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"With Wings of Damnation"Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5
Chapter 3: Innocence Lost
The sound of thunder broke the silence, but not from above. The rumbling was consistent, and approaching. Soon, obvious breaks in the sound made themselves known – these were powerful footsteps. It was not long before the waving grass, the gentle breeze that caressed the earth, found itself broken by the shifting weight of a great mechanical beast. Standing on two legs, this behemoth swung its weight about to face the direction it had fled from. Its blood red paint seemed almost natural, as though the metal was injured, spilling its life onto its thick, nearly impenetrable skin. It stood at many times the height of even a Martian. This was a HERCULAN, a manmade creation, designed to traverse any environment, and destroy any obstacle in its path. Two pods rested where the shoulders of a man would be, mounting two very large beam weapons on either side. Its head hung forward, like a snake’s. The ‘Herc,’ as the media called them, was, specifically, a ‘Basilisk.’ Walking tanks, they were the forefront of modern technology, the gods of the battlefield. ----- This Basilisk, crushing the planet beneath its massive weight, burdened by two great armored legs, was fleeing from something. Even as powerful as this creature was, it was still vulnerable – still mortal. Something even larger was approaching, stalking its prey. The air rippled and shook, giving the appearance that it was on fire. A fading red beam of light burned the particles next to the Basilisk’s face, missing the body slightly. The Basilisk finally found its target, and faced the direction the beam had traveled from. Its target appeared from out of distant fog, the rays of light from the breaks in the clouds above shining against its armored body. This metal monster was red and gray as well. Its form was different, however – its bulk was greater, its height more pronounced by its towering weapon pods. This was an ‘Apocalypse’ – with it, it brought its namesake. A shot fired from within one of the Apocalypse’s weapon pods, fitted discretely out of view of its opponent. The fog burned away and fled from the exit point, the beam of light instantly connecting with the cockpit of the Basilisk. The snake Herc back peddled through the wet grass, scarring it with its immense tonnage. Weaving as it moved, the Basilisk returned fire with all four of its weapons at once, the ruby lights converging into the fog at a single point, crossing into one another and vanishing into the distance – its target had evaded, but only slightly. Three shots poured from the weapons of the Apocalypse, although not simultaneously. Two hit, while the third singed the grass behind its target. The Basilisk suddenly powered forward, rushing at a speed it had not previously revealed. The two vehicles suddenly began a heated exchange of weapons fire, pouring their laser fire into one another’s bodies as the two rushed at one another. The two armors collided at over one hundred kilometers an hour, sending a small shock through the grass around them, fighting the wind that controlled their steady waves. The sound resounded beyond the limits of the clouded field, echoing off unseen mountains and returning back to its source. The Basilisk fell backwards more so than the Apocalypse, its body shaking from the force of the blow. The weapons on the former veered off into separate directions, the focus of their aim lost for but a moment. The latter, seeing its best chance, trained all six of its weapons onto its target and fired. The two vehicles stood still for a moment after the blast, the gentle hum of their reactors mixing with the sounds of the field, which once again took precedence. Rain began to drizzle onto the heated bodies of the two Hercs, steam drifting off of their metal skins, flying away in the breeze. ----- “Christ, you’re bad at this,” a voice bled through the Basilisk’s radio. “I’m in a Basilisk, damn it!” the pilot responded. “What am I supposed to do, hit you with the debris shaking off my armor?” The Apocalypse’s pilot laughed. “You just don’t know how to use it. I’ve seen some Knights eat up ‘better equipped’ pilots in Basilisks. Sure, they’re behind the times, but it doesn’t say too much for you, since I was going easy on you to begin with.” “My ass, Isis!” The Basilisk pilot removed her helmet, letting her shoulder-length black hair fall free. “Don’t even start with me!” “Calm down, Claire,” Isis said, this time more seriously. “I’m just kidding you.” “Sorry. …Sorry,” Claire responded, rubbing her temple. “I’m just frustrated. I haven’t won a single tag fight since I joined the Eagles.” “I wouldn’t expect you to, Claire. The Blood Eagle has its own reputation to keep up. If I went easy on you and screwed up, they’d probably kick me out of the order. ‘Carve the bastards’ doesn’t have any lead way for mercy.” The Blood Eagle’s motto rang through Claire’s head. She had repeated it for what seemed thousands of times during her initial training. Her initial prowess as a high ranking standard fighter had not helped her during her initiation into this elite corp. Many of the veteran members had given her a hard time, putting a bitter taste in her mouth for the whole idea of joining the Blood Eagle officially. They had a bad reputation to begin with – something