And so we have another chapter... I kinda sped up with the story progression mainly because my friend was pressuring me to put his character in for some time... after promising I would put him in the story at about chapter 6... but that didn't happen now did it...
Thanks for everyone who read this far! We're at 7.9k view right now so YAY ME!
Reviews are much appreciated... unless their hate mail... then I hope you get a brick randomly dropped on your head! :)
There is a bit of a medic scene so if you get a bit squeamish from that kinda stuff then TURN AWAY... just kidding... about turning away that is...
Naughtbeast
Chapter 20:
The Angels of Rultherae… this was the name designated to Josh and his squad after they were promoted to Pilot rank. It had been just two days since the time of Demon's death and it had hit the Militia hard. Moral was destroyed, people left… and many lost all hope. The Militia needed a new top-notch Pilot that everyone could look up to, so they enlisted Josh into the program. He had been given the moniker Arch Angel after doing something that he still couldn't believe. During the first months of Demon's time as a pilot, he was mortally wounded and medically died. He had no heartbeat and should have been left there. Josh just happened to stumble across his body in the middle of a destroyed building and tried to help. He had only just heard of the insane feats that Demon had performed in his short time of being a pilot.
Back then, Josh was only just a foot soldier, but before he was a soldier he was a doctor. Knowing that there was the slimmest chance of the legendary pilot surviving, he got to work. He had to cut off roughly half of his pilot's jumpsuit so he could access the wound and nearly gave up there and then. The massive exit hole of a solid shotgun shell was staring right at him from Demon's lower, left chest. He pressed on and pulled out the massive bullet that was still lodged in the pilot's body. After extracting it, he began his work. Using blood from a dead grunt that was missing a head, and also happened to be next to Demon, he transferred the blood, hoping to high hell that they were the same type. Ripping off one of the smaller coolant tubes from the pilot's parkour-kit, he began syphoning the blood from the grunts body, putting the other end into the vein in the arm of Demon. Using a salvaged arc grenade, he made rough calculations on the radius and primed it, throwing the grenade so that Demon was 'just' within the radius. When it exploded, much to his relief, new blood began spurting out of the pilot's body.
He hastily ripped off his shirt and used it as a make-shift bandage for the wound. After doing as much as he could, he hoisted the Pilot over his shoulders and made it to an evacuation dropship that he had requested. He had farewelled the crew and went back to the fight, trying to save as many lives as possible, and only found out after the battle that he had managed to save Demon's life. The pilot had congratulated the grunt on two occasions. He had requested that Josh be promoted to Grunt field medic (still wasn't a pilot but he couldn't complain) and also that he was to be the first receiver of a special award that Demon requested be made. He received the Angelic Savior medal… a medal specially reserved for those who went above the line of duty to save someone with little to no actual medical supplies. They fought side-by-side for some time during the Frontier wars but eventually they were split up after Josh was assigned to a different fleet.
After the news of Demon's death hit their fleet, the new pilot training program was introduced. Josh was accepted, because Demon had put in a good word a long time ago, and trained for a month to become a pilot. After he passed, he was integrated into a part of the Angels of Rutherae (the name of their home planet), the so-called 'replacements' for Demon. It consisted of Jaeger Demsi, their sniper, Tempest Lucran, their heavy weapons expert, Markus Percival, the science dude of the squad, and lastly Josh the medic. Their first mission was on the planet of Serra Nulima on a Hardpoint Control mission. The mission went pretty well until the last few minutes of the battle. The IMC on the planet suddenly activated a hidden turret array from out of nowhere and gunned down the carrier that was stationed over the planet, cutting the ground troops from support. They had handled it pretty well until the IMC pilots called in their Titans.
The Militia ordered an evacuation to salvage anything they could from the mission, but everything was gunned down in a matter of seconds because of the insane amount of fire from the turrets. The squad were forced to make an extraction from the one place the enemy couldn't possibly expect… right above their base. The Angels of Rutherae and two other pilots had to sneak through the entire firing line of the IMC just to make it anywhere near the extraction zone. When the dropship came, the two other pilots sprinted forward and jumped in, the Angels following next. Just before they could make it there, two Titans with rocket pods dashed out of a nearby hanger and blasted the dropship to oblivion. The Angels were able to take them down with the help of Tempest's two amped Archer missile pods, but the entire base now knew exactly where they were.
They hastily jumped into the underground tunnels so they could escape the search party, splitting up to make sure they had the biggest chance of surviving. They hid for about an hour before they were messaged by Tempest to make their way to the surface. The Josh, Markus and Jaeger all made it there and were slightly confused when they made their way there. Waiting for them at the exit of the tunnels was an entire squad of IMC pilots, guns pointed at them. They dropped their weapons and slowly walked forward, hands behind their backs.
"Damn Tempest shoulda never been trusted!" commented Jaeger, hate seeping into his words.
"I'm sure there is a reason to explain this…" Josh said, still not sure if this was the demo experts fault. Just as they made it about a metre from the pilots holding them at gunpoint, they heard a very obnoxious noise coming from just over the next building from them. They heard 'Flight of the Valkyries' played at full volume from a Goblin dropship that was currently banking to face them. As it finished its turn it spooled up its nose minigun and gunned down the IMC pilots. It turned to its side and opened the side door, revealing Tempest with a massive grin on his face.
