Steel and Sorcerers – Chapter 40
Rear Admiral Bonnelly stood at the bridge of the USS Ronald Reagan, observing aircraft down on the flight deck being prepared for launch. This Nimitz-class aircraft carrier was part of Carrier Strike Group 5, which was currently merged with the USS America's Amphibious Ready Group and Escort Flotilla 1 of the JSDF's navy to help counter the demonic incursion into Tokyo. Currently sailing 250km off the coast of south-east Japan, the force consisted of included 1 aircraft carrier, 2 helicopter carriers, 3 cruisers and 14 destroyers. More ships were on their way from other fleets nearby, but wouldn't arrive for a few days at least.
The JSDF and USFJ had been reluctant so far to use airstrikes on the demons in the fear of hitting civilians in the densely populated city that was Tokyo. However, Jaldabaoth's destruction had now reached such an extent that large areas of the city had been reduced to flaming rubble anyway. It was deemed unlikely that civilians were still present in these areas, so airstrikes in such zones had been recently authorised. As of yet it was unclear what kind of anti-air capabilities Jaldabaoth might have other than flying demons whose slow speed posed little threat to jet fighters. This probing strike would enable them to get a better idea of what they were up against.
Major Daniel "Miles" Hernandez radioed and received permission to launch from the Air Boss before initiating his start sequence. His F/A-18E Super Hornet was sitting on the USS Ronald Reagan's first catapult as one of 5 aircraft which were participating in the probing mission, named 'Taskforce Spectacle 1', and the order to launch had just been given. His plane captain and ordinance crews worked tirelessly around the aircraft to get it ready. His aircraft was air to air configured, but others in the formation would be equipped for ground attack.
As he waited for the ready signal, he couldn't help but think how insane this all was. Fighting demons from another dimension, who had magic powers? There had been confirmation that guns and bombs were able to kill them at least, so they might have some chance of victory, but still.
Miles' catapult officer gave him the 'Final Turnup' hand signal. After a quick systems check, he looked over and gave a salute to the catapult officer. The officer returned his salute and immediately dropped to a crouch. Once satisfied the deck was ready and clear for launch, they gave a thumbs up to the launching officer. Moments later, Miles felt the aircraft jolt as the steam catapult began to propel his plane down the runway. As soon as this began, he pushed the throttle forward, lighting the afterburners as his jet rocketed down the deck. As soon as he was launched off the end of the carrier, Miles checked his airspeed to make sure he wasn't going too slow. All was good, so he made a slight turn to the right to gain speed and clear the carrier's immediate airspace. He picked up the flight lead on his radar, and began his re-join on them. After a brief radio exchange he re-joined to a cruise position 100 metres off their right wing. After waiting for the other three aircraft to join, they began their ascent past 10,000 feet. Miles checked his weapons stores to confirm his AIM-120C radar guided missiles and AIM-9X heat-seeking missiles were showing as ready. After receiving orders from the controller they then proceeded towards Tokyo.
Half an hour later, the formation of 3 air to air and 2 air to ground Super Hornets entered Tokyo airspace at high altitude. Miles reached forward to flip the MASTER ARM switch on for his aircraft, enabling him to fire his weapons if needed. Not long after, the air to ground jets dropped their payload of laser-guided bombs, reporting hits on whatever target they had been allocated. After this they departed the formation to head back to the carrier.
Now came the fun part, testing the demons' air defences. Him and the other two remaining aircraft pointed their nose towards the ground and began descending. 10,000 feet... nothing. 5,000 feet… still nothing. Miles was aware that he was unlikely to get any kind of radar or missile warning if he was attacked, so he made sure to keep an eye out, and to not fly in a straight line for too long. 1500 feet… things were getting dicey now. If he remembered correctly, Tokyo Tower had stood at just over 1000 feet tall, and he could see the tallest skyscrapers of the city not far beneath him now.
There was a clear circular zone of destruction, extending out from what must've been Ginza, where the buildings had all been mostly destroyed, with thick pillars of smoke rising into the sky. Suddenly, he saw a bright blue light flash past his canopy.
