Part I: Dark Horizons
It was about 9 a.m. in the middle of June when the war we were fighting in was on the verge of closure. The ECUN, or the Eastern Coalition of the United Nations, was made up of primarily Eurasian countries while the West Hemisphere Empire consisted of most of the American nations and a few Antarctic colonies. I was a Staff Sergeant working for the WHE. The war was going on for three years and I was glad it was coming to an end. However, we were loosing. Seriously. As soon as I turned fifteen, I joined up and was assigned to a squad with three other humans: Robert Moyer, our squad commander, Mira Spade, a technician, and Scott Ballot, our chief operations officer. I wanted to defend the former United States of America, my homeland, but as soon as we allied ourselves with the demonic extra-terrestrials, I knew that we were all damned.
In desperate attempts to defeat the ECUN, we gave several humans to be enhanced by Barons of Hell, the extra-dimensional people we were allied with. They were sent to aid us, but slightly resembled demons… a little too much.
Robert Moyer ran up next to me. "Ralem, you and I will lead a squad of seven. Corporal Andrea, Infestments 9368-AX Beta through Delta, Xeriex the Baron, you and I will head back to base. Maybe Mira and Scott will be able to help us."
As soon as he mentioned Xeriex's name I froze in horror. Even though they are considered our allies, they still scare the crap out of me. I wasn't very happy with the fact that we worked with minions from Hell. "I'm sorry, Paul," he said in a failed attempt to reassure me, "we need him to guide us."
A split second later, a rocket flew right over our heads and produced a small explosion. We went running. Moyer started leading us through the jungle. Xeriex, the Baron of Hell, a large Minotaur-like creature that is known for their treachery and obscene amount of strength was behind us, acting as our guide. His large pink torso and tan goat legs made him stick out in the open, but we had to keep him with us. I was starting to panic. I knew what we did was wrong. In this war, we were the bad guys. I can't even remember what we stole, but the ECUN definitely wanted it back, and they were gaining on us. They were by far higher in numbers, numbering in the hundreds, and we only had two humans, one Baron, and three infested humans. We knew that we were going to loose this battle, so we ran to escape.
A roar came from in front of us. I knew immediately that it was a Baron of Hell. However, it was an exact replica of Xeriex, except very injured. His large goat-like legs stomped forward bleeding thick, green-black goo. His jaw was locked open with his three-inch fangs and his foot-long purple tongue hanging out. All over his body, his flesh was peeling off, revealing his skeletal structure and his greenish innards. Despite his high amount of pain, he charged towards us anyway.
"Run!" he shouted, "This Baron is working for the ECUN!" His hands glowed and then the two Barons started throwing green fireballs at each other. The fireballs shot at each other at an alarming rate. The liqui-plasma bursts splashed on each other's chests. After a few dozen yards of our retreat, we heard a blood-curdling roar. We assumed immediately that the Baron defending us was the one who died. Luckily, the other one didn't follow.
Moyer led us out of the woods and towards a secret compound by a cliff. Knowing that the ECUN forces were advancing, I ran ahead of our group in hopes of escape and survival. I started running faster, making it appear as if I were trying to pick up pace. My other refugees didn't seem to notice or care. When we approached a turning point, I ran deeper into the forest. I turned around to make sure that nobody was watching. It appeared as if my coast was clear. I watched them run until they got out of my sight. I was just about to turn and leave before I heard heavy stomping and yelling. I ducked and turned around. A legion of ECUN forces was hunting them down at high speeds. So I ran away. About a half-mile away, I saw them intercepted and attacked. The bright green trees hid my face as I watched my squad being eliminated.
I never knew if anyone in my squad returned or not, but I do remember that Moyer and two Barons of Hell that were loyal to our cause came starching for me. I saw them and tried to run away, but I decided otherwise. Knowing that they would kill me for treason if I got caught, I gave myself freely to them. Moyer glared down at me. "What were you doing?" he asked. I could trust him, but only to a limit. The two Barons glared down at me, snarling, with their hands glowing ready to kill me.
"I was trying to find an alternate path out." I looked at them, but they didn't seem to believe me. I tried to bring out some artificial fear into my voice. "It was every man for himself - you've got to believe me!" maybe my whining helped. He closed his eyes acknowledging our loss. He waved his hand and gestured for me to follow. So I did. He led us down a long dirt path covered in blood and bullet shells. I turned around and noticed that the Barons weren't following, but I followed him anyway. About every ten yards or so, we came across a dead body. Not all of them were of our squad, but they were all WHE. After a fifteen-minute hike, we reached our compound.
