacked out as the pain grew, the comfort of sleep enveloping. Cracks appeared all over the mirror, and it shattered, leaving the man on the floor covered in it's glistening fragments. Luke rushed into the room, flanked by a dozen soldiers who began sweeping the room with their rifles. Four of then rushed over to the red haired man, and tying him up with the metal ropes. As they rushed out carrying the unconscious prisoner, one of them stepped on the metal cube, shattering it into tiny pieces. The Barnette Jack was holding flickered and faded, as the real one walked in, rifle slung over her shoulder.
"What an idiot." She sighed, as jack looked up.
"What?"
"When you made that explosion, we through in a hollow cube, and it projected the one thing we knew would stop you, without any physical harm." She explained slowly. "It was Missy's idea, seeing how you reacted when you saw the man with the knife at my neck, an we just took it a step further. But no we have to leave, their just waiting for your orders."
"Good, well, I think we can leave them alone, we got what we came for."
The drop ship's engines roared to life as it lifted of the ground. Jack was going over casualty reports, which were pretty good, considering what they had been up against. He was still a bit upset over the holo-cubes images, but was just happy Barnette was still with him. He noted that Jenny was among those that had not returned from their attack, pity, she was a fine officer. He looked around the compartment, which was less occupied then earlier, but that was only because it was the last ship to depart. John sat in the front with Meia; both their faces stained with soot, looking over some of the equipment they had procured. Barnette was next to him, staring out the opposite side window, as the stars replaced the gray sky of the planet. The biggest surprise was Luke, who had a head full of spiky green hair resting on his shoulder. The fleet was grouped a ways away from the planet, because it was believed that the enemy had possibly had anti-space weapons arrayed on the surface. He put away his data pad, and placed his arm around Barnette's shoulders. She moved in, and was asleep within minutes, the strain of a long day taking over. Jack put his head back, and allowed sleep to take him, remembering how his older image thing had told him Barnette would be the death of him. He brushed it off at the time, but it seemed to have more credit now.
THE END OF CHAPTER SIX
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