Frozen: Nova Cults
Brian Hu
Chapter 2
Captain Ciccone and her troops were about to open fire on her enemies, when a dozen of her men found themselves encased in ice. Seconds later, they were violently shattered when a platinum blond haired woman in a dress made out of ice landed right on top of them. For a moment, anyone left standing simply stared at the newcomer with their jaws agape; aside from the otherworldly powers supposedly practised by certain Nova mystic organisations such as the League of Transcendence, the concept of magic was almost completely fictitious. Unless…
'It's her! She's that witch!', Ciccone exclaimed, pointing straight at her new foe as she recognised her, 'Take her down! Burn her'!
The Iluminati forces promptly begun firing at the position of their magic wielding enemy, pelting her with a shower of magnetically propelled gunfire, grenades and mortar rounds. The 'witch' raised a dome of ice which deflected the barrage.
'I'll show you what Hell's like when it freezes over!', she shouted as she lashed out at Ciccone's men.
She sent out a small pulse of ice that froze a platoon of troops even as they were knocked back by the pulse and were smashed against the road. The soldiers were all shattered on impact. The Illuminati pressed on with their attack regardless, enraged and ever more determined to eliminate her.
'But what about the Chevs?', one of Ciccone's lieutenants asked.
'They're too crippled to do anything', the Illuminati army captain replied, 'We'll deal with them later, but for now, tell our flyers to provide air support against that abomination'.
Battling a magical opponent with a mastery of cryokinesis on foot was a near-suicidal undertaking, even though the Illuminati now outnumbered her eighty-eight to one and they were wearing exo-suits more advanced than those fielded by Chevalier Special Forces and wielding high powered magnetic weapons and high explosives which alone could demolish entire buildings. She can block their attacks with her ice barriers she raised by reflex, and simultaneously unleash devastating ice attacks that can annihilate their ranks. This makes any offensives by ground forces useless against their enemy. However, the Illuminati mitigated her ice attacks on their ground forces, by also having their troop transports circle-strafe her from the sky, thereby forcing her on the defensive under the shear rate of fire even a pod-mounted magnetic auto-cannon can fire. As her troops had the woman in the ice dress suppressed with magnetic fire, Ciccone seized her opportunity. She drew her Stigmata-forged sword, electrified it, and prepared to charge headlong at the 'witch'. She was suddenly interrupted by the sound of her transports being blown out of the sky.
'What the hell?', was all Cpt Ciccone could think before she was struck down by a well placed sniper round.
Hans and his team were quick to take advantage of the Nova cultists' momentary distraction, courtesy of their mysterious helper. They wasted no time patching themselves up with bio-foam and then repairing their exo-suits whilst they were still being worn. On Hans's signal, Sarah levelled her F-90 Austeyr assault rifle at one of the Illuminati's heavy transports, and fired three concussion grenades. Even with the development of more potent explosives, the 40 mm grenades has no effect in terms of piercing the transports' nano-laminated armour, but that was not necessary to destroy one. Illuminati aircraft all relied on gravitational repulsion engines to achieve hypersonic speed and breathtaking agility, although they were rugged enough to withstand the stress associated with hypersonic flight, they were still vulnerable to direct hits from high explosives. The damaged transport was sent careening down at the second one and it smashed right into it. Both aircraft were destroyed in the resulting mid-air collision.
'Good riddance!', she quietly cheered as she reloaded her grenade launcher and continued to wreck havoc on the Illuminati.
After Thomas dispatched the enemy commander, Jessica released her Prox Dynamics Wasp UAV and had it hack into one of the Illuminati's two metres tall Atlas robotic infantry. She sent the bipedal drone into a rampage through the ranks of the Illuminati company. However, she can only maintain control for two minutes before the automated trooper overrode the hack and fried the UAV. As for Hans, he gunned down wave after waves of enemy organic infantry with his US Ordnance M60E6 machine gun, even as the Nova cultists stormed his position in an attempt to exploit their superior strength of their exo-suits over their Chevalier counterparts in hand to hand combat. Seeing an opening, he bypassed the enemy organic infantry and with his jury rigged exo-suit, leaped onto an Atlas robot. He unpinned a hand grenade, cut a small opening into the machine's chassis, and jammed the grenade inside. The automation eventually managed to toss Hans aside as the mechanical entity readied itself to strike the final blow. Before it could, the grenade detonated, reducing it to metal shrapnel.
He got back up just in time to see an Illuminati lieutenant bum-rushed and smashed him ten metres into the nearby park. Unable to reach out for his rifle, he quickly got back up and drew his sword as he faced the lieutenant charging at him.