I looked at it. It was a large cylinder-shaped building with large gray-bricked wall segments surrounding it. It was on a naked piece of land, surrounded by a large green forest and a cliff leading into an ocean. I was becoming even more and more terrified than I was earlier. I heard the sound of mechanics and heavy stomping coming from behind the compound. The jungle behind us was quite a sight to see. It was a bright green forest above a brown, dirty ground, in front of a red, fiery sky.
Out of nowhere, I saw Mira, another one of our mercenaries, driving up in a red convertible. Mira Spade and I have been friends for quite some time. We both knew what we were signing up for when we took the job, but she always had some sort of a happy-go-lucky personality. But not now. She had a really depressed look on her dark skinned face and looked like death. I was afraid to even look at her as she prepared to drive her car off the cliff into her watery death.
"Do you know what the best thing of life is?" she yelled to us. Knowing we would get an answer anyway, we didn't bother to ask. "It ends." she continued as she slammed down the gas pedal. The speed at which she took off at shot her body back. In a cloud of dust and smoke, her car smashed through the white wooden fence surrounding the portion of the compound guarded by the cliff. The car splashed quietly, as did she, nose first into the ocean we worked beside.
The two of us were shocked at the fact she committed suicide. ECUN forces were advancing all around us, we heard. Robert Moyer was terrified as well as I, but he looked inspired by Mira's death. "Don't worry, Paul, we're all as good as dead anyway," he turned around and faced the compound. "Scott! Go get the car!" Moyer added. Scott, yet another mercenary, went ahead to find some sort of automobile. The Barons of Hell were nowhere to be seen, but that didn't surprise us. They worked only where the money was and where they would be safe.
"Paul, I'm going to need you to stay here." Moyer said to me as we heard Scott try to find a car. Robert walked a few yards to a wall of the compound and typed in an access code that made a small brick open. He took out the small device it concealed and closed the door. He pressed a few buttons on the small device that made the stomping come again. I could only assume that whatever it was, it was getting closer. He held the black control up and pointed to it while looking at me. I guess he assumed I knew what it was, but I honestly had no idea. Finally, Scott Ballots drove up in an old white car. As he drove up to Moyer's side, Robert turned to me and gave me the devise that reminded me of a remote control to a TV. I saw a giant mechanical leg appear from behind a building. As Moyer went into the car, I took the device, and a fifteen-foot machine with four mechanical legs and a five foot somewhat organic brain with two eyes, two arms, and a mouthful of teeth came towards me. That was what I heard earlier that scared me so much.
"It's called the Spider Mastermind. It will help us in our final hours," he told me as Scott was preparing the engine. "It is telepathic and can destroy an entire nation." He sat down and Scott drove the car off the cliff as Mira did earlier. They also took the same path as she did, and like her, was followed by a cloud of dust and smoke.
I winced as I heard their yells and a large splash. Nervously, I turned around to face my new enemy. I took the opportunity to study this…thing. I found out that this was not one organism. The 'brain' was actually the living part and it had two small arms that controlled the legs. I felt very inferior standing next to such an advanced being. Its eyes were as big as my hands and its mouth was big enough to bite off my entire head. And that's exactly what I thought was going to happen. I was scared. The Spider Master-mind had an evil look in its eyes as if it were peering into my soul. And that terrified me. I knew that if the ECUN forces caught us, that thing next to me would be destroyed as well as I and I wasn't sure if it would be by them or the Spider Mastermind.
Knowing that the fate of the world was probably in my hands, I looked at the remote. I gathered up my remaining courage and prepared to deactivate the Spider Mastermind. I planned the entire thing in my head. I would press the self-destruct button and jump out of the way. I would run back into the forest and hope to live a somewhat normal life as a civilian. The plan was perfect. The power was literally in my hands. Of course, I must have forgotten the fact that the Spider Mastermind was a telepath. Before I pushed the self-destruct button in all the way, the Mastermind grabbed the device out of my hand, snapped it in half vertically, and jabbed the sharper piece into my temple. A split-second later, I fell down dead. I never knew how the ECUN troops did against the single Mastermind.