Captain Anti-Crusty

Loki was tired; dead tired. Every muscle in his body was tired, something hard to do when your dead and your muscles don't function very well anyway. But he had managed it. The damned street gangs had hijacked the cargo of new military rifles bound for whatever the hell kind of militia still existed in this midden pit.

He didn't know why he stayed. He should have gotten out, a long time ago. Should have left, disappeared like so many others. Murdok was lying low, hadn't been seen in a while. Waif and Linn and Cayt…well, if they had any sort of sense, they wouldn't try and come back to the Big Apple again. And, of course, since Loki was the only one with any sort of sense, they would come back. Loki managed to wince his way back to his wreckage of a house, most of his muscle pain gone by the time he hit his street.

His house was in front of him, broken down, beams and structural components strewn all over the ground and the lawn; former lawn, now. The grass had died with everything else, leaving the lawn empty, barren, devoid of any warmth that would indicate life. Like Loki.

The senior vampire in the city-hell, probably the whole damn U.S., now-shifted a three thousand pound chunk of cement from the road somewhere, and managed to uncover the small portal that led into his dark home. It had been three days now since he'd been home. No, four now. Or was it five? Loki couldn't remember. It was all a blur of killing and tapping into dark energy and killing some more. Thirty five gang members dead from unknown causes, twelve from knife wounds, and thirteen dead from some sort of ancient rifle. Loki, plasma knife, and HOPE rifle, respectively, though, of course, they were all wielded by Loki.

HOPE technology, advanced back in YEAR NUMBER, was now considered lost, ancient, and wondrous. If he had felt like it, Loki could have sold it for a couple hundred thousand yen on the black market. Yen instead of dollars. Still not used to that. It had taken him three hundred years to get over the pound becoming the dollar. And now the yen was the universal currency.

Japan's economy had been the only one that had survived in any semblance of the word "survived". One of only a very few countries to stay neutral, it received only the fallout. Only, being relative, as a nuclear holocaust that scarred the earth generates a hell of a lot more fallout than one piddling little test launch in Arizona.

The stone door did not slide open. Loki glanced at the keypad again. He saw the little blinking red light beyond the nearly opaque buttons. Sh-ite. The detonator went off, and Loki was tired enough that he didn't try to dodge it. The force slammed into him, buffeted him, tore at his clothes and reopened wounds that hadn't closed completely after he ran out of energy.

But he stood on his feet, and impatiently shattered the stone door, tossing the fifteen hundred pound slab aside to get into the interior. Which was home to two dozen skeletons. After checking them for any flesh or blood for sustenance, he left them where they sat. Though not normally fond of dead flesh, he was now hungry enough that he would eat it. He walked over to his sink, carefully plugged the drain, and washed off the dried and crusted blood on his arms. No sense wasting food.

He sifted it through a fine filter, draining the blood, then poured it into a coffee mug, before he stumbled over to a moldy, dusty couch, riddled with shotgun shells and energy rifle holes, spent casings and dud explosives littering the ground in front of him. He ignored them, dragged the one coffee table he had left over in front of the couch, propped his feet up, and flicked on his plasma, flat screen, high-definition sixty five inch television he had stolen from one of the gangs he had removed.

The news had just ended, unfortunately, or what counted as news know, but he sat in a mindless daze, watching the TV and letting his hands curl around the bloody cup, feeling the life and energy seep into him. He sipped it reflectively, still watching the "This is a Test" reruns, over and over again.

About five minutes later, after he had sipped his blood completely, he realized the TV was saying "This is NOT a Test." He sighed, decided life should fuck off for a while, and lay down for a much needed sleep.

Captain Redslag was tired as well, though neither Loki nor he was aware of the other's existence, not to mention their state of energy. But Captain Redslag was the drained sort of tired, the combat tired the could kill a man, the fatigue and exhaustion that set in after the adrenaline rush had disappeared. He checked his happy gun, wondered what the hell was killing his men so quickly. Their Class XI- rated power armor should stand up to anything short of a 30 millimeter cannon, at least long enough for his men to relay what was firing on them, where, and how many.

But this was killing them pretty much instantly, shredding through armored layers and electronics as if it was pure energy. Which it couldn't be, because in the corpses the medical team had looked at, there were definite traces of some sort of foreign substance, charred and blackened beyond any recognition. Almost as if IT had gone through pure energy. Redslag shook his head, before stopping and letting the visor open, then shaking his head again, letting the sweat and dirt fly from his beard out, instead of into his visor.

He had been without a shave in…what, a week and half now? Seemed like years, especially last time he had a beer. That had been the first thing the gangs had hit; their beer supply had been decimated, and he had nearly had a mutiny before they had found a few drunk GangGreen members nearby. They were now in the tender care of Lieutenant Ats, a rather odd nutcase with a severe dominatrix problem. They should be mostly okay, though. No mortal wounds. At least, Redslag was pretty sure they'd have no mortal wounds. Well, hopefully they would, but maybe not.

