All the Emperor asks of us is that we do our Duty and die fighting. It is what we do best…
We Die Standing.
-General Sturnn, Cadian 412th
The surface of the Earth had long been abandoned by humanity. A hundred years since Ark Guardian, the final operation to evacuate mankind's survivors down to the eponymous Last City, the Raptures in their seemingly infinite numbers owned the Surface. It was for this reason that, in the last decade, humanity had begun their own operations.
Scouting jobs, necessitating the machine-human cyborg warriors of Mankind, the Goddesses of Victory, Nikkes, to be deployed to the planet's surface under the Commanders of the Military, the Central Government's well-equipped arm, meant to both suppress terror activities and fight on the Surface, depending on the make and capability of Nikkes.
One such squad now waded through the remains of a surface metropolis, weapons in hand and guarding their very own commander. Though they were a ragtag group, a three-member party that barely got along, not due to any difference in beliefs and ideals, but in personalities, the Squad, callsign:COUNTERS, was one of the most well-known up-and-coming squads.
"... I'm telling you, Rapi, it's fine! The new Willis movie's on the Commander!" Anis, a buxom, fairly beautiful young woman with short, dirty blonde hair and auburn eyes quipped, arranging her beret on her head and leaning her grenade launcher on her shoulder. She smirked, looking over at the man leading them, then asked, "Right, Commander?"
"If you mean I'm buying tickets, Anis, then sure," The man, clad in an experimental armor set that had been gifted to him by Elysion after one too many encounters with a particularly nasty brand of Rapture, replied as he leaned his own heavily modified general purpose machine gun on his shoulder. Commander Alyosha Harris was a young gentleman, descended from Ukrainian and American Ark citizens and had a bit of pull in the Ark after several successful missions. Hence the armor.
The executive officer of the team, a long-haired girl with hair the color of a strange coloring and scarlet eyes, sighed deeply and said, "Anis, didn't we talk about taking advantage of the Commander?" to which the grenadier girl's grin grew a little wider. The deadpan with which Rapi, the squad XO and a former member of Elysion's best team, Absolute, stared at Anis was a telltale sign of just how tired she was of having this argument.
"I bet Master doesn't mind, though," The third member of the squad, also an Elysion doll(While Anis was one of Tetra's) quipped, smiling. She pushed her glasses onto the bridge of her nose, emerald eyes peering at the rest of the group as she brought up the rear of the formation. She told Rapi, "But I think we are a bit tight on funds, right…?"
"Yes," Rapi replied as calmly as she could muster, "Thank you, Neon… We can't waste our credits on frivolous things like movie tickets… Not while we still need to refresh our food supply," and she cast a glance at the wreck of an ancient, destroyed car. A four-wheel family car, its windows long shattered, occupants presumably dead. The bags were still in the back.
Anis sighed and said, "Fair enough, I guess. I'm not giving up my soda supply just for a movie," in a mumble. She blinked as she saw a discolored main battle tank left-over from the start of the war on their left, buried within the wall of an old office building by the rubble it stirred upon impacting it. A nasty, melted and cooled hole drilled by a neutron beam from one of the Raptures still burned in its side.
Bullet holes, destroyed glass and broken facades, all overgrown in a hundred years of runaway brush and trees. The surface was slowly being reclaimed by nature, even with all the environmental damage caused by the First Invasion and the fighting to push it back. It was horrific to even think how it was back there.
"It's fine," Alyosha spoke, "I can spare a few Credits for a little night out to relax after this mission," and he looked upon Rapi, who furrowed her brow. He shrugged, smiling a little behind his helmet's mask. She sighed deeply, pinching the bow of her nose as they strode through the place. The group continued to advance down the road, eyes scanning the entire area for hostile contacts.
The Raptures, enemies of mankind for the past century, owned the entire Surface of Earth, having driven humanity deep underground. Invulnerable to all but the heaviest conventional human weapons, the Raptures had necessitated the creation of the Nikkes and their own specialized firearms. Weapons not to be wielded by human hands.
And yet the Commander had managed to convince the Big Three through the favors they owed him to make this armor a possibility. The exoskeleton he wore, an armored power suit, was a prototype of the earliest days of the war, when human soldiers were still trying to go toe-to-toe with the vile enemy that had killed so many of them. His machine gun, a PKM heavily modified to fire Nikke-standard point-three-thirty eight Lapua Magnum rounds, was part of the suit.
The suit was new, pristine. But he felt the age, the strength behind it, like it gave him more of a chance to fight side-by-side with them. With his Nikkes. With the people he cared about. Now, more than ever, they needed it, with the encroaching tide of Raptures and all the newly-arisen issues like Chatterbox and Syuen.