"Miss me Mofo's?" he asked before moving back to the controls.
The others just shook their heads and jumped on board, the dropship ascending to prepare their escape. The turrets were not set to target one of their own ships and so the people stationed there had to resort to manual firing, allowing Tempest to evade their fire with mixed success rather than be blown out of the sky in seconds.
"Are you sure it is wise to let the demolitions expert to fly?" asked Markus, hanging onto his seat with white knuckles.
"HEY! I can fly perfectly fine!" shouted Tempest back from the cockpit. He made another steep banking turn and a loud clunking sound was heard and something flew off the side. Everyone in the back just paled and held on tighter. As they waited for the evasive flying to stop, they looked out the window and were greeted by the one thing the definitely didn't want to see. The main railgun cannon of the complex was actually spinning up to fire on them, the beam being wider than the entire ship they were in.
"Tempest! WARP NOW!" screamed Josh, knowing they had little time to escape the blast.
"WHAT! I don't ha…"
"JUST DO IT!"
With great hesitance, Tempest activated the warp drives and the ship began its start-up sequence, the white bulbuls of energy filling everyone's vision… only they weren't white… they were red. Just as the railgun fired, the dropship warped at that exact moment… and was warped to another world. They busted out from the warp and lost all power, crashing helplessly into the surface on the planet they were currently on. The systems were fried and they were lucky to be alive, the only light source being the moon… that was shattered. Tempest tried the door but it was locked shut from the impact, so he activated the explosive bolts and it flew off. The four pilots slowly made their way out of the craft and tried to get a bearing on where they were. Just after they did, they heard massive, resounding footsteps coming closer. Tempest immediately jumped into action and pulled his two rocket launchers off his back and fired in the general direction of the sound. About a second later, a blue shield popped out of nowhere and blocked the rockets, sending them into the ground.
"Well… we're screwed…" Josh commented, accepting the inevitable.
Back to current time, in Demons POV (from the last chapter):
"Did you say Demon?" asked the one that looked like a scientist.
"NO! I obviously said a pink fluffy unicorn…" deadpanned Demon, replying as sarcastically as possible.
"I'm sorry then, I must get my ears checked…" replied the man, actually sounding like he was serious.
"No Markus… it's alright, he's just kidding!" said Josh, having to explain sarcasm to the scientist. "Anyway… you look nothing like Demon and he's been dead for over a month"
"Well, that's obviously a lie… because here I am…"
"How can we know for sure?"
Demon smiled and jumped off the chaingun he was standing on, landing with a loud thump, and walked up to Josh. All the others held up their weapons, ready to kill him if he did anything. When he made it to about a foot from Josh, he pulled off his left gauntlet and revealed a black angel tattoo, with small devil horns, on the inside of his wrist. Josh looked completely shocked before taking off his glove and revealing the exact same tattoo on the inside of left wrist as well. The tattoo meant one thing… they were battle brothers. The day Demon was saved by Josh, he had them both have it inked on so that Josh always knew he was under Demon's protection… no matter what happened. Josh embraced Demon and they broke off after exchanging pleasantries.
"So I see you finally managed to become a pilot you damn hypocrite pacifist…"
The annoying thing that Demon found out about Josh was that he was a pacifist… in the middle of a war. He could shoot completely fine, being almost as good as Demon himself, but hesitated to kill enemy soldiers and instead just shot to maim or injure… and only when his own life was in danger. He would just usually stay back in every battle and deal with the injured until the battle eventually found its way to him and he would try to talk the enemy down… usually resulting with him getting shot and having to kill the person who shot him.
"Yea… happened about a day after you died… what even happened?"
"Well, that's a long story…"
One VERY long story later, a story that also contained everything they needed to know about Remnant and their current situation (I'm lazy ok!), but Demon made sure to leave out the part about his mother and sisters…
"So… we're stuck on a completely unknown planet… with evil monsters that are trying to wipe humanity off the face of said planet…"
"FUN! I know right?"
"Yea… fun wouldn't really be the word I would use to explain our current situation…"
"Well… I might as well take you back to the others and let them fill you in more, I was knocked out for a month so they know a lot more than me…"
"Ok then… who else is with you, though?"
"Well… I managed to make it here with my Titan, a Militia grunt and an IMC grunt"
Everyone tensed when he mentioned that he brought an IMC grunt.
"Don't worry… she's cool. Anyway, let's get going!"
Just as he finished the sentence a massive explosion was heard off in the distance, the faint outline of a dust cloud blocking the black night sky.
"EXPLOSION!" shouted Tempest, his voice filled with joy.
"Let me guess… your friends?" sarcastically asked Josh.
"Well… five bucks it is" deadpanned Demon, jumping into his Titan. He picked up the others and began in a sprint to the building he left them in. When he made it there, he used his parkour-kit to instantly jump to the second story and to where their fire was. He found all their gear still there, but no one was there to tend to it. He found a small note on the pillow of his sleeping bag.
Dear Demon,
We're just heading out to check on something and will be back soon!
From, the team…
As he finished reading the note, another explosion was heard off in the distance.
Something tells me they're not exactly going to be back soon…