"Contact, contact! Taking evasive manoeuvres!" Miles yelled over the radio. As expected, his radar warning receivers were picking up nothing, so it had been sheer luck he wasn't hit just then.
The other pilots replied in the affirmative, and took a sharp turn to begin ascending, orbiting over the city trying to get a look at what was happening on the ground. He received a transmission from one of the other jets which had a targeting pod for reconnaissance, with its zoom function they had been able to get a closer look at what was happening on the ground.
"Multiple tall tree-like humanoid entities on the ground. Glowing lights are coming from their hands and being launched at us, like they're casting spells. Also, dozens of man-size winged demons taking off towards us. Recommend gain altitude and continue evasive manoeuvres. Update! The lights are changing direction, likely homing. Recommend withdraw immediately!"
"Affirmative" replied Miles, turning his plane back towards the carrier. Although it would be useful to know what kind of damage those lights might do, he wasn't keen to get shot down over demon-controlled territory just for an experiment.
As they began cruising back towards the fleet, he received another transmission. "Update! The lights are still following, recommend increasing speed."
Miles and the other jets lit their afterburners, and after a while they got a report that they had gotten far enough away that the bolts of light had disappeared from sight. It was then that they received an urgent message on the radio.
"Spectacle 1, all remaining units in your flight are to vector to new heading, 310. A large group of demons has taken off from Ginza, currently angels one, heading towards the carrier group. Engage the enemy, then immediately RTB."
Miles replied, "Spectacle 1-1, copy."
He, and the other 3 remaining pilots then turned their aircraft back towards the Japanese coast. On the radar display screen in his cockpit, he could see hundreds of contacts in a large clump about 50km off his nose.
"Tally one!" Miles exclaimed as he targeted somewhere in the clump, a solid tone sounding to let him know he was locked on. He the pressed the red 'pickle button' on the top of his control stick with his thumb, causing the aircraft to shudder slightly as an AIM-120C radar guided air-to-air missile was launched off the rails on one of his wings, the bright flare of the rocket motor disappearing into the distance as the missile closed towards the target. "Fox three!" Miles called over the radio to announce his missile launch.
He didn't waste any time, immediately manipulating the displays to lock onto another target. He was currently equipped with 2 heat-seeking missiles, and 6, well, now 5, radar-guided missiles. As he began launching off his remaining radar-guided missiles he could hear the calls over the radio of the other pilots doing the same. Normally they would want to let each other know what they were shooting at, to avoid wasting missiles by hitting the same target more than once, however since the enemy was in such a large clump this was impossible.
After a matter of seconds he had fired off all of his radar-guided missiles, and there were only his 2 heat-seekers left. Waiting until he was within 10km, he locked on and fired off his two AIM-9X Sidewinders into the clump, calling "Fox two!" over the radio. Now that he was out of ammo, he turned the jet back around and headed back to the carrier.
As they flew back, Miles pondered how relatively calm the air-to-air mission against the demons had been. Probably because it had all been beyond visual range. Although it would be dangerous, he secretly hoped he would be able to get in more close and personal at some point. Though, since the flight of demons was apparently headed towards the carrier, that chance may come sooner than he hoped.
After flying the couple hundred kilometres back to the fleet and touching down on the carrier, they were quickly summoned to report their findings. After they had finished the debrief, they were walking down one of the corridors when they heard a commotion. As they turned to look, they saw people ducking for cover as a stream of shining objects sped down the hallway towards them.
Before they could barely even react, they were each struck multiple times, the projectiles, appearing to be made of light piercing and causing them to die almost instantly, falling to the deck like puppets whose strings had been cut.
After that incident, any air raids would only be performed at high altitude, limiting their accuracy but keeping them safe from those lights, identified later by consultation with researchers from the special region as likely being the [Magic Arrow] spell.
In light of the incoming demons, Rear Admiral Bonnelly had relocated to the Combat Information Centre on the USS Ronald Reagan since it provided a more secure location than the bridge, as it was located within the carrier itself rather than exposed in a tower on the deck.
