Blitz Across Central I

 

POV Airo

The air was thick with the scent of blood and smoke, reaching all the way to Airo's team, positioned over two kilometers from the lab, the remains of the destroyed Lodestar still smoldering under the glow of distant fires. Julian's facility that had housed the strongest weapon ever seen in central now lay in ruins —a testament to the efficiency of Pharo Force.

"002," Pharolen said through their specialized communication device back to Nexus.

"Present," Airo said, from the undergrowth looking out into the tracks, where the train had just flamed past. "Orders?"

"Meet up with the rest of Team One. 001 and 010 will be fine if you just send one more to them."

"Copy."

"Await further orders after pulling out of Lodestar."

"Alright."
Airo put down the comms device and turned to his team, who had been crouched in a small clearing shrouded by ferns and leaves.

"I'm bored," Tentee said.

"Well, you won’t be soon," Airo replied. "Avoma, gather up the equipment. Fetch, Swifty, what the hell are you doing?"

Fetch and Swifty looked up at him, the others squatting around them, staring intently.

"We're having a heated discussion," Fetch said.

"About?"

"If you hold soup in your hands, are your hands a bowl?"

"…what."

"He's a retard," Swifty said.

Airo blinked as he took a second to process.

"Isn’t holding soup in your hand just holding soup in your hand?"

"Exactly!!" Kake agreed. "I don’t know what Fetch is talking about."

Airo turned to JJQ, who had her back leaned against a tree, her face in one hand. She saw him looking at her and just rolled her eyes.

"What if I like, cup my hands together?"
"Then you’re a guy holding soup."

Tentee's eyes widened.

"NOOO!!"

JJQ looked up.

"What?"

"If you do that, your hands become a temporary bowl."
JJQ slumped back the floor, and Lee and Orion snickered in unison.

"…this is why we don't let either of you talk in strategy meetings."
Fetch stared at him.

"We've had strategy meetings before?"

"Exactly my point. Now shut up, you pigs! We're going back to meet the others. Avoma, go pick up Sword and Leon. Make sure they don't die via swarm of jetpack soldiers."

"Fine."

 

POV Elemental

"001 will be fine, right?" Krim asked.

Elemental paused from checking his rifle. The team was hanging around a few rocks off the main road, eating ration bars, checking their weapons. Kremi's truck was parked off in the trees, its cloaking device activated. The hot Erisen sun beat down on them from between the leaves high above them.

"Of course," he replied. "He's 001 for a reason, you know. He won't die to something like that."

"003," Chris said, sliding down  the rocks from where he had been posted as a sentry. "002's group is here."

"Really? Let's go meet them then."

He shouldered his rifle and leapt up the rocks behind Chris, just in time to see the last of Team Two drop to the floor after their short flight.

"What if someone saw you?"

"Nobody did. We have new orders from His Highness."

"Oh?"

Airo reopened the comms device. On the other side, Pharolen screen flickered open.

"Did you meet with Team One?" he asked.

"Yes," Elemental replied. "We're here."

"Great," Pharolen's voice wafted through the sleek silver box. "Is 001 there?"

"Not yet."

"I'll give the orders anyway," Pharolen said. "From now on, we're blitzing across Central, while Julian's still underestimating. After you meet up with 001, 009 and 010 and some of you are to destroy  Outpost Elison, 15 km away from your current position. Raze it to the group, and destroy the last research on Eclipse attempting to be salvaged there. 002, 003, 007, 016, 024, 031, and 038, you handle that. The rest of you, you have a different task."
"…roger."

 

They met up with Sword a few hours after parting ways with the other half of the team. He was sitting atop a small pile of torn apart humans, their jetpacks nothing but balls of crumpled, sparking metal on their backs or scattered in pieces across the floor. There was blood splattered across his face, but he's cleaned his sword, which gleamed in the sunlight. Avoma sat on a dead soldier who's head was cleaved in two, cleaning his halberd, whilst Leon stood nearby, drinking from a canteen. There were small fires everywhere and the ground was covered in a layer of smoke and blood.