And now the GangGreen had struck them first, as if they knew what the Red Militia was planning. Thirty five of ninety men dead, just under twenty of theirs, and now their base of operations was out of commission. Redslag glanced at his chrono built into the wrist of the power suit. Eight days now, since the first brief exchange of fire at the perimeter.

Something shifted in the rubble, followed by muted curses, and Redslag slowly slipped his visor back into combat position. He checked the happy gun, almost innocently, made sure it was ready to go. Where the hell were the gangs getting their weaponry, anyway? Some black market, underworld dealer, most likely. Redlslag wished he could meet the man. Buy some weapons from him.

Then somebody in the ambush panicked, and fired a shot that just missed Captain Redslag's shoulder, instead penetrating disturbingly deep into the military grade vehicle plate armor on the Basher-class APC that Redslag and his crew had arrived here in. The Basher's turret swung to the location of the shot, and the pulse wave cannons opened up, terajoules of energy being expended in a single second, sending out a rapid pulse of energy that shattered steel and stone.

The full might of the cannon tore off the debris, exposing…jack diddly shit. Then the fire rained from the heavens. The surrounding buildings actually, the blasts coming from the broken, shattered windows. Redslag pointed towards the nearest building. "Delta Squad! Head for cover!" Redslag followed his own advice, started sprinting towards it. He fired back, from the hip, just attempting to keep the GangGreen on their toes.

And then the burning corpse of Sergeant Johnson came tumbling by, his face a mask of pain, eternally frozen in agony. No one deserved to die like that. "You bastards," he whispered. There were three others left now, crouching in the shadow of the building, firing out at whatever presented itself as a target. Jeezus. The bastards set us up. "Get away" the team members started to turn as his urgent voice came over their internal comms "from the" the building shimmered, the front wall crumbling to the ground in an instant, starting an avalanche of debris far more deadly than any snow. "building!"

The cloud of debris covered Delta Squad, the remnants in this sector. "Shit. Shit shit shit fuck shit shit damn damn damn!" The GangGreen came pouring out of their trap, a dozen thugs armed with weaponry far more advanced than what passed for the military. Redslag dropped to a knee, nearly behind a boulder, and opened fire, his auto rifle spending clips at an unprecedented rate.

The first thug fell before he had his rifle up. Redslag screamed and fired, his outwards fury in stark contrast to the irrational rationality that he was having. Flip it on autofire, dumbass. Start on the left, the odd recoil will bring the barrel naturally to the right. Reload now. That one killed Johnson. Steady. Keep a finger down. Reload. Keep firing. Watch it, one on my left. Redslag let the hand on the barrel of the happy gun slide off, pulled a small, portable disrupter pistol from his belt, and fired across his body to the left. The gun gave a massive kick, sending his hand arcing upwards, nearly knocking his rifle out of aligment. Nothing happened for a second.

The ground quite veritably exploded, fire and dirt and concrete all showering upwards in a massive cloud like a nuclear explosion in a can, instantly killing those unfortunate enough to be rushing him from the left. There was five in front of him, now, the nearest just about to fire. Redslag fired first, his bullet taking the gang member in the chest, blowing him backwards, where he hit the rubble, instantly shredded. The fourth member fired, a blast that split the concrete chunk Redslag was using as cover. He bunched power into his legs, got ready to leap. He fired, taking the offending member down with a bullet through the leg.

The third primed an explosive, sent it lobbing towards Redslag. He let go of the inhibitors in his legs. The stored energy exploded upwards, propelling him far higher than he could have gone normally. He hit the ground and rolled, watching in grim satisfaction as the GangGreen followed his move in surprise. That's right, SOBs. Just a little bit more distraction, and it'll all be good…

Redslag took something in the shoulder, an instant of blinding sharp pain, and then his happy rifle was gone. Or maybe not. He saw his rifle slide to a stop, some ten meters too far away. He looked around for something to throw. He reached for a rock, chunked it.

A thug stopped and covered his head with his arms. Redslag chunked another one. "Hey! Stop…OW…it! I-OW- mean it! OW, ya little fucker! That one hurt!"

Redslag flicked the man off, and shot him with the disruptor. Again, the recoil, the almost worrying stillness, and then the world's smallest nuclear explosion (in a can!). Except, this time, it hit the man full in the chest. The energy ripped him apart in an instant, sent his most private and hidden things (his organs) flying about. This stopped the thugs, long enough for Redslag to dive for his happy gun.

His hands closed around it, and he brought it to his shoulder, and fired. The expected recoil did not come. Instead, there was a hiss of compressed air, and a gang member dropped with a massive hole in his chest. Two left on the ground, now. Redslag grinned at the turn of events, and took the time blast the first through the forehead, bursting it like an overripe melon, and sending his headless corpse to the ground.

The second pegged Redslag, the cartridge taking him full in the chest. The only thing that saved him was the instinctive tightening of his chest muscles as he fired, expecting recoil. The explosive cartridge easily shattered his armor, when the energy sheath hit him. It bled into his muscles, frying tissue. There was a blinding, fiery pain. Redslag jammed his finger on the trigger repeatedly.