They continued their march, Neon stating, "You know, going by the holes drilled into these walls, the shots fired were APFSDS. 120 millimeter guns. Looks like they were trying to take out Raptures that broke through the buildings," as they walked past the holes drilled by the fin-stabilized tungsten arrows of ancient main battle tanks.
"Very cool, Neon," Anis replied absentmindedly, then mumbled, "Anyone else noticing this place is awfully quiet, though? Like, weren't we supposed to be clearing out some Raptures up here…?" as she readied her launcher, thumbing the safety off, which caused the other three members of the Counters to tense, weapons readied.
The Commander gave a gentle chop of the hand forward, showing the girls to follow him as they pushed deeper down the ruined streets of the city. Road signs overhead sparked with still-coursing electricity as they moved under them, though the sparks hurt little. The four-person fireteam kept up the move, Rapi calling, "Shifty… Alva particle concentration, please?"
"Surprisingly minimal for an area marked as a high-level Rapture activity zone," Their handler, a young woman going by the Callsign 'Shifty', replied calmly over the com. She stated, "I'm picking up some weird readings, though. Definitely not Alva, but there's… Stand-by," she then paused. The entire team tensed. The Commander pointed with an open palm to positions that provided cover.
The distant thump of Rapture armature legs reached them. The ground began to shake as a horde of Raptures appeared on scopes, Shifty noting, "Rapture task force detected! Though I'm guessing you don't need me to tell you that, Commander! Please, be careful!" only to pause as she heard the man rack the bolt of his .338 LMG.
Peering down the scope of the weapon, he looked at the red-glowing Raptures, right at their cores. Multiple units of various sizes, rushing toward them. It was then that he also noticed the marks on them. Melted armor, soldered artificial muscles and missing weapons, their mounts flash-boiled and destroyed.
"What the-" He blanked, before static played in his com.
Rapi felt a presence to their left. In the corner of her eye, she saw movement in the shadows of an abandoned building. Then, her eyes went wide as she heard a garbled comm transmission bark, "PRIMUS SQUAD, FIRE AT WILL! SECUNDUS AND TERCIO, MAKE CONTACT WITH LOCALS AND EVACUATE!"
… Flashes of scarlet laced the air ahead. Snaps and pops echoed, as if the air itself seemed to boil as angry beams struck the Rapture formation, staggering the leading Thermite Beta unit and cutting lattice-marks across its body, boiling away armor and shearing through exposed, pulsating artificial musculature.
The monster doubled over the moment a more focused shot struck its eye. The thunderclap of boots striking concrete filled the team's ears. Alyosha's own motion sensor picked up their new allies and he turned about, watching as soldiers clad in dark-green armors with orange splotches as camouflage appeared. Their armors were fully-encased and marred by scorch marks and bullet holes.
Their bodies were bandaged, some of them lacking helmets, their heads covered by medical gauze colored scarlet by their own blood. The only things they still wore were goggles and respirator masks. Their weapons were strange, connected to heavy backpacks mounted to the rears of the carapace-like armors they wore.
And they glowed. Glowed a burning scarlet, beams lancing forward through the air. Two platoons of around forty men and women each stepped forward, their strange beam weapons focusing down the Rapture horde as bullets zipped past the Counters' heads, striking the battle plate they wore. One of these soldiers stepped forward, hefting a mighty-looking, blue-glowing weapon with radiators atop it.
He called out in a bellowing voice, "PERISH, XENO SCUM!" as he charged the weapon, an audible whirr of power surging through the cables and gaseous material being ionized within the chamber echoing, the radiators glowing an ever-brighter azure. He squeezed the trigger and a boulder of ionized gas flew out of the maw of the weapon, heat exhaust ejecting from four ports near the barrel.
The shocked Counters watched the energy blast strike a leading Thermite dead-center. It screamed in pain, a horrifying sound like a dying animal as it staggered back, its angular armor plates boiling away, the rail rifles attached to the two arms on the sides of its head boiling, the ammunition within them exploding.
The machine collapsed in front of its comrades the moment its Oculus boiled away. The seeming leader of the unit, one armed with a strange glowing sword and a pistol that was also connected to her backpack, gently tapped the plasma gunner on the shoulder and called out, "Fine shot, Kaine! Strauss, Pask, get these four out of the way and into cover!"
"Aye, Captain!" The men called out. One of the soldiers, one who had a bandaged arm, approached Alyosha and said to him, "Whoever you are, I am Lieutenant Strauss! You and your…" he cast a glance at the three Nikkes, his eyes seemingly widening behind his goggles. He shook it off, calling, "You and your comrades need to move!"
