TRANSHUMANIST IN HELL
Chapter 12 – Night of Blood 4
Warning: Graphic Violence
John is very satisfied of how his, not so little, gamble turned out. He has already received a communication from Selina with their quantum devices that they have taken out the forces of Commander B at a speed way higher than what he himself had planned. With Lucifer's squad coming towards them they will surely be able to overwhelm Commander A forces without problems.
John looks down on his foot, which is stomping on the lifeless chest of a soldier he has recently killed. Where his head should be, there is now a pasture of meat, blood, bones and brain matter. A small gift from the assault rifle he is using for this occasion. A modified version of the Italian ARX-160 made so that it can shoot lasers. Its name is ARX-160 Implosion Laser Gun, or ILG for short, but Helly has a better name for it.
The Nasty gun. A fair name, considering that what this rifle does is sending a small laser like a flash-light to its target and using the molecular bounds inside the target itself generates a bubonic-like amalgamation of bubbles that continues to grow until it reach critical mass and then makes the target explode from the inside out. Needlessly to say it is EXTREMELY powerful against organic targets.
Yes, a very nasty gun.
John takes out the special battery-magazine and substitute it with a new one, the exhausted one is then attached to its left flank with a magnet so that it can use a wireless recharge system that uses the internal Quantum Inflation Electric Generation System, or QIEGS for shirt, to have literally infinite ammo.
After recharging he survey the battlefield. Asmodeus and her succubus have done an excellent job at killing as much soldiers as possible. From time to time he had to intervene and use a special mixture of nanobots to save their lives when they were shoot by too much holy projectiles, but outside of that they were able to handle themselves perfectly.
At the head of them of course there is Asmodeus, whose fighting style is as much sensual and irresistible as much as it is lethal. John at some points could swear that he had seen Asmodeus's whip making moves that should not be allowed by any law of physics, mechanic or even reality whatsoever, but they happened nonetheless all to the dismay of whoever was unlucky enough to be her target.
And then there is Satan, who was busy the entire time to take in 1 vs 1 at first all the biggest members from the enemy soldiers, and then whoever had enough balls to charge at her, and even if they were in a hopeless situation she never ran out of enemies throwing their lives at her.
'Exactly like fanatics…'.
This left John to take care of the enemy chain of command, which he eliminated with perfectly aimed head-shots from his rifle, using aim-bots in real life is truly something else.
But while he is thinking and at all of this and waiting for his little band to reorganize and recover some stamina a thought starts to grow in his head.
'Easy. It has been way too easy, up until now'. Granted the enemy were very well disciplined and continued to fight to the last man, even if it is was more thanks of their fanatism than any real loyalty to their commander or knowledge of how the fight was progressing, but even with all of that these doesn't explain the one-side massacre they are receiving from when they left the Villa.
The way this soldiers move is way too much mechanic, rigid, almost like they are following a book to the letter like is the gospel of God itself and going out of the rails would be blasphemy for them.
'Almost like…'
"They are all rookies, aren't they?".
Satan says from behind John, completing the thoughts he was formulating in his head. After looking down on what was the local enemy leader for a couple of seconds he raise his head and while looking at Satan he gives a nod of confirmation.
"Yes, it seems so. I can't explain in any other way how we are able to give so much damage to an enemy force that outnumber us at least 100:1 without our forces suffering heavy losses from when we started our counter attack from the Villa".
"It is so?".
"Yes, I know Shidou's way of thinking. And considering that we are against an entire division worth of soldiers all of them armed to the teeth, however is backing up him has invested quite the amount of resources to do so. And yet the result is this" John says opening his arms to point at their recent victory "all their soldiers slaughtered like cattle in front of a butcher. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever either from a strategic or a tactical point of view. And even if we were to take into account that he has gone completely religious nut, even so he would have at least prepared some form of plan to counter enemies as strong as a Devil Lord. Even more so considering that he have developed weaponry capable of killing both super-natural and mortal being. Unless…".
John takes a hand on his mouth with his eyes frantically surveying all the battlefield. A terrible and sickening thought growing in strength in his mind, something that would be an absolute waste of time, resources, and manpower, but at the same time it is the only one that would make some sense to what he is witnessing.