The repeated commands overrode the fire rate inhibitor in the gun, setting it on an overload. It fired as fast as it could, and even managed to take the last one down, before it exploded.

The power armor held up the way it should have, absorbing the blow of the explosion and bleeding off armor from everywhere, instead of his right arm. Redslag tried to get up, felt something in his chest tear, and fell back down, gasping.

He thumbed his comm. The jamming was gone. Lucky him. "Red…redslag here. Air support would be…good…whenever…" He coughed, spitting a massive chunk of blood and mucus onto the front of his visor. He closed his eyes.

"Roger." The smooth, calm voice of his air commander, Captain Cade came across. "Aerofighters on route now. ETA, fifteen seconds." In a short time, Redslag could hear the engines of the aerofighters, as they burned on full power. The comforting shape of a Hawk aerofighter hovered over him. Twin points of flame issued from its nose, and then, suddenly, a building was simply gone. Another Hawk started on the opposite side of buildings, while a massive Al-Toid class transport landed, and vomited its cargo of armored Black Angels loose. What the elites of the former USAF had been called dispatched of the gang with cold efficiency.

The leader crouched next to Redslag, lifted him up easily with the aid of the power armor. Captain Cade's face came into view. "Takin' it bleedin' easy, eh Captain?"

Redslag muttered something, then the world went dark as Cade injected something into his arm.

Captain Cade watched as the Black Angels fanned out, keeping a steady watch on the smoking ruins of the ruins of the buildings, and looked at the nearest corpse of the GangGreen. It was a young, black haired fellow. Cade could tell. His head was thirty feet away from his body, about three feet in front of him. Cade picked up the rifle the man had been carrying, glanced at it. Something looks familiar about this thing.

He glanced down at the happy gun he was holding. The two were quite alike; in geometry terms, they would be called "nearly congruent." Cade grinned at the thought of such innocent times. Not like bloody now. Now was a time of death and war, where innocence took a back seat to survival. Cade shouldered the gang rifle, and pulled a medical scanner from his power armor.

There was two survivors. They were…over…there, actually. Cade found himself staring at two of the presumed corpses. Redslag's not goin' to be happy when he 'ears 'e missed one. He walked over to the two gang members, where he indeed saw some signs of life. One was actively moving, while the other was still trying to feign death. Let's see how the buggers handle this.

He triggered his external speakers. "'oy there! I'm Captain Elltoi Cade, of the Black Angels! I don't know if you heard of me, but you just ambushed one of our companies, which is in general a bad thing to do. But I'm sure you two chaps can turn out quite alright if given a chance, eh?"

One of them turned to the other and grinned evilly. "I'd say so. Cade, was it? I'm…uh…Fuggoff." Oh, how funny! Cade thought with some venom and enough sarcasm to drown a dead cat. Again.

"Right then. Here's an adrenaline pill. Swallow it like a good chap, and then you'll be alright till we can get some sort of food in you." Fuggoff grinned, and eagerly took the pill along with his fellow thug. Cade grabbed their rifles as well, started to walk off. And, starting, in three…two…one…about now…

Cade turned, shot the less talkative one through the throat with his happy gun. "Mr. Fuggoff. I am sorry to report that indeed, one of us is going to be fucking off." The improvised comedian's eyes opened wide at the thought that such a happy, gullible man was indeed preparing to shoot him. In fact, how the hell had the happy, friendly, gullible man figured out that he was going to backstab him?

"Goodbye then, Mr. Fuggoff. Can't say it was good to meet you, since you tried to pull one on me. Word of advice when you get to hell: remember this." Cade shot Fuggoff four times, with the three thug guns and his happy gun, fully amputating all non vital limbs. "Now wasn't that fun? Do you have anything else funny to say? No? Surely, Mr. Fuggoff, you haven't lost your comradeship and humor now? Well here's one from Britain, ya bloody colonial upstart!"

Cade disemboweled the thug, then, after letting Fuggoff watch his guts spill out, letting Fuggoff bleed and hurt a little bit proceeded to cleanly blow his bleedin' head off. Cade nudged the headless corpse with a boot, then popped his visor and lit a cigarette. He looked back up at the sky, at the dark smoke and the endless midnight sky…

Loki felt better. Loki felt a lot better, actually. Amazing how good an hour of sleep could make you feel. Well, that and a cup of steaming hot blood, regardless that it was at least a day old. He sighed, and stretched in the amazing way that only a truly strong person can, an awe inspiring display of stretching flesh and muscles. He grinned, then looked around at the skeletons that were inhabiting his house.

First thing he noticed, right off, was that they were dead. Quite dead. The second thing he noticed, is that they all seemed to be in some sort of defensive position, all facing the door. Which meant that…they had gotten in here. Loki looked up at a shaft of wan sunlight he had nearly stepped into. Oh goody. I've got a hole in my roof! The sunlight dimmed out and a human shaped shadow appeared in the hole. There was a burst of gunfire, and Loki felt something hit him in the arm.