"... Who in… Who are you all?" Alyosha could barely utter out as he watched the firing line light the Raptures ahead up in scarlet fire. One Rapture, however, was quick on the draw. Its rail rifle locked and, before the soldier could answer, the round struck the side of his head, smearing blood and brain matter across the ground.
"Feth!" The Captain swore, then walked over to Alyosha and grabbed him by the arm, stating, "MOVE, YOU FETH-HEAD! WILKE, GRAB STRAUSS'S CORPSE!" before she aimed her own pistol. A smaller version of the massive cannon 'Kaine' wielded, it hissed as she squeezed the trigger, one single blast striking the machine that shot their man right in the gun.
"Commander! We need to move!" Rapi stated as she stood up, starting to fire into the Rapture horde as well. Anis and Neon followed suit, with Alyosha, his heart beating rapidly after having seen a man in what looked like similar armor to his get domed, standing up and firing as well. He motioned backward with his hand as he fired and moved over to help 'Wilke' carry the dead Strauss.
The commander of the group fired another blast while the rest of her unit fought a fighting retreat. A small suicide rapture charged her, with Alyosha turning and gasping as he saw the approach. He aimed his gun, but staggered as the woman shifted her wrist upward. The blade flashed, glowing azure as it cut through the Rapture's core and split it in twain.
When she got a callback from her team, she started running back, firing her pistol without charging it. It visibly began to glow, more and more unstable with each blast, but she stowed it and her blade, running into the building Primus Squad was using as cover. She knelt beside Alyosha and the girls, then put a hand up to her ear and said, "This is Detachment Invictus to command. We are under cover. Proceed with danger close bombardment."
"Roger, Invictus. Heads down. The Emperor protects, but fools aren't all top of His list," Another male voice replied, with Alyosha and the girls picking it up. The captain of the unit looked at the Counters, then showed them to follow as she drew her pistol again. Climbing up to the second floor via a few worn concrete steps whose covers were peeled away by much earlier fighting, the team was met with the sight of a whole other forty-man platoon of these soldiers.
The woman approached the seeming leader of the formation, one clad in a slightly more ornate armor, then knelt and said, "Lieutenant Strauss is dead. One of these damnable machines sniped him as we were trying to get the four out of the way, sir," and she motioned to them. The man, slightly taller than her, turned toward the group. Alyosha had taken his helmet off, revealing a sweat-covered, tired young man, eyes wide and apologetic.
He then put a hand on his captain's shoulder and said, "He died well… Strip his gear and prepare to bury him. We'll need to move to the rendezvous with the rest of the Regiment as soon as humanly possible," which caused all four members of the Counters to gasp, shocked by such nonchalance to a dead comrade.
The officer stood up, walking over to Alyosha, his arms crossed behind his back. He then spoke, "My name is Major Matias Telos, commander of the Kasrkin Corps, Cadian First Youth, Imperial Guard… Do you mind telling me whom I just sacrificed one of my finest Lieutenants for?" and his voice sounded terrifyingly young.
".. U-uhm…" Alyosha blinked, then licked his lips, tasting the salt of his own sweat. He wiped his brow, then stated, "Commander Alyosha Harris and Counters Squad. Ark Military, Central Government…" all while thinking of the title. 'First Youth'. A Regiment. That meant a military. That meant a military on the surface. He swallowed empty, then asked, "... A-Are those energy weapons-" only to cut off as the ground around them shook.
Thundering blasts sent dust up high and shook the very building they were in, a walking barrage striking the very ground where the Rapture forces ahead were. Shrapnel struck parts of the building's remaining facade and the insides near the window frames, scraping concrete. They had fucking artillery! Alyosha thought to himself.
"Yes?" Matias replied, sliding his pistol back into his holster. He then looked at the guns wielded by him and his squad and said, "Oh. Stubbers. That's why you're asking," in a mumble. He spoke, "We figured this world was technologically regressive, but utilizing auto-weaponry to fight machines like those heretical things out there is…"
"... The best we got," Anis replied, taking a step forward. She looked at the 'Major' and asked, "W-Whaddaya mean First Youth?"
The man was about to reply, but something garbled played over his com. He said, "No time to answer that just yet. We have to make the Rendezvous with the rest of our Regiment by sundown. Our acting Colonel and the Inquisitor who requisitioned us will answer all the questions you have, but they will also ask a few. Answer them at your best… Inquisitors aren't known to be patient with liars."
