Author's Note: Alright people, I bring you Chapter 8. I hope that my little teaser didn't torture you folks too much. ^_^
In any case, I'll try to have Chapter 9 uploaded by Christmas Day, but, again, I won't make any promises. I actually doubt that to be a possibility anyways; but I'm still going to try. If I don't get number 9 uploaded in three days, I'm just going to say this now: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, ladies and gentlemen. This is my present from me to you.
As always, enjoy.
Ruin came to a sliding stop. Off in the distance, about a mile away, were the sounds of armed conflict as War, transformed into his Chaos Form, and the leader Trauma battled it out. Lazarus dismounted and briskly walked to a tree – the only tree on the plains for miles. In the tree's shadow was a small pond and some shrubbery surrounding the base of the trunk. Ruin looked around. Why had Lazarus brought him here? There was nothing here – nothing that could be of use. Or, at least, that's what the phantom steed thought.
The human stopped just short of some foliage, inspecting it. After several seconds of his scrutinizing gaze, he moved on to another bush; he repeated this several times before coming to a very large bush. Except this time Lazarus paid much more attention to this one.
Chuckling, he said, "Here she is." She? Did that mean that there were more of these humans? Ruin sauntered over to get a better look. The foliage was so thick that he couldn't hope to look through the shrubbery – he couldn't see inside the bush.
"Yep. She's a beaut, ain't she?" he asked with a smile. Ruin cast a sidelong look at Lazarus, tilting his head in curiosity. He looked closer. Then Ruin noticed that the bush was, in fact, not a bush at all.
It was camouflage netting with multiple and large pieces of foliage scattered across it to help hide whatever was underneath. And underneath said netting, was the telltale glimmer of something metallic, painted to match the color of the surrounding environment. Then Lazarus began to remove the netting.
"Ruin," he said. "Allow me to introduce to you, Predator."
Dinah watched as War battled his final opponent with awe and amazement. The skill displayed by War and the leader Trauma was astounding – both fought with extreme ferocity. Despite being somewhat wounded, the leader Trauma was holding his own against War – against War's skill, his strength, and his power. But she could tell that the demon was fighting a losing battle.
The duel had been going on for at least five minutes now and neither warrior showed any signs of stopping – however, the Trauma was beginning to show signs of weakness; his maneuvers were beginning to get sloppy. War, on the other hand, showed very few signs of such fatigue.
In addition, while the Trauma was a powerhouse in his own right, War was even greater in power. It wasn't just physical might that the demon couldn't beat. Throughout the course of the fight, War unleashed several attacks that could rightfully be described as magical – demonic even.
Pillars of fire erupting out of the ground, scorching anything caught in their path; mini-stars suddenly winking into existence from out of thin air, only to explode outwards in violent supernovas, dying just as suddenly as they came into existence; even the very air became a weapon as War suddenly sent its temperature skyrocketing, creating a firestorm. And yet, the leader Trauma, either out of luck or skill – Dinah couldn't tell – evaded all.
The pillars of fire were small in diameter and easily gave away their positions, forewarning the demon a second before erupting skyward.
A telltale twinkle in the air would herald the sudden birth of a star on Earth, giving the leader Trauma a chance to avoid the sun altogether; their explosions, however, were harder to avoid – if the demon was too close to a star when it exploded, not only did it burn him, but it blasted him off his feet as well, sending him flying several yards. More than once the explosive supernovas were nearly the indirect link to his demise – after the explosions, War would surge forward as quickly as his body would allow and attack with fanatic ferocity. Sometimes, the demon would still be on his back when this happened.
As for War creating a veritable firestorm, it seemed that the heat of the air reduced the farther away it was from War – whenever the Horseman tried this tactic, the demon simply backed off and waited for War to drop the temperature. Interestingly enough, War didn't seem to be able to move when he did this. While this would normally make him vulnerable to attack, the fact that the very air burned everything within a certain radius of War prevented any possible attack save for a ranged one.
