Church's Crusade #11: Back to Normal? Yeah right.
"…finally, we replaced most of your arm and legs with hydraulic systems so that you can lift extremely heavy loads," finished Anna. She turned to look at Church expectantly, "Any questions?"
"How heavy is extremely heavy?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know. We never really tested it. To be safe don't lift anything heavier than an old VW Beatle."
Church whistled softly to himself. This was just one of many changes made to his body while he had been absent. For example, he now knew that Anna and some of the programmers had put together an auto-sniping system so that he could now hit people when he used the weapon. The fact he couldn't seem to get it to work bothered him a bit but that was okay.
Also, not only could his eyes now utilise a digital zoom system to clearly see an object 200m away, but the colours of the pupil and iris were now optional. He had experimented with many different colour combinations, finally settling on a shifting opalescent sheen that covered both iris and pupil. He was a little disappointed that they had not been able to do something similar with his hair.
He looked at Anna, "Well I guess it's time to get back into it then…"
For the next few weeks Church spent his time in training, improving his skill with various weapons, trying (and failing (Stevens said it was probably because the universe had a sense of humour)) to get the sniper system to work and learning how to use the various new features of his body. This turned out to be a good idea, as at one point, without intending, Church shot a knife out of a compartment in his armour, driving it several inches into the wall and nearly removing Rourke's ear in the process. He learned of the various improvements to his armour including an attempt at an auto-repair system and even a prototype stealth generator. One question cropped up a lot and that was, "Why no jet boosters?"
He never got a satisfactory answer to that.
The army went on several minor missions during this time. In some of them Church even got to combat test his new body. It came as something of a shock to the enemy when he was able to remove a man's head with a single slash of his knife, and no less of a shock to him. At one point he was also able to lift up a broken slap of concrete and carry it as a shield into an enemy position, much to their distress. The rest of the team also improved greatly as time went on, sometimes racking up more kills than groups four times there number. His small but volatile squad was quickly promoted to elite status and sent on increasingly dangerous missions. Also, many of Stevens' weaponry innovations became standard equipment for the army. All things considered things were going very well. So naturally, something went wrong…
Church strode into the squad room, flickering his eyes through various colours as he looked at the orders envelope in his hand. The others nodded to him as he entered, sat on his bunk and opened the envelope. He pulled out the mission overview and glanced at it. It seemed fairly standard: enemy forces taken up positions at this location, his squad along with several other groups were to remove them. There were some opposing forces already there, not associated with either group and certainly not with each other. They were to be eliminated if they got in the way. Wondering idly who the soldiers already there were working for, he glanced at the mission location…and dropped the briefing, jumping back as if he had been bitten. The others in the squad saw this and came over quickly. "Sir, what's wrong?" asked Rourke. Silently, Church pointed a shaking finger at the papers on the floor. Anna reached down and picked them up, and looked through them until her eyes came to rest on four words:
Mission Location: BLOOD GULCH.
The characters Church, Caboose, Tucker, Simmons, Sarge, Grif, Sister, Donut and Doc are owned by Rooster Teeth Productions.