He looked down as it spun off into the darkness and sighed again. This is not going to be an f-ing good day. He pulled his HOPE rifle from somewhere (dimly wondering if it was his pants), then shot the unwanted assailant. He cried out and fell into the artificial cavern. Loki glanced at the corpse, watching the blood trickle from the chest. He debated whether going for it, then decided he was hungry so dragged the corpse from the sunlight and proceeded to siphon filter the blood out.

He looked at his coffee cup; it was crusted with the dried blood. He held it up, looking at it oddly, then threw it at the wall, before proceeding to pour the life into a twentieth century plastic cup, and drinking it the old fashioned way (i.e., in an old plastic cup). He must've spent ten minutes just enjoying his morning drink, before he got up and started to plug the hole carefully. He ended up dragging wreckage from the house down, simply holding it there with his head until he managed to get some super glue into the space with his one arm.

He dropped off the chair, then groaned as the glue cracked, and the boulder came crashing down. He decided to screw it, and simply made a massive pile of boulders that blocked the shaft until Cait came back. There was muted gunfire from outside, and a few scattered shells bounced down the long staircase, golden and cylindrical. He looked up into the darkness, saw a few figures in armor, firing out into the day. One of them took a shot to the shoulder and staggered.

The head flew back and the figure tumbled down the stairs, bouncing and clattering in the power armor as it finally came to a stop by the pile of boulders. Someone shouted. Gunfire flew, and a few flashes of energy. Loki grabbed the HOPE rifle, crouched by the side of the stairs, and jumped straight up the thirty feet, landed in a crouch, and whipped out his HOPE rifle.

There were three men in power armor crouched by his house, just behind the burning wreckage of some new fangled military transport. He watched as a pair of men without armor rushed the trio. The first dropped behind a concrete jumble. One of the trio, pulled back, primed a grenade, and tossed it out. The high explosive went off. Somebody screamed, cut off by a sickening wet noise. Something red sprayed up over the concrete. The second one pulled a string attached to his shirt and sprinted at the trio. He had a submachine gun, firing as he ran. The trio caught him at the same time with some sort of cartridge rifle.

The thug exploded, but the grenades attached to his shirt rolled forwards. One of the three screamed, and dove at them.

The grenades blew up. The man's body went limp. One of the two screamed and rushed from cover, firing the cartridge rifle. The second man, cool and calm into the extreme, reached out an armored hand and grabbed the fanatic's arm. "We're dead anyway, dammit! We'll take as many of the bastards with us as we can if you DON'T DO THAT!"

Loki tapped one man in power armor on the shoulder, and handed him a grenade, which the soldier took without a second thought, believing it to be a soldier. The man pulled back his arm, his armor creaking and whining as stored power and built up kinetic energy released itself as the man lobbed the grenade behind the shattered husk of a former building.

There was a silent blue flash, all encompassing and at once less than reality. The blue light emanated from the building in one single titanic, silent explosion.

And then the building shattered, its concrete girders and wreckage being disintigrated beneath some sort of intense energy. Screams. "Get back, NOW! Pull back, dammit! PULL BACK!" One of the two sprinted for the inside of Loki's house. The other hesitated, then followed. The calm one's power armor collapsed, its energy completely and utterly exhausted. With a whine and a clatter of metal, it fell against the corner, propped in a death like state. The second man shed his, and a young woman stepped out, dressed in fatigues. She was soaked with sweat, her hair stuck to her head.

She kicked the first man's power armor. "Dammit Dristan! Get out of your damned armor!" She kicked it again, and the external speakers crackled to life.

"C-can't chief…The damn coupler's finally given way. I-I'm slowly being crushed…to death. Sorry, captain, but…you'll have to make it back on your…own…"

She blinked and turned cold, trying to ignore the glittering wetness that was appearing in the corners of her eyes. "You leave me now, Dristan, and Mom is gonna KILL you."

Dristan chuckled. "She's…dead….remember? Back….in…(YEAR NUMBER). Anyway, sis…you were always the better soldier…look at you now….captain…and me, a…grunt…"

She sniffed once and roughly ran her hands over her eyes. "Shut up now. Save your energy. I will get you out of there. Do you hear me?"

The strained voice came through again, much weaker. "Of…course…dear…sister…I…hear…you…don't…push…yourself…too…hard…under-"

Dristan's voice trailed off. There was a long pause. "Dristan? Dristan?"

The sister looked at Dristan's body. She swallowed, let the tears wash some of the sweat and grime from her face. She turned back to the door of Loki's house, and grabbed her happy gun again. "Those bastards! You killed my brother! Do you hear me?! I WILL hunt you down for this." She left, leaving Dristan's body laying in Loki's den.

He glanced at it. "What an eccentric woman…" With that, he lifted the dead militia from his house, and tossed him into the street outside before retiring to service and salvage what he could from the remains in his house.

Captain Redslag grimaced, tried to wipe the sweat that was trickling into his eyes, blinding him with an incessant stinging, and experienced the wonderful feeling when you realize your face is behind some sort of mask. He cursed, popped his combat visor, and wiped the dripping sweat from his soaked face with the back of his blood and dirt encrusted hand. Damned if he knew what happened.