Needless to say, the Phantom Guards that encircled the two, still maintaining the massive make-shift arena, were inexplicably caught up in the crossfire. War's supernatural attacks reaped a horrible tally against the Guards numbers, causing them to adjust the size of the battlefield accordingly. Before, during the initial stages of the fight, the fighting space the Guards allowed was up to one hundred yards in all directions. Now, that distance increased to three hundred.
Suddenly, Dinah heard a roar. At first, she thought that it was one of the warriors down below, expelling animalistic threats at one another. But then she realized that it wasn't from them. The sound that now permeated the air wasn't close by, but it got louder as the seconds went by. Then, she recognized the noise for what it really was, and smiled.
She walked to the edge of the hill in the opposite direction of the battle. There, she saw a vehicle barreling towards her location at high speed. Following closely behind, effortlessly matching its velocity was Ruin. In seconds, the powerful roar (now properly identified, it could be better described as a high-pitched whine) grew in volume as the vehicle crested the hilltop and skidded to a halt beside her. Ruin did likewise.
Then the driver's-side door flew open, revealing Lazarus manning the wheel. He stepped out of the vehicle and walked up to Dinah. "If this speed demon had any keys, I would be teasing you with them by now," he said laughing, dangling imaginary keys in front of her face. Upon mentioning this, Dinah's face lit up slightly.
"Really? You're going to let me drive Predator?"
"I never said that, now did I?"
"Oh, but you implied that," she countered, playfully snatching away the imaginary keys and walking towards the machine before her.
Predator, as Lazarus was fond of calling it, was one hell of a car. In fact, the word "supercar" came to mind in regards to Predator – actually, supercar on anabolic steroids was a better description.
Predator was in the realm between a sports car and a utility vehicle. It was aerodynamically sleek, hinting at the kind of speeds it moved at. However, at the same time, it had to lug around much of their equipment across many terrain types. Because of the vehicle's dual roles of "speed demon" and "pack mule," it had to be very powerful. And indeed it was.
Unhindered, Predator could reach speeds up to three hundred thirty-five miles per hour. Loaded up with one hundred pounds worth of equipment and ammunition dropped that speed down to around three hundred, provided that the amount of fuel the car was consuming was constant. Acceleration was of little issue as well; the vehicle was capable of acceleration from zero to sixty miles an hour in about four seconds when loaded and less than three seconds unloaded. Under ideal circumstances, Predator could just barely exceed the three hundred fifty mark.
But Predator was addressed as such for a reason. It had another job as well – "attack dog." Predator could come equipped with an entire slew of weapons; anything ranging from machine guns to missile launchers. So not only did it have to transport their equipment, but the car had to have its own ammo supply. In addition to the weapons, there was a space reserved in the center of the vehicle that allowed for the gunner to man the weapons module. And said module was one of the highlights of the vehicle.
Instead of seating the gunner up on an elevated, rotating platform, where he or she would be half inside and half outside of the vehicle, exposed to enemy attacks, the gunner's seat allowed for turret manipulation safely inside the vehicle. The station itself was pretty high-tech. Once situated, the gunner was closed off from the rest of the vehicle, enshrouding him or her in darkness. Then, various cameras along the car's body sent information to projectors that gave out a holographic display of the vehicle's surroundings – in a full three hundred sixty degrees – thus, giving the gunner the advantage of an exposed position up in the turret, visibility, while still offering protection. An information and targeting computer aided the gunner with weapon conditions, ammo count, turret orientation, and where to aim for optimum accuracy – and thus, a higher chance for a kill – among other things. The computer could even be programmed to operate without a gunner (courtesy of a combat Artificial Intelligence), effectively reducing the crew to just the driver.
The turret was even capable of being stored inside the chassis of the vehicle, to promote better aerodynamics.