"Commander," Rapi started. She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back, whispering, "I don't like this," as she watched the soldiers gather their gear and pack the dead man for burial. She told him, "I know they've just saved our lives, but there's something strange about all of them. The voices, the weapons, the…"
"... I think it's our best bet to get back home right now," He sighed deeply, then looked at Anis, who was eyeing the soldiers with suspicion. He then looked over at Neon, only to see her… Drooling over the soldiers' firearms, much to the chagrin of the one with the handheld plasma cannon. He was the object of her seeming affection and questions about Firepower.
Classic Neon, he thought to himself, then sighed and looked at Rapi. She seemed to resign herself, nodding and stating, "It's your decision, Commander… Just give the order and we'll be right with you," before looking over at the Major. She had wanted to say that these soldiers, these 'Cadians' didn't care about their own.
… She soon saw quite the opposite, however. A soldier took his helmet, mask and goggles off, revealing a terrifyingly young face marred by scars, his dirty blond hair caught regulation short, but into a claw-like haircut. He held in his hands a strange, golden two-headed eagle pendant. He put his hands together in the shape of said eagle, then began to pray as they covered the corpse with a tarp.
Another, the female Captain, knelt and put a hand on the young man's chest as they'd stripped his gear. She then whispered a quick prayer, gently grabbed his dog tags and tore them off, pocketing them. She stood up, then marched over to the Commander and said to him, "Yer lucky, Feth-Head. Strauss took that shot for ya…"
She wasn't hostile, though. Resigned and sad, yeah, but hostile?
Anis, however, didn't like the tone, stating, "Hey, give him a break," with a hint of bite to her bark. The officer looked at Anis, pulled her goggles up to reveal deep blue eyes, hummed and snorted. Anis balked, "What? What's so funny?" before pausing as she saw scars even on this young woman's face. The head of a dragon tattoo, drawn in dark-blue ink, poked out from behind the helmet's side, too.
The Captain replied, "Defendin' your CO, eh?" before stating happily, "Must be a good man, then," before gently patting Alyosha on the shoulder and stating, "Bet he's gonna have plenty of time to prove it, though," as she walked off. Anis scoffed, while the Commander let out a deep sigh, understanding the hostility a bit. He did just get one of theirs killed by not acting immediately.
The Major spoke, "Apologies for Amy. She cares deeply for all of the Kasrkin under our joint command…" then he mumbled, "She is also extremely brash…" before he radioed, "All Invictus elements, prepare to move to Checkpoint Zeta. Rendezvous with Chimera evacuation estimated in five minutes."
One minute later, the 'burial' had been completed. The corpse had been covered with a tarp and laid to rest in an old shell hole that the soldiers quickly filled back up. They didn't even bother putting up a cross, Alyosha thought, before the entire hundred-twenty soldier strong force of these 'Kasrkin' moved forward.
They didn't just march down the streets in broad daylight, though. As they passed by the destroyed remains of the Raptures they'd wiped with both shot and artillery shell, forward members moved ahead to act as scouts while the heavy weapons, those plasma guns, took point in the normal formation. Each member was tense, their strange laser machine guns raised high and aimed around, like an angry porcupine about to sprout burning red quills.
The Counters soon found themselves in the center of this formation, guarded by the Kasrkin, these soldiers of the First Youth, armed to the teeth in energy weaponry. Alyosha whispered to himself, "A whole regiment… Survivors we didn't know anything about, maybe?" as his mind wandered into a thousand places.
"Major?" Alyosha started, looking at the soldier at the front. He turned his head and tilted his head, as if telling him to ask away. He spoke, "What did you mean 'First Youth'?"
"My Colonel would do better answering that," He answered, "Emperor damn it if it isn't a long story," before turning to face forward again and drawing his pistol and sword as they delved further in. The Commander let out a deep sigh, then turned to look at Rapi. He saw the girl was uneasy, her gloves creasing as her grip on her rifle was tight.
Anis wasn't doing much better, eyeing each of the soldiers around with concern. Some were shorter than even Neon by a forehead, but they still toted gear that made them looked like walking, living tanks. Some of their guns still glowed a faint orange at the barrels' tips, signs of recent use against the Raptures.
Two balled fists were raised and the entire unit tensed, several members moving forward to take cover. Alyosha and his team did, too, setting up beside the man with the plasma cannon. He told them, "Might wanna stay away. These things have a bad habit of exploding if mishandled…" before shifting the weapon onto his knee and whispering a prayer.
Wide-eyed, the four-person team took a few steps away, hiding behind an overturned car as they waited. They paused as they heard the roar of vehicle engines and treads grinding the concrete below. They felt in their chests the rumbling thunder of the transports, only to pause as they saw vehicles with angled frames and additional armor approaching, their main guns attached to armored turrets and looking like automatic cannons.