'In the name of God and his holy warriors!', the lieutenant cried out in a fanatical tone as he raised the stock of his magnetic rifle to finish off his enemy.
Hans swung his sword just in time to cut his opponent's rifle in half. The lieutenant countered by punching Hans's sword arm, knocking his sword out of his hand. As Hans wrestled with the lieutenant in a one-on-one fight to the death, he did not notice an Illuminati sniper aiming her rifle at his head. 'Oi!', Jessica snapped. The sniper suddenly found herself pierced in the back with a grappling harpoon. She was reeled in towards Jessica at breakneck speed. Jessica then broke the cultist's neck with a flick of her hands.
'No one threatens the Commander in front of me and live!', she continued as she punted her enemy's carcass in the general direction of where Hans is fighting. She turned and made quick work of another Atlas unit with her wrist mounted rocket propelled grenade before it could level its magnetic auto-cannon at him.
In normal situations, the disparity between Chevalier and Illuminati exoskeleton technologies mean that the former usually were outclassed by the latter. In Hans's case however, his sheer determination to survive, his determination to win, has made him rather tenacious, even as he was now being strangled to death in a choke-hold. The corpse of the Illuminati cultist Jessica defeated landed right on top of them, sending them both careening onto the ground. Commander Monpezat used this momentary distraction to break free from his opponent merely seconds from slipping into unconsciousness by giving his opponent a sharp blow to his Adam's apple, collapsing his windpipe. The Illuminati cultist was sent reeling as he clasped his neck in a desperate attempt to breath. This gave Hans enough time to finish him off with a quick shot to the forehead from his Glock 17 pistol. 'Thanks for the assist, Velvet', he radioed her. Getting back up, he then pulled his sword out of a tree several metres from where the Illuminati lieutenant fell, and slashed another cultist who was charging so brazenly at him.
'Globalist scum! Are they really worshipping God or are they actually worshipping Satan?', he thought as he retrieved his rifle from underneath the wreckage of the Atlas unit he destroyed before radioing headquarters on board the frigate CNS Salamis for his team's extraction, there was no response.
Queen Elsa Ørn has never been on the run for her life as she was right now. Shortly after her coronation three days ago, Nova cultists, accompanied by former parliamentarians and bureaucrats who are still loyal to the Bilderberg Group, stormed the Royal Palace of Oslo, her home, and presented her with a bill demanding for her to submit to the Novas. It also demanded that she decommission Genetics Norway and turn over all research regarding Novas and Stigmata to the Illuminati as well as detain all Pandoras and Limiters pending charges of murdering the 'holy warriors of God, the Novas'. Naturally, she refused to bow down to the traitors of humanity. In a fit of rage, she impaled the Nova cult delegates in a field of ice. This angered the cults into bombing the only part of the palace the anti-Bilderberg forces hadn't already levelled during the fall of the EU. In the resulting chaos, a few Norwegian Royal Guards and palace servants managed to escape detection with the Queen. Since then, Elsa was leading an armed resistance movement with those still loyal to her, harassing the Nova worshippers and undermining their operations. One such mission happened to collide with that of the Vikings Battlegroup. As she watched the Chevalier commandos fight their way through the Illuminati, she unleashed a massive attack on the remaining cultists, turning them into ice statues. She radioed back to Resistance HQ.
'HQ-actual. This is the Snow Queen. Send a chopper over to my location for immediate extraction. Over', she ordered.
'Roger that, Snow Queen. We're sending an extraction chopper to your location. HQ-actual out!', came the reply from Resistance HQ.
Turning to the weary commandos, Elsa addressed, 'Whoever's standing before me, identify yourself'.
'Commander Hans Monpezat, Fireteam Gauntlet of the Vikings Battlegroup, Chevalier Navy', the leader of the commando group responded, 'To whom am I speaking'?
'My name is Elsa Ørn, Queen of Norway', Elsa answered, 'Long time no see'!
Upon hearing the word 'Queen', Fireteam Gauntlet bowed down before her and said in unison, 'We owe you our lives and gratitude for your assistance, your majesty'.
'Whoa! Whoa! You may rise,' Elsa exclaimed at the sight of such awkwardness. As Fireteam Gauntlet did so, snapped to attention and saluted her, Elsa continued, 'You and your men are to come with me to Resistance headquarters, designate "Ørndal"'.
'Sorry ma'am. Orders are to return to return to the Salamis upon the completion or in this case, the failure of our mission', Hans apologised.