"Unless?" this time is Asmodeus to talk, has she took note of John and Satan conversation she went towards them. Her enhanced ears making her known of their conversation She was exactly enthusiast of having them referring to the bastard she is killing as "rookies" as this so called rookies have slaughtered hundreds of both her succubus and followers and she would be between them if it was not for the on moment barrier she, Lucifer and John erected at the last moment. Nonetheless she was not so down on the revenge hole as to not be able to connect the dots. And as much as it was hard for her to accept, John is right. From when they started to charge at the enemies they have not suffered any loss whatsoever, it is almost hard to imagine that the ones that attached her villa and the one now lying dead at her feet are the same enemies. But looking at the frantic expression on John face she knew that he has find out a clue that both her and Satan are missing.
"Unless this is what Shidou wanted from the start."
The two Devil Lord look at one another way more confused than before. "What do you mean?" asks Asmodeus.
"Think about it. Shidou and the higher ups of his organization have enough resources to build up an entire division worth of soldiers, train them and equip them with weapons specifically tailored to kill Devil and supernatural beings. And what he does with this much resources? He throws them to attack a city in the United States, even for how much from a strategi or symbolic point of view may it be, and simply hopes that everything goes right? I don't think so. Even more if we consider that he knew that all of us were here and that he has informed the commanders of this division at least, and their grand plan to block us from interfering is to ambush us so that they can destroy the city and kill everyone inside of it?. Considering all of this, only two possible explanations exist to justify their combat actions up until now. 1 Shidou and his inner circle were so delusional as to believe or even gamble that one ambush would be suffice to eliminate all of us, granted it almost succeeded, and so didn't prepare and/or trained their troops in case of a fight with us or. 2 They were never meant to succeed in their mission, at least not completely".
"Wait, what do you mean John-dono?" asks a clearly confused Satan. She never was, and is, one to think of the big picture in battle, she is the one you point at the general direction of the enemy line and laid back to see how everyone simply vaporise in front of her.
"What I mean is that all these soldiers are sacrificial lambs. I think that what Shidou really wanted to do with this attack is to instil fear and outrage towards each other and towards the Therianthrope. By creating a force that the media can very easily demonize and with such an outlandish amount of destruction and death. It will be a witch hunt, especially if they find out that they can simply hide their features and show them at any moment and kill anyone in their surrounding with impunity. No one will be safe, and the situation will rapidly escalate if they find out that almost all the major Japanese megacorporation are directly involved in all of this. The amount of damage that such a resolution could bring to the world cannot be calculated. It may very well be the start of World War 3, this time with everyone against everyone until all human in the world are killed. Truly an abhorrent plan to the core. If we analyse the situation from this prospective then losing or not these ten thousand soldiers its irrelevant to Shidou and Heaven at large".
Both Satan, Asmodeus and the succubus that are now making a circle all over John are left speechless by his explanation. Truly only a madman would conceive a plan like this, and yet the logic at the deepest core of it cannot be taken off, not that this makes the whole thing more disgusting.
"Very well" Satan says stomping the butt of her battle-axe to the ground "Then there is only one thing we must do for now" she says pointing her weapon in the direction where Liberty prime is still fighting "to end all this carnage we must kill the enemy General in front of us. After that we can better think on how to tackle the rest of this situation".
"Satan is right. Come on everyone, to the port. It is time to take the General's head!". And with a bunch of war cries all of John's forces charged toward the harbour were Antioch's troops initially landed, taken back all the way to the starting point from the relentless onslaught of Liberty Prime.
[Meanwhile on one of the roofs]
On one of the roofs that gives a perfect view of the plaza were John, Satan and Asmodeus were moments ago two figures decloak from their disguises. Their features are unknowable as there are clad in a full body suit with special Helmets that completely covers their faces. But you can vaguely notice that they have a male physique. In their hands there are two big anti-material sniper rifles which they hold as they weight like a feather.
"Creator, is the recording to your liking?".
A small static noise escapes one of the two spies/snipers transponder, before a familiar voice comes out of it. Shidou's voice.
"Indeed. Truly, the little boy that I knew from back then has grown quite considerably".
"Should we eliminate him?" the one holding the transponder asks with a flat voice that speaks of it as it is a fact, like the fact that you breath air or something similar.
"No, at least for now. It has been too long since I have played with someone on a level that I can consider on something of an equal foot with me. For now return to base, I have to analyse all the combat report from this engagement".
"Understood Creator".
And with that a small light green light envelopes the two mysterious figures and in mere seconds they are gone, no trace of their standing there present.
But then another figure jumps on the roof where the two figures stood mere moments ago. This time the figure can be seen to be clearly female, with small cat-like ears protrusion coming from her helmet and a cat tail covered by her suits moving behind her. She has a very agile and fit body with an honest F-cup breasts, but what she lacks in the chest area she more than makes up with a massive and perfectly round bubble butt.