He glanced over the combat reports of the attempted interceptions so far of the attack force of flying demons, code-named 'Big Fly', and estimated to be approximately 400 in number. They had tracked several of what was believed to be demon corpses falling into the ocean after being shot by missiles from both the F/A-18s and interceptors from mainland Japan, but it was far less than the number of missiles fired, indicating that some demons had survived being struck. This wasn't entirely surprising. The AIM-120C AMRAAM for instance only had a 20kg high-explosive warhead, and demons had been encountered in Ginza which would be capable of easily withstanding such impacts. It was possible then that the demons were in a formation where the strongest were acting as shields at the front to protect the weaker ones.
'Such tactics…' They had already surmised that Jaldabaoth was a highly capable commander, with knowledge of the modern world far beyond what one would expect a demon to have. It was likely his intention to use this force of flying demons to capture or sink the entire fleet they had assembled here.
Whether they could stop them? It was difficult to say. He had already ordered for the fleet to head at full speed south-west towards an island chain. That way if they did end up being sunk, rescue efforts would hopefully be at least a bit easier.
That's not to say he was planning to lose. He had organised the ships into a defensive formation, and additional interceptors from Japan and various US bases were on their way to assist. Still, the steam-catapults, used for launching aircraft from the carrier had been sabotaged not long ago, probably Jaldabaoth's work. This prevented them from launching additional F/A-18 Super Hornets for at least several hours, by which time the demons would've reached them already. What was most disconcerting though was they had no idea how it happened. There were slash marks across the machinery, suggesting some beast was responsible, but nothing had been spotted so far despite a full search being initiated across the ship. For now, they had decided to post armed guards around critical infrastructure.
The demonic attack force, 'Big Fly', moved at a speed of around 30km/h, and since it was currently about 120km away it would reach the fleet after around 4 hours, assuming its speed remained constant. Since it was now well within the range of the long-range surface-to-air missiles on the ships in the fleet, it was about time to give the order to fire, and give those demons a taste of their main line of defence.
Just as he was about to give the order, a crewmember came up to him. "Sir, we've received reports of sabotage across multiple ships in the fleet, they're saying their targeting systems are offline, so they can't fire their missiles."
Bonnelly's heart sank. "Did the guards see anything?"
"Well, no. Apparently they heard the noise of something being damaged, but in the few seconds it took for them to investigate the culprit had already escaped."
"Well, I'm giving the order now to start the firing plan on Big Fly. Tell the damaged ships to do their best to repair, and let the chief maintenance officer know if they need any assistance."
"Right away sir!"
Soon after he gave the order, hatches on the decks of the cruisers and destroyers in the fleet opened up, bright flares and plumes of smoke filling the skies as countless missiles were propelled out from their vertical launch cells and guided towards the target.
This was just as F-35B stealth fighters were just finishing launching their own missiles towards the swarm of demons. Although they had taken off from Amphibious Assault Ships in the fleet, since it was in danger, they had instead been vectored to land at bases on mainland Japan. In fact, all the F-35Bs and most of the helicopters in the fleet had already been evacuated.
The group of attacking demons was made up of imps, gazer devils, scale demons and war devils, with the stronger demons stationed at the front and around the edges of the swarm to shield the weaker ones from missile impacts.
They had basically no warning when a missile was incoming, only the anticipation after the first one hit that more would follow, yet they felt no fear. So far, the missiles had been quite weak, able to kill the imps and gazer devils in a single hit, but more of a painful nuisance to the scale demons and war devils.
As they continued their long flight across the sea, there was a sudden large explosion as a scale demon was hit, blasting a small crater in its chest and causing it to bellow in frustration.
The incoming missiles were largely of the SM-2 variety, with a 67kg explosive warhead, about three times stronger than what they had been hit with before.
Still, the wound was manageable, so it continued on. Though, with its enhanced eyesight it could see a large stream of further incoming missiles, each over 6 metres long.
Blasts rocked the formation, with unlucky imps and gazer devils that were caught in the blasts spiralling down into the sea as they disintegrated. Explosions and shrapnel tore holes in their wings, causing them to have to work harder to stay airborne, or be lost at sea. The rain of explosions seemed never-ending, but after about an hour it finally ceased.