'Didn't your hear? Your frigate was intercepted by an Illuminati cruiser immediately after they've ambushed you. They did not stand a chance', Elsa explained in an astonished tone, 'You don't believe me? Ask Chevalier Naval Command'. A video was sent from Elsa's data-pad to his wrist-mounted personal digital assistant. As he watched the footage of the Salamis's destruction, Hans was initially surprised upon hearing the news of his ship's destruction at the hands of the Nova worshippers, yet he ran the video through the PDA's verification program as some allied resistance groups were known to pull pranks on Chevalier by sending forged videos. However, it was no joking matter as against his hopes, the results confirmed the video's authenticity. Saddened by the revelation of his ship's destruction, he placed his hand on his forehead and lowered his head in grief as he realised that he and his fireteam were not the only ones being led into an ambush, despite his efforts to have the ship escape the Nova Forces when they took Oslo and Norway. More than a hundreds brave men and women were lost under his command when the ship was destroyed.
'Those sneaky bastards. They've made one helluva plan to try and take us out', Thomas cursed.
While Chevalier had their backs turned, a few Atlas managed to defrost themselves and were about to attack Elsa when an AgustaWestland AW101 in Royal Norwegian Air Force colours appeared overhead. Sgt Sven Mo emerged from the side door, aimed his Heckler & Koch HK416 assault rifle and gunned down the mechanical units.
'Come on board, people', he shouted as he toss down five ropes to the group below, 'We don't have long before they scramble fighters to intercept us'.
'Understood', Hans conceded as he ordered his team to follow Elsa on board the helicopter. After the last of the group boarded the helicopter, it quickly flew off into the blizzard.
'And we're just going to follow her?', Jessica asked, 'I certainly do not trust her'.
Hans turned to look at her, 'Only until we find our way back to our base at Copenhagen'. He then placed his hand on her back, 'I'm sorry about our loss. But we must keep fighting the Novas no matter what, less our crew's sacrifice be in vain'.
Jessica sighed as she leaned against her commander. She thought about her sister Laura back on board the Salmis, 'Did my sister survived the attack? I pray to God she does', she smiled as she looked up at Hans, 'But for now, at least I have Hans to be with'.
'HQ-actual, this is Skyranger Seven', Warrant Officer Olaf Ødegaard radioed, 'We have retrieved the packages and are now returning to base. Out'.
'I'm impressed', Sarah remarked, 'Elsa has aircraft in her resistance movement. Guerilla organisations usually do not have the resource or technology to maintain an air force'.
'Only a small portion of the military elite actually pledged their allegiance to the Novas when their worshippers begun their occupation of my country', Elsa said to Sarah having overheard her comment, 'Rest assured, the bulk of the Royal Norwegian Armed Forces have refused to submit to their nefarious agenda, taking their weapons and equipments with them'.
Standing up gracefully, Elsa continued, 'To all of our guests we've picked up', she turned her sights on Hans, 'Welcome to the resistance'!
Codex: Illuminati
Formerly dismissed as rumours amongst conspiracy theorists, the Illuminati are the most deadly Nova cult to ever existed, being the only Nova cult known to have infiltrated the ranks of Chevalier. Well disciplined, well funded and well equipped, they have access to technologies derived from the Novas that even Chevalier's chief scientist Gengo Aoi finds near-impossible to comprehend, let alone replicate; any equipment likely to be abandoned were fitted with advanced self destruct systems to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Unlike most Nova cults such as the League of Transcendence who merely worship the Novas and perform small scale terror attacks, the Iluminati also believes in actively helping the Novas through espionage and large scale military operations. At first, it was believed that the Illuminati were recently formed from the remnants of the super elite Bilderberg Group. Later investigations revealed that the Illuminati date back to the American Revolution and may have tampered with numerous world affairs, including a key role in the overthrow of late King Louis XVI during the French Revolution. Although reports of contact by the Illuminati with inter-dimensional beings before the Nova Clashes were so far unconfirmed, the evidence of their collaboration with the Novas since the first Nova Clash is undeniable.
Author Notes:
In real life, the Norwegian Armed Forces do not have Warrant Officers. However, the Ørn dynasty introduced the rank in response to the need to quickly replenish the technical personnel lost during the fall of the EU.
Furthermore, since the Illuminati forces are based on the Advent forces from XCOM 2 in terms of outside appearance, ideology and the magnetic weapons they used, I decided to use the designation 'Skyranger' for the Norweigans' military helicopters.