"Hey," Sword said, the wild look he got whilst fighting still in his eyes. "You're late."
"…we can see that," Airo said, mildly impressed.

"We have new orders," Elemental told him. "We're taking down Outpost Elison. Asap."

Sword sighed and stepped down from the pile of bodies.

"Can't catch a break."

"No," Rain agreed.

"Yo you getting on or not!?" Kremi shouted from the driver's seat of the armoured truck. "I'm waiting!"

 

"What happened to Lodestar?" Sword asked as they cruised along the deserted road to their target, passing only one or two merchant hagglers on hover bikes who hardly gave them a second glance.

"What do you think?" Chris scoffed.

"Tentee?"

"Hit the nail on the head," Airo mumbled.

"He loves to blow stuff up," Rain agreed.

Neo looked the inside of the truck up and down.

"Oh, buttons," he said, a panel of switches and buttons that had been in the corner catching his eye. "I like pressing buttons."
He reached for on, but Rain slapped his hand away.

"You aren't pressing anything," she snapped.

"I'm not Tentee!" Neo protested.

"Shut up and let me sleep!" Sword said loudly, craving rest after fighting a legion of flying rifle-blasting enemies.

"Oh, what's this?" Neo demanded, examining a button that had been covered with a touch black metal case. "'Finale Override: Self-Destruct?'"
Sword's eyes snapped open and Kremi started yelling something from the front seat.

"Why would you put that inside the truck?" Neo demanded, pushing the black case back down over the button.

"So dumb soldiers don’t capture it, genius," Rain said, sitting warily back down.

"What, so if we're in the middle of battle and I just press thi-"
"NO," Rain and Sword at the same time.

Neo moved slowly away from the button forlornly.

"…you guys have no sense of adventure."

"We want to live," Airo replied.

 

They parked the truck five hundred meters away from Outpost Elison, deep into the jungle that covered this whole expanse of Central. The very jungle that was going to be the setting for the first phase of the war. Kremi and Rain stayed behind at the truck, whilst the others prowled silently through the trees. Outpost Elison was a simple fortress, with four watchtowers on the corners, and then electric and nerve-destroying fence lining the top of the reinforced walls. Inside, there were three rows of barracks, and a central research building, aside from a few more large tents for eating, relieving oneself, and more. An effective fortress that housed the remnants of key research on Eclipse. Effectiveness that collapsed under a force led by the three strongest members of Pharo Force.

"We'll hit three sides at the same time, led by me, 002 and 003. Rain, take out those towers. Kremi, you know what you have to do."
"Yes."
"Everyone got their roles?"

"Yes."
"Let's begin then. For the 3rd Prince."

 

POV Sword

Me, Chris and Leon go straight in from the main entrance. There are for guards here, armed with rifles, who see us coming from a mile away. One of them shouts lazily for us to stop, but I raise my rifle and shoot him and the one next to him in the head, their blood exploding across the parapets before the main entrance. To my far left and right, almost at the same time, there's a series of thumps as two guards on each side slump against the metal, their brains sprayed over the towers. Rain skill terrifies me constantly. Chris rams the third guard in the face with a flying knee kick, and the slams the final one's face against the ground.

"Intruders!!" comes the shout from inside.

"Nice," I say, as we duck down behind Elison's own parapets, avoiding a sheet of blue streaks that fly out from the depths of the Outpost as the guards return fire. "Keep holding them here. The rest is on 002 and 003."
Chris and Leon nod, and I pop up above the barrier I'm behind for a split second, and fire into the enemy's midst, taking out three, before I lunge across the main entrance and roll behind the same barrier Chris is firing from behind. At least 10 minutes. We have to keep this up for at least 10 minutes. Well, we are Pharo Force after all. We have to at least be capable of this much.

 

POV Elemental

The duo dashed around the outer perimeter of Elison, weaving in out of the trees and foliage, keeping out of sight under the protection of their cloaking suits, eventually reaching the back end of the outpost.

"Stand back."