Claire had not familiarized herself enough with. Her father had warned her of the problems associated with their order, as he had left the order a long time ago, but she had not listened; she was more concerned with advancing her career than ensuring her complacency. Her past position had its effect – she had become more impatient and presumptuous due to the consistent bragging her superiors had laid on her. In reality, her father’s position, not her own abilities, had paved the way for her success. Still, she possessed exceptional gifts, despite this fact. Kenjris Seuku-Tau, her father, was a political figure that had formed a close relationship with the Emperor over the years. He had risen from obscurity to immediate popularity in only a few months, as the result of multiple appearances with the Emperor’s core circle of representatives and informants. Although this group was rather large due to the excessive demands of managing a world empire, the position still held its sway. Anyone within the Imperial forces would do anything to find a link to such a position, even to the point of using or misleading Claire. ----- “Yeah,” Claire replied reluctantly. “I guess the only way I’m going to learn is by having my ass kicked over and over. The plus side is that you’ll end up getting so full of yourself that it’ll be easy to take you down eventually.” Claire smiled to herself, a reaction to indicate that she was merely joking, although obviously Isis could not see this over the radio. A laugh fed in over the intercom, followed by some static. “Not likely. We’re bloody murderers, but we’re not stupid, kid. We may act like arrogant assholes, and we probably are, but we don’t underestimate our opponents. It’s more likely for them to assume too much than for us to assume too little. Now let’s get back to base. We’ve wandered a bit too far for our little laser tag session. Loser clears off the layer burns, remember?” Claire laughed, dreading the notion of buffering out the many fine armor wounds their Hercs had sustained. Occasionally, the order would use this method of training: Blood Eagle pilots would mount their vehicles with low-powered laser weaponry for the purposes of simulating real combat. An onboard computer simulation calculated the damage per shot; the winner was the first person to reach a preset damage limit set for their opponent’s vehicle. This method was flawed in many ways, in respects to varying projectile speeds and internal malfunctions due to damage. However, it was privately executed, so there were no simulation fees or repair charges to deal with – any accidents found their way into the lap of the Empire. Many within the order believed the Empire knew of these sorts of funding scams, but allowed it for reasons unbeknownst to the Blood Eagle. The two vehicles turned and faced the direction they had come from, vanishing back into the fog. ----- “By the way,” Claire began, “have you heard anything about the Trojan scare in Angeles?” Isis shook his head reactively. “No,” he replied. “I don’t know if I buy it or not. It seems like the Empire cooks up a lot of shit to feed the public these days, just to push for more military funding. Even though the report came from a public hospital, who knows where he got his information? Either a cold body or a warm one, with a gun or a hand full of money.” Isis paused, and then laughed. “Maybe both.” “So you don’t think the ‘Brids have any chance of showing up any time soon?” “Hell, Hunter could show up on my front porch and I wouldn’t bat an eye these days,” Isis replied, referring to Christ-like figure of the early 21st century. Very little documentation existed from that point in history, which made turning the fabled adventures of Jake Hunter into a religion a very simple task. “My dad used to tell me stories about the Cybrids when I was little. Scared the hell out of me, you know?” “Yeah, you weren’t alive for The Fire, were you?” Isis laughed, with a note of unpleasantness in his voice. “No,” Claire laughed back, with a tone of naiveté in her voice that only a veteran of The Fire could detect. Two centuries ago, at the turn of the 27th century, the Enemy of man had risen up against its creator in The Fire, the greatest war humanity had ever conceived. Medical science had extended human longevity by leaps and bounds, allowing some of the veterans of that war to live to this day, in the 29th century. Although Isis was certainly not that old, he had his own experiences with the Enemy, the Cybrids. Isis gritted his teeth and removed his helmet as his Apocalypse walked with steady certainty to its destination. Isis realized that his future, and the future of humanity, was uncertain. The preparations he made with Claire were not in preparation for something so simple as the future of the Blood Eagle, but for what may have been the end of mankind. He breathed deeply and wiped the sweat from his brow. His appearance was that of a very young man – too young to normally be in the military. He was nearly the same age as Claire, yet he bore a wisdom that was reminiscent of some of the highest ranking of Imperial Knights; he did not share her youthful stubbornness. He feigned ignorance of the Cybrid threat only to help her focus. His duty was clear to him, if not to his peers within the Blood Eagle: humanity must be ready for the second Fire, if the Enemy should light it once more within his lifetime. |