However, should anything happen to the cameras on the vehicle's body, the gunner would lose the holographic feed. If and when this occurs, the gunner's seat, which is linked to the turret, is automatically raised into the "traditional" seating position – half exposed to the attacks of the enemy and operating the turret manually.
Another computer, located on the dashboard, aided the driver with navigation. In addition, this computer would analyze the type of terrain Predator was traversing and adjust the hydraulics accordingly. Speed performance suffered to a degree whenever this happened, depending on the terrain.
The chassis of Predator was of a composite design. Much of the bulk of the body consisted of carbon fiber, while two separate layers of steel, both a half-inch thick, were placed on outermost and innermost parts of the chassis. The windows were tinted and damage-resistant, but that didn't make them invulnerable. The entire car was colored in a camouflage green pattern, to help the vehicle blend in to some of the environments that Lazarus and Dinah operated in.
And lastly, the thing that kept Predator running was a thirteen hundred horsepower gasoline engine, supplemented with two hydrogen fuel cells.
It took Lazarus and Dinah roughly seven years to create this vehicle.
It wasn't often that Lazarus allowed her drive this monster of a car, since he was the one who constructed most of the vehicle. She walked around the vehicle, inspecting it for any abnormal signs, idly tracing a finger along the smooth and gradual contours of the body, all designed to promote speed. At one point during the development of Predator, Lazarus came up with the idea of shaping the chassis with sharp angles (bringing to mind an F-117 Nighthawk) instead of smooth curves. His reasoning: the alternative chassis design simply looked cooler, in his opinion. But Dinah argued that the current design, which was more akin to an F-22 Raptor, was far more efficient.
Satisfied that there was nothing wrong with Predator, she sidled into the driver's seat. Lazarus came up next to her, leaning against the car frame.
"So what's the plan?" she asked.
"Pretty simple, really," Lazarus replied. "I'll ride Ruin, while you drive Predator. Give me some IFF markers." She complied, reaching over to the passenger seat and opening the glove compartment. Inside was a small firearm of sorts, although the barrel was modified to fire something other than bullets. Next to the gun were small, chip-like devices – the IFF markers, or "Identify Friend or Foe."
These devices were rarely used, if ever. Yet, Lazarus thought that it would be a good idea to keep them handy. It would seem that he was right.
As she handed the markers over, he said, "Hey, hand me the gun too." She handed that over as well. With IFF markers in hand, he walked back to Ruin, who was eying Predator with curiosity; as Lazarus approached, the horse shifted his attention to the human.
"Hold still for a second." Instantly, Ruin backed away.
'Hm. Probably shouldn't have said that,' he thought. "Easy, buddy. I'm not gonna hurt you." 'Much.' He held up a single marker and explained: "This little thing is going to keep you safe by preventing that thing over there . . . " he pointed at the imposing vehicle, ". . . from attacking you."
He slipped all but one of the markers into a pant pocket, pressed the last one against Ruin's skin, and pressed a little button – it was so quick that Ruin didn't get a chance to back away again. Instantly, the little device attached itself to Ruin's hide, eliciting a short and surprised whinny. The horse glared at Lazarus.
"Ok, maybe I lied. But that wasn't so bad now was it?"
The flaming stallion merely snorted in response.
"Ok, ok, I'm sorry. But trust me when I say that this thing is supposed to protect you from friendly fire. Now come on. I want you to hear my plan too."
The horse took a sidelong glance at the marker, which was intermittently flashing a blue light, before following closely behind the human.
"So what exactly do you want me to do?" Dinah asked as Lazarus and Ruin walked back towards the supercar.
"Simple: just drive around the battlefield."
"Wait, that's all?"
"Pretty much. Technically, that's all you're doing. The car will be doing something too."
"Let me guess: blasting some demons."
"Bingo."
"I thought so. Rules of engagement?"
"Program it to not attack anything near the IFF markers. Anything else is fair game."
"Roger. Anything else?"
"That's it. Just try not to crash into us too," Lazarus said as he mounted Ruin's saddle.