After about another hour though, interspersed with several of the smaller explosions hitting them every now and then, the rain of missiles began again. This time though the blasts were smaller than before at least, the shorter-range surface-to-air missiles having smaller explosive warheads.
After another couple of hours, the human fleet was finally in sight. Killing time was about to begin.
Sweat formed on the brow of Rear Admiral Bonnelly as he received reports that Big Fly was now within visual range. Although they had whittled down their numbers greatly, there was a still about 100 remaining, a large number of them being the stronger demons. They had also exhausted their stocks of surface-to-air missiles, so all that remained to defend them were the naval artillery guns, various close in weapons systems, and additional marines that had been deployed onboard.
Puffs of smoke and shockwaves rocked the decks of the ships, as every few seconds each naval artillery gun fired off high-explosive rounds towards the group of demons. The shells had special fuses allowing them to explode mid-air amongst the demons. However, they wouldn't prove to be effective.
The group of demons, upon receiving fire, scattered into three smaller groups. One heading for the JSDF's Izumo-class helicopter destroyer, the US navy's America-class amphibious assault ship, and Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan.
Now moving too fast and flying too close for the naval artillery guns, the 25mm Bushmaster chain guns and 20mm Phalanx CIWS opened up on these groups of demons, firing sprays of tracer-fire across the sky into the demons.
Each group of demons was in a much looser formation than before, forcing the guns on the ships to engage each demon individually rather than as one group. Still, many imps and gazer devils were shredded by CIWS fire, or shot down by the Bushmasters. The scale demons and war devils fared better, their toughened skin or armour allowing them to resist the gunfire for much longer.
As the first war devils touched down on the USS Ronald Reagan, gunfire from the CIWS of nearby ships ripping across the deck, they immediately made their way inside the ship, quickly smashing through blast doors and cutting apart any sailors or marines who got in their way, despite the corridors being almost too small for them to walk in.
In anticipation of such a boarding event occurring, many of the marines had been armed with shoulder-launched anti-tank weapons, and rounding a corner, one war devil who had been worn down in the fight was blasted in the chest with a rocket-launcher from further down the hallway, finishing it off.
As the next one rounded the corner, the missile crew fired again, however this war devil simply slashed apart the projectile in-flight, causing it to explode prematurely, continuing onwards to cut apart the marines before they could line up another shot.
After a few minutes the demons had made their way into the very bottom decks of the ship, and began cutting holes into the floor and outer hull, causing water to begin rushing in. The scale demons did something similar but from the outside, hovering just above the waterline and using their mauls to smash holes into the hull. The demons also targeted the engines, disabling the ship's movement.
Rear Admiral Bonnelly, hearing the commotion outside, was well aware that this ship, and likely others in the fleet were doomed. Several of the stronger demons were reported to have boarded the three main aircraft-carrying ships in the fleet, and it was likely that they would move onto the others once they were done.
He gave a final order for the rest of the fleet to abandon the three boarded vessels and continue onwards. Although it pained him to leave good men behind, including himself, he figured this was the best chance they had of preserving the remaining ships, as hopefully they would be able to get some distance on the demons before they had finished dealing with the ships they were currently on.
He mused that this would probably be the first time a Nimitz-class carrier was ever sunk or captured by an enemy. 'Indeed, the classes of the two other ships that will probably be sunk haven't been defeated before either.'
It was said a captain should go down with the ship, so despite the insistence by the other crewmembers that he should leave with them on the lifeboats, he decided to stay, only jokingly requesting that they leave one for him. He would probably be killed by one of those armoured demons on its way back up from damaging the ship anyway. He secretly hoped he wouldn't be though, and that he might be able to swim to the shore of some island later.
He heard the thud of footsteps approaching from outside. After briefly considering whether to hide behind one of the computer displays, he decided not to, and die with some dignity. Hiding probably wouldn't work anyway.