Four such vehicles approached, bearing camouflage in various shades of greens and browns. The officer on top of the lead vehicle, manning what looked like a heavy machinegun, called out to the Kasrkin, "Get your arses aboard! The Colonel needs us back to form a defensive perimeter!" to which the 120 men and women stood up. They looked at the ever-more-confused members of the Counters.
Matias told them, "Come. You'll get all the answers you need," before offering a hand to Alyosha. The man blinked, staring at it, then sighed and thought to himself that, if they were gonna die, he figured it might've been better to go out by the guns of fellow humans. He looked at his comrades, all of whom nodded in approval, despite obvious apprehension.
He took the soldier's hand and stood up. They boarded the armored vehicle in the lead, climbing on top, like a lot of the soldiers. The vehicles then swiveled about and began their trip down the broken boulevard ahead, pushing aside destroyed and damaged vehicles and pushing through rubble thanks to the leading vehicle having a dozer blade.
The commander of the tracked IFV looked back at the Counters and said, "Emperor above, they sure dress their soldiers weird here!" in a thick accent. Anis glared at him for a moment, but the man gave a nod of his head and smirked, then turned back, grabbing onto the handle-bars of the strange high-caliber machine gun.
It didn't take long for gunfire to sound in their ears, distant, but getting closer. The vehicles soon rolled out into what looked to be a larger boulevard, to the sight of makeshift fortifications. Piles of cars and strange, old-looking armored fighting vehicles positioned behind the barricades, with similar vehicles to these 'Chimeras' guarding the area.
Infantry clad in lighter armors than those of the Kasrkin waved them inside. All of them had camouflage overalls with similar patterns to their vehicles, including the multi-turreted, heavily-armored battle tanks around. These tanks had sponson batteries with heavy guns and even a gun mounted at the front, while their turrets bore massive battle cannons.
To their right, among rubble and torn-down buildings, the tall stalks of dozens of heavy artillery guns pointed up at the sky at an angle. Every half-second, a gun roared, followed by another, then another. Like a neat row of trees in old photographs of fruit orchards, their crowns being the gouts of flame from ejecting gases.
… Several blocks had been converted into a makeshift base of operations by these soldiers. Explosions blossomed in the distance, the artillery shells landing nearby a presumed Front Line with the Raptures. They passed by an infirmary where soldiers bearing white pauldrons with medical signs tended to the wounded, alongside what looked like armored nuns with the head-dresses of the ancient orders Hospitaller.
Companies of soldiers rushed toward the defensive lines, moving so fast, their faces were a blur. One thing that was not a blur, though, were their boxy rifles, glistening with bayonets at the tip. Some were stained scarlet already, while others looked weathered and rusted. As did the soldiers, now that Alyosha thought about it, his eyes wide.
The vehicles rolled up to what seemed to be the makeshift Headquarters of this unit. Nun-looking women clad in odd medieval armors stood guard, massive firearms held in their hands, white hair flowing in the breeze. They had Fleurs-De-Lis as tattoos, all of them. On the right side of their faces and even on their guns, emblazoned in black and gold respectively.
The Major showed the team to follow them, dismounting from the transports. He ordered, "Captain! Take the formation forth and assist our comrades against these vile creatures! The Emperor have you in His watch!" words which still caused the entire squad to be a bit weirded out. Neon aside. She seemed to be mostly interested in their weapons.
"You, too, Matt!" The girl replied jovially and saluted. The Chimeras began to roll away to the fighting.
Matias then led them inside, hand on his blade's hilt. The massive leather sheath he'd slid it into hugged the weapon tightly and bobbed a little, but he managed to hold it into place as they walked through into the ruined former convenience store. Within, they caught sight of the command force of this Regiment.
A man clad in a strangely beautiful, gothic-style armor and holding onto very similarly ornate weapons. He arranged a strange witch's hat he wore, which had on its front a massive 'I' with three golden lines crossing down the middle and a golden skull in the middle. In front of him, several other officers stood, with the leading one, a woman in a trench-coat with green armor and camo gear, speaking, "... These things have just begun another attack. Where is 5th Company?"
"Not far out from the battle site, ma'am," A young officer replied.
She ordered, "Vox them to hurry the hell along. We haven't got the time to dilly-dally. Not until we've gathered all forces and found somewhere more suitable to set up a base in," before pausing as she heard Matias clear his voice. She turned toward him and smiled, saying, "Major," as the two saluted each-other by pounding their right fist into the left side of their breastplate each. She looked at Alyosha and his team, then whispered, "And the new contacts…"
"Greetings," She said to them, "I am Colonel Nulla Telos, acting officer of the First Youth… And we need your help."