Smoke and dust and flames were all pouring into this corridor, where they were supposed to meet an arms dealer. Looked like a set up.

Somebody began to scream, "Somebody set us up-"

"A bomb!" the last cry drowned out even shouts of rage. Redslag whirled, saw Sergeant…Somebody pointing in horror at a red crate, marked, in several different languages, "BOMB".

Redslag spat while he ejected his spent casings from his happy gun, watched as they settled to the ground, then kicked them viciously. "No shit, soldier. It's a bomb. See the writing?"

"No sir…it just beeped, sir."

"Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight." Redslag pointed his happy gun at the crate, just before the sergeant slammed into him and sent them both to the ground.

Redslag rolled with the impact and came to his feet, nearly shot the soldier through pure reflex before he calmed down, and, realizing that if it was a bomb, he could have just shot it. He felt another wonderful feeling, the kind you get when you realize you nearly shot some sort of high explosive. Redslag walked over to the crate, hauled his foot back, and gently nudged it with his toe.

He opened it, took one look at it, and his hairs stood straight up. All of them. And by ALL I mean ALL of them, even those that rarely stand up, are exposed to daylight, and are never combed, cut, or dyed any color at all. You know which hairs I'm talking about. Even they stood on end.

He sprinted away from it, waving his arms wildly for his men to run as well. They looked at him in a sort of puzzled way. "IT! IS! A! NUKE!"

"A nukular bomb?!" someone asked in one hell of a Southern drawl. What was his name? Tree, Flower? Ahh. Bush. Private Bush.

"Everybody, back away from the bomb! Try not to…to scare it, or startle it into any harsh actions!" Everybody backed away from the bomb, slowly.

The door that had led them into this warehouse blew open, a blinding flash of light and smoke that sent the heavy metal thing terrifyingly close to the nuclear weapon. Some sort of gang member stood in the smoke, outlined by the white. "All your bases are-"

"Belong to us," Redslag said. "SOB." He shot the man through the chest, and the thug crumpled and fell. "Somebody set up a barricade! I don't want ANYTHING through that door."

"That's f-ing suicide! I ain't doin' that!" someone said.

Private Bush leveled his happy gun at the speaker. "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

The soldier spat. "Whadya gonna do, shoot me?"

Bush grinned. "Yes."

Redslag screamed something. Soldiers near bush and the speaker jumped both of them. Bush's shot went off, into the ceiling of the warehouse. "BUSH! GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!"

The soldiers dragged the struggling Bush before Redslag. "Tell me, soldier? What in God's name did you think you were doing!? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND!? The last thing we need is a fucking mutiny right now!" (Only three times, that).

There was a brief exchange of fire from the barricade, and a happy gun tumbled to Redslag's feet. "Everyone, MOVE! You three, get into the rafters, set up sniping positions. Alpha team, I want you checking the walls for any other exits. Beta, find some sort of communications equipment or booster we can use. Engineer, find a way to move that nuke and do it fast. Go!"

The three designated snipers started to climb into the overhead beams and structural support components that helped hold the warehouse together. Once to their desired positions, they removed magnetic clamp posts from their rifles and proceeded to form an effective sniping post.

Alpha team removed scanners from their power suits designed to scan and test for any structural weaknesses in a particular location or building. They split into teams of three, two men scanning while the third kept watch for a firefight.

Beta started tearing apart boxes in an attempt to find a comm device or some sort of wiring to boost the limited communication of their suit coms. They went through the boxes without mercy, leaving only the nuke untouched.

Engineering started to jury rig a sled together.

Redslag took his place by the barricade of metal crates, waiting for whatever the hell was out there to surge over the flimsy barrier. Something whined and hissed. Oh good. It whined and hissed. Nothing is good when it whines and hisses. Well, except for coffee machines.

The ground shook, and little bits of fluff and dust floated gently from the warehouse ceiling. "Steady. Don't fire until you…until you…uh, want to?"

"Sure thing, Captain." The ground shook again, then there was a sound of some sort of jetpack. A massive jet pack.

The massive mech landed in the middle of the warehouse, perilously close to the nuke. "Shit shit shit! Scatter!" The men manning the barricade scattered, diving for cover as the massive man mech (which is to say, its legs bent like a man's, as opposed to a chicken) opened up with two truly massive autocannons.

Redslag primed his happy gun, and managed to peg it once in the head before it turned to him. He crouched behind his metal box, trying to make himself as small as possible. The box started to move under the intense fire, pinning him to the wall. "WHY IS IT ALWAYS ME!?"

Engineering Corps grinned, collectively, and managed to shove a wooden crate under the mech's foot. It effectively removed the box from existence, and had the foresight to crush the contents as well.

The unstable antimatter packets went off with something between the effectiveness of a ketchup bomb and a superlaser. The mech was hidden in a blast of smoke, before it tumbled to the ground and came to a final stop. Somebody whistled. The three snipers fired out the door. Redslag turned, and saw a horde of men surging over the flimsy barrier.