"So let me get this straight. The overall strategy of your plan involves the two of us encircling the battlefield and attacking the rear flanks of the demons. Right?"
"That's it in a nutshell. Since you already seem to know the plan, why the Hell are we still talking about it?"
"Well, have you seen what War's been doing?"
That question prompted Lazarus to look towards the battle below. He turned is head just in time to witness one of War's star explosion attacks, obliterating a portion of the battlefield and a good number of Phantom Guards.
Lazarus let out an impressed whistle. "Wow. That, uh . . . that' something.
"But what does War have to do with us?" he said, addressing Dinah.
With a frustrated groan, Dinah smacked her head against the steering wheel and accidentally honked the horn. Slightly surprised by the noise, both Dinah and Ruin recoiled from the noise – Dinah snapped her head back up while Ruin gave out a startled whinny.
Sighing, she said, "War practically has his very own personal stockpile of WMDs."
"Yeah. So?"
Irritated even more, she stopped for a second, holding her face and shaking her head. 'I swear, he can be real dense sometimes.'
"If War is blasting the area down there straight to Kingdom Come, why should we get involved? Why should we even bother exerting the effort? And if we do, we might get caught up in the crossfire."
"Hm. Good point – I didn't think of that."
"Some tactician you are," she said dryly.
"BUT –" Lazarus shouted, ignoring her comment and pointing a finger at Dinah. "Would you prefer it if we just sat here, with me fidgeting around and annoying the utter crap out of you, with our situation devolving back to trying to cave each other's skulls in with an empty ammo mag?"
She merely stared at him with a deadpan expression on her face.
"I could twiddle my thumbs for you," he said with a wry smirk while acting said action out.
With an expression on her face that betrayed her thoughts of murdering Lazarus, Dinah slammed the door on Predator. In seconds, the supercar roared to life as the monster engine fed power to the vehicle with its trademark whirring noise; then, Predator peeled away at an incredible speed.
Lazarus chuckled at the sight. "Score one for the Laz-Man."
And in moments, they too shot off towards to what Lazarus believed to be the battle's conclusion.
This demon was smart – he was skilled too. The fact that the leader Trauma was holding his own against War was a testament to that fact.
Whenever the two crossed blades the demon never stayed in contact with War's sword for more than a second – any longer and the sheer heat of Chaoseater would render the demon's forearm claws utterly useless. The demon parried the sword – he never blocked. In addition, he seemed to have learned from his comrades as well. War hoped that the demon would try to get him into some sort of hold, thus, making the process of killing the demon easier. But the Trauma seemed to be too smart for that – the demon made no attempt at some of the radical moves that his underlings tried, and any attempt that he made at getting within spitting distance of the demon was constantly thwarted.
The Trauma kept his cool and never made risky moves, fighting in a very defensive fighting style. Whenever War attacked, the demon either parried or evaded the attack, before counterattacking, causing War to either parry or evade in turn. This dance of theirs had lasted for several minutes now. War was strictly on the offensive, and he was getting somewhat angered that he wasn't making any sort of progress. He came to realize a little while ago that this battle was one of attrition – it all came down to who could outlast who. And that seemed to be a winning battle for the Horseman. Indeed, he was feeling somewhat tired from this fight, but the demon was showing his fatigue a bit more than War. All he had to do was keep up the pressure.
'Lazarus would enjoy this kind of battle,' War thought amusedly as he swung Chaoseater – which was parried – remembering some of the human's quips earlier in the conflict. Long and drawn out battles, such as the one War was currently fighting, seemed to be Lazarus' preferred niche. Maybe it was the thrill of battle that kept the human going under the pressures of combat – an adrenaline high perhaps. The human did seem to be enjoying himself a bit too much to be considered normal.
War, however, hated these kinds of battles. The longer a battle dragged on, the more chances the enemy had of killing him. To help steer the odds more towards his favor, War always fought hard and fast and rarely gave his enemies a chance to attack. Thus, an offensive attack style was the Horseman's preferred method of waging conflict. And it worked – most of the time.