The mysterious girl taps of the left side of her helmet trying to communicate with someone.
"Mother Goose here Schrödinger. Yes, I am on the roof, I didn't engage the two sentinels how instructed. Yes, the radiations left in the area are unmistakable. Yes, they are using Master technology, and one that are not known to the public, somehow they have stolen the blueprints or someone has given them. Yes, I will continue to cover the area. Schrödinger out". And with that finally said she simply vanish, not even a sound of her moving or something similar, simply at one moment she was there and the moment after not.
[Miami port, near to where Antioch's ship is anchored]
The battle is lost. That much is evident. And yet, there is no anger, regret or displeasure in Antioch's heart. He knew from the start that this operation was a suicide one.
Anastasia had warned him about it.
And yet when the operation started he wanted to believe in his heart that the operation would succeed, that he and the soldiers under his command would return home.
'Alas it was nothing more than naïve wish-fulfilment'.
He didn't believe even for a single moment that surrendering to the enemy was possible, not after what they have done. And even if he could contemplate it, the soldiers under his command could not.
'!'
He heard them. Two of them coming from behind him. He already knew that enemy reinforcement have arrived, and judging from the general direction from which they were attacking they must be survivors from the "ambush2 that Fiona had planned against the villa. If they are already here then for what it concerns him Fiona is dead, one way or the other.
But he can't die yet. He has still one final duty to uphold, if nothing more for who has given him a final chance in life, even if it went out like this.
And so he turns around to face the two that have decided to go after his head, but when he can see the faces of who he is going to battle to the death he is shocked for a moment, before relaxing his body, a grim smile on his face and some contemplative thoughts about fate.
"John Rorschach… I must presume".
John is a little taken back from the fact that the enemy commander knows him to the point to recognize him on the spot. Even more strange is the fact that said commander doesn't seem to want to fight, there is a strange calmness in his form. He decides to answer while remaining vigilant.
"You would presume right. May I know the name of who has caused all of this and that I am going to kill".
"*giggles* Yes, of course. I am Antioch, and you are truly like she has told me".
"Who are you talking about?".
"Sorry. I can't tell you. Nevertheless, I have a message for you. If you want to listen to it?".
John and Satan give a rapid look to one another and with a nod John says. "Okay, I will listen".
"You have friends between the shadows, Child of Humanity. This is the message".
For Satan this message doesn't mean anything, but when she looks back at John he can see his whole trembling just slightly, as if that message has bring out memories from a distant past,
"HOW?".
But Antioch simply put his hand forward in a stop gesture. "This is what I had to tell you. SHE has gone through a lot of trouble to make sure I could give this message to you. Now, it is the moment to end all of this".
In the distant they can see the noise of the battle growing ever so silent, the clear indication that the battle is going to end soon, and not in favour of Antioch's forces.
"Sad things aren't they?" Antioch says looking towards the general direction of where his forces should be "Second Generation Therianthrope they call them. Quite the fancy name for Clones. Don't you think?".
Antioch could see the total disgust on John's face. "I see. It seemed strange to me that their way of moving and reacting was so mechanic. *tch* creating clones is something I would expect from Shidou".
"Indeed. And this is why I can't leave them behind. Like me they never had a choice in their life. Even their emotion have been stolen from them. In their heart there is nothing but rage, contempt and obedience. Like me the only thing they know is War. War is our life, the Master of our chains and the only thing we are good at. I could not change their fate, and SHE in the end could not change my. But for mere instant I have seen a glimpse of a life that could have been, but in the end it will be nothing but a pointless dream".
Antioch looks straight in the eye to John, acceptance of his fate written all over his face.
"I have but one thing to ask to you, John Rorschach. I want a warrior death, could you help me with it?".
John looks directly in the eyes of the one who is his enemy, searching for treachery or lies, but finding nothing.
"Why do you search for such a death?".
Antioch then answers with honesty, like a mountain has been lift from his heart.
"For all my life I never had a choice, but at least, for this one last moment of mine. I want to decide how I will die. I don't want a death of a coward how tried to save his skin to the last moment, and dying of old age or in a prison is not something that will ever happen to me, nor it will be allowed. And dying like a death row inmate doesn't suite with me either. I was born into the battlefield, I lived into the battlefield and…*sigh* it only seems correct to me that here is where my story should end".