Redslag turned to Beta. "Get Cade and whatever he can muster over here NOW!" he yelled and turned back to the massive small arms display.

"Captain Cade is not available right now. No, I don't know when he'll be back. Yes, I'm working on it. No, he is NOT here. I am not lying. Look, you can check for yourself when you get out of there, alright? Yes, that's goo-no he's REALLY not here! Fine. Whatever." The communications officer inside of the small communications bunker turned to his rather large CO. "Sir, the Militia reports that they need backup. Now."

"Right." The CO sprinted from the bunker and started rousing his men. The communications officer turned back to his display, started watching the sensors. There were a thousand little red dots. WTF? He hit it twice with his hand, then sighed as the display did not go away. He picked up his comm device. And ripped it out of the display stand. "What the fuck?"

The cord was covered in some sort of fluid, dripping and sizzling as he watched. The communications officer grabbed a penlight, and shone it into the hole where the comm microphone formerly was located. There were thousands of little, brown maggots. All of them were secreting a fluid that dripped and sizzled. W!? T!? F!? The communications officer grabbed a can of pepperspray off the shelf, averted his eyes, and proceeded to spray the damn maggots into oblivion.

Except the can wasn't spraying. "WHAT THE FUCK!?" The comm officer looked at his hand. It was holding onto something that was definitely not a can of pepperspray. He followed the blade he was holding back up an insect-like arm, and to the body of the Red. He screamed, and reached for his happy gun, as the Red tore the human apart with his other blade.

The CO of communications stopped sprinting when he saw the sentry tumble from the post near the perimeter of the base. What in God's name was that? He toggled his power armor's magnification, looked at the sentry tower and saw…something looking back. He stumbled backwards, surprised, and saw the Red Spitter looking back and hissing something to another Red.

The CO sprinted for the base alarm, saw several other men trying to do the same thing. He saw the first get jumped by a pair of young Red. He flung the first away before the second broke his neck. The CO nearly ran into a second being jumped by two more. He kicked one as he ran. Almost there. Just a few…more…feet…

A massive Silverblade landed directly in front of the alarm. Why? The CO pulled his happy gun, shot the Silverblade twice, and tossed his gun as far away as he could. The Silverblade smelled the scent of the weapon that had shot him, pounced on the gun and devoured it. The CO lunged for the alarm. The Silverblade caught the scent of the weapon on the CO's clothes, lunged at him.

The CO's hand missed the alarm, and he stumbled against the wall. The Silverblade missed him, went through the wall into the mess hall. Well…that oughta get their attention.

From inside the mess hall there was screams. "Hey you! That was my brownie you just crushed! We get brownies once a bloody month! And you just crushed mine, you bastard!" There was repeated gun shots, and the Silverblade's corpse came flying out the wall, nearly crushing the CO. Oh. My. God. A drunk with an autorifle just killed a Silverblade.

Except the Silverblade still moved. It growled, and the CO turned, saw its mouth open as it sprinted at him…

Captain Cade checked his ETA to the nearest "independent's" base. Fancy name for "lawless and pissy thugs". He tugged at his flight gloves, made certain his power armor was secure, and checked his autocannons one more time. He also checked the aircraft flamethrower, the racks of high-incendiary missiles, and his coup de grace, the massive 6400 lb. Anti-Property Penetration Light Explosive, or APPLE bomb.

Cade grabbed the flight stick, nudged the nose of his Hawk fighter a little bit downwards, through the gray clouds and dark sky, towards where everybody thought the nearest gang base was. He flipped his APPLE bomb over to primary control, primed it, and waited. Moments later, the sprawling center came into view, hundreds of figures scurrying around, some sprinting for the massive cluster of anti-aircraft guns the gang had jury-rigged from somewhere.

But they had put them in a cluster. Idiots. Cade released the APPLE bomb, a deceptively small package, only the size of a watermelon. He turned around for another pass. The APPLE bomb went off, a massive white flash that lasted only a second but destroyed a hundred lives and far more land than it should have. Cade followed by strafing the main structure, a geodesic dome that probably housed the mess hall, the armory, and the prisons.

A pair of missiles flashed by his left wing, and he checked his radar again. Ah. They brought friends. Cade shut his throttle to zero, smashed the airbrake, and pulled his stick hard left. He went into a near standstill turn. The fighter shuddered, and something tore loose from the tail fin. But he ended up facing…a squadron of the buggers face to face, flying in tight foramation.

And that, my friends, is the game. Cade launched all of his high-incendiary missiles in one large burst, then taped the trigger to both the autocannons and the flamethrowers. He popped the hatch, looked down at the ground three hundred feet below, flicked off the opposing pilots, and jumped.

The wind whistled by his suit almost inaudibly while he was inside of his visor. He was tempted to open it, that temptation inside of us all that tells us to see just how far we can push it…and then see if we can push it just a little bit farther. The kind that gets you in trouble; the kind that gets you killed.