As expected, one of the armoured demons appeared in the doorway, its hulking frame barely allowing it to fit through. However, instead of cutting him down it sheathed its flaming blade, and stood still for a moment while it stared at him. A moment later there was a strange bending of light, and a figure suddenly appeared next to the demon.
It was dressed in a red crimson suit, with pointed ears and a fiendish mask. In its hands it held a notepad and pen.
'Jaldabaoth?!'
It walked over and thrust the notepad and pen into his hands.
[Write down your name and station] it commanded him.
Unable to resist, Rear Admiral Bonnelly wrote down his details, after which the arch-devil took it back from him.
[Charm Person]
Demiurge watched as Bonnelly's face turned from being tense and guarded, to relaxed. He then gave an order to the war devil beside him.
"Excellent. Now, continue with the mission. Don't let any of them escape if you can help it, even if it costs you your life."
The war devil bowed before leaving.
"Now…" Demiurge grabbed onto Bonnelly. "I've got someone who'd like to have a chat with you." [Greater Teleportation]
After receiving the request from Enri Emmott, a team of adventurers had been assembled and sent forth to investigate the Great Forest of Tob. Included in this party was the Swords of Darkness, along with a platinum ranked team of 4. The platinum team consisted of a paladin, ranger, mage, and polearm warrior.
Except for an encounter with a Barghest, which was quickly dispatched by the platinum team, it had been fairly uneventful. They didn't have much to go off of, except to look around deep in the forest for something that might've caused a large explosion. They had been given the coordinates of the headquarters of a new trading company, the EWTC, that had been set up in this area recently. The plan was to go there and ask if they knew anything, or if they were responsible, as it was reported they had recently experienced a disruption in operations roughly coinciding with the time of the explosion.
There was a cry from Lukrut, the ranger. "There's what looks like the remains of a skeleton here!"
"So what?" replied one of the platinum adventurers.
"No, it's a human skeleton. Dyne, come have a look."
"Hmm, yes, I can detect faint traces of negative energy, it looks like it used to be animated, but then was probably destroyed by some forest creature."
"Now that you mention it, I think there's another skeleton over there" said the platinum rank ranger.
After examining the next skeleton, they spotted a group of 3 zombies in the same direction, further away. Lukrut and the platinum ranger took them out from a distance using their bows, before continuing on.
"It's strange, there wouldn't normally be so many undead in the forest" pondered Dyne.
After some time heading in the same direction they came across a large open hilly area. A few low-level undead could be seen wandering around. Quickly dispatching them, they climbed atop the nearest hill, spotting a structure in the distance.
"Some sort of tomb?" guessed Peter.
"I don't recognise it" replied the platinum mage. "It could be undiscovered, so be cautious."
A 6 metre tall wall surrounded the whole area, so they had to use the front gate, which was conveniently open. More low-level undead were strewn about the various tombstones and sculptures which littered the area inside the wall.
After systematically clearing the area of undead, they came to the main central structure. They decided to have a quick look inside, but retreat if it was too large to explore on their own with the gear they had.
Descending down into the mausoleum, they found themselves in a long hallway lined by graves set into the walls, like a catacomb. Just as they were about to advance further, an undead creature rounded the corner in front of them.
"It's an elder lich!" cried Dyne, "Retreat!"
They quickly ran back up to the surface and across the graveyard until they had exited the compound. It seemed it had not followed them.
"Is everyone alright?" asked the platinum ranked paladin.
"Yes, I think so" replied Peter. "Though, I think we'll need to head back and gather a stronger party."
"Agreed."
PSA: I've been wondering how exactly the magic arrow spell would function. In the novels its stated a couple of times that you can't escape from it, but doesn't go into detail. We also see during the invasion of Re-Estize a death knight seems to block one with its shield (maybe it still took damage?). For this story, unless you guys have better ideas, I'll probably have it have these characteristics:
-Homing with near infinite range, and dodges around obstacles, pierces/ignores most armour
-Can be blocked by thick enough armour, or if you're in a totally enclosed space that the arrow can't find a path through
-Disappears if target is unavailable (like if they teleport super far away)