With his final words said Antioch summons his exoskeleton has a greater stag beetle and put himself in a combat pose with his right arm already flexed and ready to throw the strongest right hook he can give.
John for his part starts to walk towards him. He let go of his rifle and summons the nanobots in his armour to create a katana inside its sheath and places it to his right side.
"Satan… let me handle him".
Satan doesn't respond. She simply gives a solemn nod and stand aside waiting for the result of the fight.
John continue to move one step at the time with a solemn and determined look in his eyes. When there are only 10 steps between him and Antioch, he crunch in a forward position with his left leg in front of him in the typical position of Aikido.
At the same time Antioch bolts towards him with all his might, trying to reach the death he has so much desired.
'Quantum Martial Arts: Aikido Style: 4th Kata…'
In the same moment John uses his left leg to bolt himself towards Antioch, the movement his so rapid that even the superhuman eyes of both Antioch and Satan lose sight of him for an instant.
And that instant is all what he needs.
"Ghost cut".
A clank sound his what both Antioch and Satan hear when John suddenly reappears behind Antioch when he is still in mid swing.
"Th…an…k…s" it is all that he says before his head separate itself from his body while the latter, still propelled from his last action, crumble to the ground rolling for a couple of meters and ending near Satan's feet.
Satan has not even the time to connect what has happened that loud noise comes from John. Looking better she can sees his left punch pointed down towards the ground and a small crater were before there was a perfect road. But even better, as she is the Devil Lord of Wrath, she can feel the massive and oh so sweet rage boiling inside of him, screaming and kicking to be left out. As Wrath is her dominion being near to someone with such a massive source of it is like an Aphrodisiac for her, but she will not sully this battleground with her lust for him, not that her diamond-hard nipples and increasingly wet pussy help with it; but John is stronger than this and he quickly subdue his rampant rage 'I will find you Shidou, and I will kill you. And this, IS A PROMISE'.
With his rage finally subdued he goes back to Satan and the two moves towards their forces to reconnect with their allies.
The sounds of the battle has finally ended.
They have won. But at what price.
[Two days later. Asmodeus's Villa]
The situation after the battle ended can only be described as utter chaos and an unholy amount of calls and papers.
After dealing with the remnants of Antioch's army John and company went all over Miami trying to help everyone and find if in the destroyed parts of the city there were still survivors, unfortunately there weren't. It was only by the night of the next day, after reestablishing contact with the Federal Government that the bulk of the relief forces were able to have some form of an estimation of the damage. What happen next was a mobilization of resources and vehicles never seen in the History of both the USA and the American continent at large.
But the worst reaction was from the media and political part.
Obviously the black-lash from such an event was devastating for the image of the White House and the USA at large. Because, even if a correct estimation was not yet out, when you have one of your most important and famous city being attacked without any type of reaction whatsoever and it end up with said population of the city being reduced AT LEAST by half. Well, you can only imagine the shitstorm of unholy proportion that is falling on Washington right now.
Obviously the media tried to obtain as much information as possible from the remaining citizen, but on one hand the civilian were either to shell-shocked to answer or simply wanted to find their relatives. On the other hand the remaining members of the police and other security forces all over Miami were put under a non-divulgation act or directly moved somewhere else.
The only thing that the White House has said as of now is that an unknown and well-armed terrorist groups has attacked the city. All of them have been killed, but the Speaker refused to tell how many terrorist were presents, and of course the bodies were taken away and moved in the nearest military bases, outside of the eyes of the public.
Honestly speaking it is good move. Already having to deal with an attack of such proportions is putting a very heavy strain on the society as it is, if they knew that ten thousand, religious fanatics, fully armed, crusaders human-animal hybrid have landed with the intention of launching a genocidal total war on Humanity.
Yeah, Anarchy is already at the front door ready to enter with a mighty kick and a machine gun at arms.
For John and company nothing of that mattered at that moment, as they were busy for the past 28 hours to find survivors and/or their bodies and coordinate the various relief teams. Asmodeus for her part was busy to gauge the extent of how much she has lost in terms of followers both Demonic and Humans, bury their corpses and sending letters of condolence to their families.
After that all of them slept for 12 hours straight because of the effort, none of them had the energy to do anything else honestly.
Right now, after a good amount of sleep all of them are inside Asmodeus's Villa doing lunch and making order to the chaos of the last 2 days. Satan is not with them, because after the battle she immediately went back to Hell's Gate to help Belial in dealing with the souls that were coming to Hell
"So Selina. Do we have a correct estimation of the results of the battle?"