He overrode the temptation, and kept his suit closed. At fifty feet he triggered his emergency jet pack, and landed roughly. He pulled his happy gun from over his shoulder and started blasting away at repair teams while he sidled towards the armory. "Somebody blast that damn pilot!"

Cade turned on a heel to see somebody yelling into a microphone. Cade shot the man through the throat, then picked up the communicator. "Negative, negative, he just disappeared."

"Well then chase the bastard," the other side screamed. "HC wants him DEAD!"

"Right. I'll just go…after him, shall I?"

"Yes, you shall!"

"Roger. This is…" Cade rubbed his flight gloves together to make a crackling, static noise "out."

The other line bought it, and clicked a double affirmative before tuning out. And now to get their weapon stats.

Cade sprinted quietly through the devastation he had wreaked, the target mega-dome just ahead.

A guard sprinting out to reinforce the damage site saw Cade. He saw the sprinting Air Captain. He saw the muzzle flash of happy gun. He saw no more. Cade stooped as he sprinted, grabbed the guard's rifle, and pressed up against the wall of the dome to keep himself as hidden as possible. He looked for the door, and cursed. Guards. Not that door anyway.

Cade glanced at his jet pack. Fuel capacity was at forty seven percent. Enough to make it to the top of the dome? If so, could he dodge the fighters. If so, could he manage to burn a way inside the dome. And…if so, could he find the armory?…And…if so…could he make it out alive?

A trio of freaks in some sort of armored vehicles rushed him. No time to ponder, then. On second thought, he shouldn't have pondered at all. Shouldn't have pondered on that question, either. Shouldn't have pondered. Shouldn't have pondered. Shouldn't have pondered on that.

And then he was to the top. He cut the jets, landed with a loud thump, and flipped on his fusion cutter with great haste. He started cutting a large hole, large enough for him to fit through. You'll owe me, Redslag, after this. I got you outta that bloody ambush, and now I get you your bloody weapons. The trio of fighters were bearing right down his throat. He looked up at them as he still moved the fusion cutter.

He saw the face of a pilot, grinned, shot at him for fun, then dropped into the darkness and decay of the dome.

He fell for several feet before he triggered his jets, landed with less of a splat than a crash. He rolled away from the wreckage of a wooden crate he had landed on. Nice! I landed on something, and guns spilled out! He crouched, dropped the used guard's rifle, and grabbed this new gun. Wait. Nope. Same gun, only new. But…not new. It was just a "new" old gun.

He looked at the top of the stock, near the hand grip. There was a plug in slot which looked like his suit's power cord would fill nicely. He removed the recharge cable from its safety slot, plugged it into the rifle, and stood back, waiting for the fireworks to go off.

His visor lit up with a variety of information, based on where he pointed his new cartridge rifle. There was a micro-laser sight that he could see with the plug-in, as well as range info, temperature, mass, biorhythm, possible armaments, and a motion sensor. Among other things he really didn't have time to ponder right now, because the door to the armory had just opened.

Cade spun with the rifle, saw a technician working his way among the boxes. Cade brought up the sight, waited until his HUD showed an affirmative lock on the target (White Male, 35 years, 5' 8", 197 lbs, low physical condition, no detected armament, BPM 76). He fired. The rifle recoiled, slightly, as a cartridge shot out.

The cartridge was a rectangular explosive box that had a plasma sheath on it, to remove the air friction and possible interference from deterring the cartridge. The technician screamed into his collar mic before the cartridge sent his intestines into the wall. And now all hell breaks loose.

Multiple doors opened, and the rifle confirmed multiple contacts bearing in on his current position. Cade sprinted for the technician's exit. "Hey! Hey you! Stop, buddy!"

"Mr. Fugoff sends his regards!" Cade screamed as he slid through the door and into a pair of rather confused technicians. Cade grinned, gave them the thumbs-up sign, and quickly blasted the door panel. The heavy door slid shut and locked. A technician gave Cade a skeptical thumbs up back.

Cade brought his rifle down to guard position, and glanced out the door. There were a few guard walking around in power armor, so he figured he'd blend in pretty well. He stepped out like he belonged there (which he didn't) and as if he didn't know jack about any intrusion (which he did). He walked calmly down the hallway, stopping once briefly to ask a hot young chick which way to the tech room.

She glanced at him in shock, wondering how the hell he thought he had a chance, and pointed to an elevator. "Go up that, you'll be in a hallway, third door on the left." She gave a sigh/gasp, then walked off. Cade grinned again, tempted nearly beyond his limits to compliment her ass, just because he was going to disappear in a few minutes anyway. He resisted, however. Barely.

He took the elevator, smiled and waved jauntily to a few guards running towards the armory, shouting something about a "break in." Cade stepped out of the elevator, found his way to the tech room, took a breath, and kicked the door open. "NOBODY MOVE!" he screamed and whipped out his rifle. Things finally did go straight to hell.