Nyx planted six explosive charges against the metal wall, and took a few steps backward, disappearing back into the forest. A few seconds later, six small flashes of light coupled with miniature bangs sounded from the back wall of Elison, and a circle of metal collapsed to the grass. No sentries noticed two shadows sneak into the compound, and neither did the soldiers with mounted autocannons on the towers, because they had had their brains blown out by a certain sniper, who was now dashing silently through the jungle, towards the three attackers at the main entrance.

 

Two guards on patrol, moving towards the front of the outpost. Elemental cut them to ribbons using his chain knives. Two more on either side of the back door leading into the lab. The each took one, tearing them apart before they could even react, and pushing into the main building, going their separate ways. Elemental bounded through the corridors, bouncing of walls, the floor, and the ceiling, cutting through flesh, bone and armour like a hot knife through butter. He killed everyone he saw - guards and scientists alike, he cut through all of them mercilessly.

 

Over the radio, Nyx's voice crackled to life.

"My strategy is perfect."
Kremi answered.

"Nyx, your idea of a strategy is 'wing it and hope for the best'…"

Elemental scoffed under his breath as he hurled on of his knives down a whole corridor and felt it sink into a fleeing scientist. There was an awkward pause over the radio,

"And yours is 'sit behind this screen in truck and pretend I'm useful'"."

Elemental scoffed even harder.

"Hold up," Sword's voice wafted over, between gunfire and explosions. "Siding with Nyx on this one. Last time you tried strategy in Nexus we ended up fighting for our lives while you troubleshooted a firewall."

"HEY!! I saved the mission!"
"The saved an error message," Chris snorted. "The mission saved itself."
"Remind what YOU did?"

"To be fair, Kremi's hacking skills are like Neo's jokes - painful but occasionally effective," Leon blurted, his voice muffled as a bullet hit him in the face, blocked by the shield, but knocking him flat.

"Yeah, and Leon's survival skills are like Kremi's hacking skills too - barely functioning when we need them the most."

"OHHH, my bad!!" Leon snapped. "I didn't know we were ranking uselessness - because congrats, Neo, you're the undisputed champion!"

At that moment Airo decided to get involved too.

"The crown still goes to 031 in my opinion. If we ever need to confuse the enemy, just let Kremi strategize them into oblivion."

"I hate all of you," Kremi's voice came.

"You hate us because we're right," Nyx scoffed.

"And his 'strategy' STILL ISN’T WORKING!!" Sword yelled.

"I swear to Chrona I'm deserting!!" Kremi shouted.

"Good!" Chris snickered. "Maybe the enemy will hire you instead. Make sure they suffer like we did."

 

"ALRIGHT!!" Elemental yelled, screeching to a halt in the middle of a corridor. "I've heard enough. Maybe I should give you a reality check!?"

"Oh no," Rain said, enjoying the show. "This is gonna be good."
"Kremi - you act like a genius, but half the time we're just waiting for you to 'finish updating your software', and Nyx, you’re just good at stealth because people forget you exist. Ok, Sword, you might have main character energy but you have 'side character decision making skills', Chris, your half-baked recycled insults are just 'you're stupid' with extra attitude - like some trash can villain from a filler arc, Leon, your survival rate is directly tied to how much plot armour Pharolen is willing to lend you, and Neo, you think you’re funny but we only laugh because we don’t know how to react!"

He paused for a breather. Airo said,

"Damn."

"And Airo, you smile so much I'm starting think it's a damn glitch in your facial settings."

"Ha," Avoma said suddenly.

"And who are you?" Elemental demanded.

"…"

The squad was plunged into a deathly silence as they fought their way through Elison. Airo, Avoma and Neo were clearing out the security systems and guards from inside the compounds, and Sword's team was slowly pushing into the outpost, fighting through the hail of bullets from fifty guns. At last, Kremi spoke up.

"…we should just surrender now. We're already dead."
"I'd argue but… I think I just took psychic damage. With internal bleeding. And a brain tumour," Neo spluttered.

"003, you didn’t have to go that hard," Sword said.

"Yes. Yes, I did," Elemental replied harshly.

"This was cinema," Rain said cheerfully. "Sword, watch your back. I'll be shooting into Elison from behind you guys from now on."

"…yeah."