Selina then stands up and takes her notebook.
"*cough…cough* We have obtained the results from the last survey. These numbers are 99% correct, so we can fairly say that these numbers are the final ones. So… we will officially recognize what has happened in the last 48 hours as The Battle for Miami. The two forces on the battlefield were the Therianthrope Army and a mix of various forces both military and non under the banner of the United States of America. The results of the battle have been: from a Tactical perspective the USA Pyrrhic Victory, while on the Strategic and Political field it was a Decisive Victory for the Therianthrope. On the matter of casualties we have: out of the 410000 civilian in Miami 307500 are confirmed Killed in Action (KIA) of the remaining 102500 more than 60% of them is wounded with 25% of them in grave conditions but not in life danger. This covers all the Humans in the city. In regard to Lady Asmodeus's Succubus: out of the 400 Succubus that were present at the Villa for the party. 337 are confirmed dead, with all the Low-rank and more than 80% of the Mid-rank Succubus eliminated. In regard to Mr. John own forces: Liberty Prime has sustained a lot of damage, mainly because of the sheer amount of explosives throwed at him, he will need at least 1 month worth of reparation and whole section of his arms and legs being removed because damaged beyond repair. In regard to contingent of 200 Combat Robots deployed we have no casualties, with 50 wounded and 1 whose body was damaged beyond repair, but whose Core Data Chip was intact, so we can put him into another body and as such we didn't count him in the casualties. Of the 11 V2-Viper drones employed none of them has been shot down, but some requires maintenance because of being shoot from the ground with machine guns. The damage to the city of Miami is estimated in more than 650 Billion dollars, with the resources needed to restore the city easily surpassing 1.2 Trillion dollars. As for the Therianthrope Army we have confirmed that all the 10000 soldiers composing the invading force are KIA. Interesting is that half of said forces was composed of Feline or Land Animal Hybrids, while the other half was composed of Insect Hybrids. Moreover, looking back at the registrations from the satellite and the various drones it seems that just after 5 minutes from their landing they have separated themselves to reach their different objectives and have been almost no interaction between the two ever after. This concludes the report on the battle".
There is an awkward silence after Selina has finished her report, hearing the real extent of the damage that Antioch and Fiona have caused is not something to scoff at, worst of all, they were clones, cannon fodder, made specifically for one purpose and being cheap in doing so. Already they have the weapons to fight them, when said weapons will be used by expert soldiers, the damage will be way worse.
"Okay, so. Where are the lot of you going next?". Asmodeus asks to her guests. Her face showing a lack of sleeps because of both giving proper burial to her Succubus and writing hundreds of condolence letters to all her followers parents that have been killed.
"To the only person that can give us a modicum of an answer of what is going on, and our next target. Her HQ is at New York. We will go this afternoon. While Liberty Prime may need reparation, its capabilities as a pure transport plane have not been affected. You aren't going with us I must presume".
Asmodeus gently shocks her head. "No, I must return to Hell, both to help Satan dealing with the new, innocent souls can't go to Heaven, situation, to deal with the souls of my followers that are on their way there and, together with Satan and Belial trying to extract as many information as possible from the bastards that have fall to Hell. But remember to send me a message or two during your trip sweety *wink*".
"*giggles* don't worry honey, I will remember to do so. Now, girls. I think it is time to go".
And with that said John, Lucifer and all the rest of the band, now with add of Karin, Scilla and Yuuya go towards the Big Apple to talk with THE most influential Devil Lord in the World.
The Golden Queen!.
The Empress of Money!.
The Shadow Queen of the World!.
Mammon, The Devil Lord of Greed!.
END
A.N.
Hello everyone Ghostfire here.
And with this chapter the battle for Miami is officially over. I will admit that I left out some of the extra content and some of the descriptions, but this is nonetheless the way things went.
Besides, if I wanted to remain in my 5000 word mark I would have need another three chapters to complete the whole battle. I will surely provide a better description in the Extended Version of Transhumanist in Hell. When I will do so another matter entirely.
Nevertheless, now that Shidou and Heaven have officially declared war on Humanity things are going to proceed very fast. In the next couple of chapters we will have a look at Mammon and her influence in the Human World.
On a last note, after I will end the whole 1°Arc, I will make a couple of Bonus chapters. They will be purely sexual in nature and will describe some extra scenes of "bonding" between John and the various supernatural beings.
I will see all of you next chapter and I will wait your comments.