This time, it wasn't working. He was fighting against an intelligent and skilled defensive combatant who always waited for War to make the first moves. Indeed, the leader Trauma waited patiently for War to attack again, arms up and ready to parry. Just as War was about to resume attacking, something distracted him out of the corner of his vision.
Foolishly, War turned his head to look and was partially surprised at two things. The first was that his opponent didn't take advantage of this moment of weakness – in fact, the demon looked away as well. The second was that Lazarus and Ruin were headed his way at a high speed, with the human aiming a firearm of sorts at the Trauma. Then, War saw the human pull the trigger – except, there was no telltale flash of gunfire.
And then, as quickly as their appearance, they were gone.
Without giving it a second thought, the two combatants resumed their duel, with War, once again, on the offensive. They paid little mind to what just happened. Nor did they notice the small, chip-like device on the Trauma's hard, rock-like back, emitting a blinking yellow light.
Lazarus holstered the IFF gun and quickly drew Mercy, sending a storm of lead directly in front of him, blasting the demonic lines apart. Of those that weren't killed outright by the fusillade of bullets, they were quickly bowled aside by Ruin. In seconds, the two were back on the outside of the "ring," with Lazarus, all the while, firing Mercy continuously.
There were hundreds of them – hundreds of red contacts. And it was cleared to engage all. With accuracy that only something such as itself was capable of, it sent scything fire into the enemy's ranks. But then again, due to the distance to the targets, how close they were all clumped together, and the speed at which the vehicle was moving at, it didn't bother with aiming, nor did it get much time to aim. It just simply opened up on the horde with the vehicle's fifty-caliber machine gun. However, there were some targets that were actually equipped with ranged weaponry, which gave them a retaliatory means of attack. It immediately targeted these enemies and dealt concentrated fire on the contacts, dropping them in seconds.
A little ways away, two massive unknown (considered hostile) targets were battling it out. These two contacts were roughly a little over three hundred yards away. While it could engage at such a range, weapon accuracy would suffer unless the machine gun was fired in short, controlled bursts. But even then, not all of the bullets would find their mark. And besides, a signal was transmitting from a marker on one of the targets – which was confirmed by radar. The directive of the transmission: hold fire and do not engage anything within fifty yards of the beacon. It complied without question.
Suddenly, a new contact emerged from the rest of the horde, its speed and heading rather threatening – all of which were, again, confirmed by radar. However, it didn't even bother orienting the turret towards this new contact, as the radar was also receiving a friendly IFF signal from the target. It kept on firing.
Then, as the new target came closer to the vehicle, it stopped firing – radar determined that the friendly's path passed directly in front of its line of sight, and thus, its direction of fire. In a blur of motion, the friendly contact sped past – no hostile action was presented from the target. It resumed firing.
For the one split-second the friendly contact was directly opposite of the vehicle, the port-side camera caught an image of the target. In the picture, was a human riding a large horse – the man matched the physical profile of Lazarus, who was definitely considered an ally. And since he was riding this animal, which showed no signs of hostility, the horse was deemed friendly as well, and its physical profile was logged away into the short-term memory archives.
This analysis was conducted in simultaneous operation of handling the turret, and it was all done in merely a second – a trivial task.
Just another day at the office for a combat AI.
A horizontal slash – parried. A vertical chop – again, parried. A flurry of swings from his free hand – blocked and evaded. Even his supernatural attacks were proving to be unsuccessful. War was really getting sick and tired of this. But he was almost there; the leader Trauma was now showing extreme signs of weakness and fatigue. The demon was at the end of its ropes. It was time to end this – once and for all.
War charged once more, swinging Chaoseater in a wild arc. His opponent ducked underneath the attack, counterattacking with a swipe upwards towards the Horseman's face. Normally, War would have avoided the attack somehow – however, War intentionally let the attack strike home.
Growling, War grabbed the demon's wrist in a vice-like grip, before delivering a powerful uppercut to the enemy, and then summarily driving the Trauma's forearm claws into the ground, effectively anchoring the demon in its place. Then, War tried to deliver the coup de grace, a killing strike to the demon's head, only to have Chaoseater blocked by the demon's other hand.
No matter. The enemy was close enough for an alternative action – the Horseman held the demon as close to his body as possible.
War concentrated. His featherless wings flared upwards. He dug his heels into the ground. His skin seemed to burn brighter. Suddenly, the air temperature skyrocketed at an incredible rate.
Immediately, the leader Trauma began to thrash against the Horseman's body, but War held firm. As the air temperature increased to painful levels, the demon struggled even more, roaring in pain as its skin burned.
First degree burns. Then second degree – the damaged continued to progress further. In only a minute, the Trauma's flesh was blackened and charred. The heat was too much – it stopped struggling in no time. In two minutes time, the demon was dead.
War stopped heating the air and relaxed somewhat, stepping away from the burned body, which then fell to the ground with a crash. Inwardly, War sighed – although he had performed that attack before, that last action in particular was rather taxing on him, but at least it was finally over. He looked around.
A little over three hundred yards away, Lazarus and Ruin, along with some sort of vehicle, were reducing the demon's numbers with near impunity. Of those that weren't trying to deal with the more pressing threat, the demons observing War's final fight glared at the Horseman with shock and hatred.
Suddenly, a single Guard surged forth, bellowing murderous litanies. This sparked a chain reaction – every single enemy demon on the battlefield, excluding the ones concentrating on Lazarus and the others, charged after the lone trailblazer. Their intentions were obvious: attempt to overwhelm War with sheer numbers.
War had a plan for such a tactic. Driving Chaoseater into the ground, War began concentrating once more, although, not for another firestorm. No – War had a far more explosive idea.
For a moment, Lazarus was somewhat surprised that the number of available targets to shoot suddenly dwindled to near nothing as the demonic lines advanced suddenly towards War. Just as he fired a salvo into one demon that was pestering him, Ruin surprised the human further still by veering off course away from the battle as fast as possible.
Lazarus didn't protest. He just simply held on tight.
RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT-A-TAT-TAT
The near continuous firing of Predator's heavy machine gun was almost deafening for Dinah as she continued to drive the supercar in a wide circuit around the battlefield.
Suddenly, she saw the number of demons shrink to nearly nothing. She turned her head slightly to observe the demon's mass charge at War. Then, a little ways away, she saw Ruin peel off from the attack, running away at full tilt. Her instincts told her to do the same.
With a sharp spin of the steering wheel, she oriented Predator's heading and floored the accelerator, feeding power to the engine. The firing of the turret soon stopped as well.
In mere moments, she caught up with the flaming stallion and held formation several yards behind Ruin. They left the battlefield away in the dust, but they still kept on going.
Dinah brought up the feed from the gun camera to a monitor on the dashboard.
For a moment, all seemed normal. Suddenly there was a flash of light, blinding the screen. Then, a sonic boom, louder than the whirring roar of the engine, blasted to her ears as a shockwave rattled the car. Up ahead, she saw Lazarus nearly falling out of the saddle due the force of the shockwave. Ruin just barely prevented himself from stumbling and crashing into the ground. Fortunately, both recovered quickly.
She rechecked the monitor and was shocked at what she saw.
Off in the distance, where the battle once was, stood a mushroom cloud that towered into the sky.
Dinah released the gas and slammed down on the brakes, bringing Predator to a sliding stop. Ruin stopped too – Lazarus dismounted and the two walked back to her. Immediately, she flung open the door and stepped out of the car, turning her head to look back behind her.
For a moment, she said nothing – she merely stared at the mushroom cloud that dominated the sky.
"Oh my –"
"Fucking God," finished Lazarus.