He forgot one simple thing. The door had one of the doorstops, to prevent the door from slamming rudely into the wall. The door bounced off, back into his rifle, and sent him stumbling. A technician lunged for the alarm and hit it, then turned and fired a few pistol shots at Cade before the air captain managed to blow the man's brains out. Oh that was smooth, Cade. One of the two guards in the room rushed him, lunged for a body slam. Cade sidestepped and started to track the man with the rifle.

The man was moving too fast, and slam directly into the wall, head first. He stumbled back, a little bit dazed, and Cade gave him a friendly little smack in the face with the butt of his rifle. With as much force as he could muster. And augmented power armor. The man went down.

The second guard rushed Cade, firing a similar contraption as he sprinted. Cade turned, shot the man through the shoulder, cursed, kicked a rather foolish, if brave, technician away, and set himself to receive the sprinting bruiser. The 300 pound man (according to his readout, anyway) slammed into him at a full sprint, sending both of them to the ground.

Cade's rifle bounced away. He cursed, kicked the man in the family jewels, then sent him staggering backwards with a little tap combined with a conveniently placed foot. The bruiser fell. Cade heard someone open the door behind him. He whirled. The incoming guard's jaw dropped, and he turned to scream something to his friends. Cade flung the first thing that came to hand at him. His rifle.

The man fell back, but not fast enough, as the rifle pretty much removed him from the force equation. His body slumped against the door, trapping the rifle outside. Cade cursed again. Think. Next best asset? Swordplay. Fencing. Find a damn sword. The technicians were all back against a wall, now. Cade grabbed a data disk, plugged it into the first computer, and waited. And waited. And waited. "Dammit! Stupid Macs!" He sent his boot through the cursed Macintosh, then pulled up an IBM and found his file.

He downloaded it, pocketed the disk, looked at the technicians, grinned nastily, and clicked on the "Run" icon. He typed in a command: "deleted *.* " He turned back the technicians, who looked incredibly panicked. Too panicked, in fact. Cade turned, and sent the destroyed Mac through the server, the backup drive, and anything else that looked suspicious. He opened the door again, saw a variety of guards waiting for him. He closed it hastily, to the sound of a hundred forms of small arms fire bounce off the door.

He looked for any windows he could conveniently climb through, and found none. He looked at the server again, to make sure it was destroyed. It didn't look like it. But it's lights weren't flashing. He looked at again, then at the door, and managed to shift the damn thing towards the door. He kicked the door off its hinges, and slid the server out into the hallway, with him behind it. The guards held their fire, afraid of damaging the (defunct) server.

Cade walked slowly backwards, shifting the server with him, until he got to the elevator. He dropped the server and slammed the door button. "Please keep arms and legs out of the doorway. Please keep arms and legs out of the doorway. Please keep arms and legs out of the doorway. Please…"

The guards looked at him oddly. He shuffled impatiently, rather nervously, and waited for the door to close. A sprinting clerk found his way inside, picked up his briefcase he had slid to keep the door from closing, and thanked Cade for waiting. The guards' mouths dropped.

Cade took the elevator down, below the floor level, to a mechanic's workshop, where he quickly found a blowtorch and an odd PGU lying around. He glanced around, lit the blowtorch, and cut a blade from the side of an armored vehicle. He wired the PGU in as neat as a job as he could make it using his hands, a bit of plastic sealant, and the thirty seconds he probably didn't have.

He glanced around once more, saw no one there, and kicked the fuel cap open. He moved the blowtorch away, then kicked the bottom of the fuel tank open with his augmented strength. He sprinted for the exit, took the stairs this time, and found the door. No guards on this side. He placed his hand over the keypad, wondering if there was an alarm. Wondering if there was a bomb. Wondering if he was going to piss his pants.

He debated for a second, then decided to just take the simpler method; i.e., use a grenade to blow the massive assault door off of its…socket. It did, and Cade ran out screaming, into the whole damn gang enforcers. They gaped at him as he went by, then started to give chase, firing as they ran. He lit his jetpack for that extra boost, ripped one, and almost felt himself going faster.

He keyed in the controls on his left wrist for his CD player to come on, and listened to a raving electronica beat while he sprinted for his life, bullets, energy, and explosives flying around him. Chaos was good, and good was…chaos….or something. About this time, he noticed the armored vehicle bearing down on him from straight ahead. He cracked his knuckles and ran straight at it.

At the last second, the driver of the opposite vehicle swerved aside, unnerved by the fact this lone man was still sprinting at him. "Ha ha SUCKERS!" Cade screamed, turning his head as he ran.

And he slipped into a manhole that had formerly led into the sewers of New York. He banged and clattered his way down, cursing as he bounced off of the ladder and then the opposite side, followed by the ladder and finally landed knee deep in shit water. He looked up at the manhole and grinned as he saw shadows sprinting past. He looked down the tunnel, into feral eyes and glints of red. He went for his gun, and right about then, realized all he had was a makeshift sword and fencing/swordfighting skills he hadn't used in…well, God knew how long.

He sprinted at them, lit up his sword, letting the energy flow through it, and swung at the first zombified humanic walking corpse. It exploded, showering him with rotten flesh. He felt something wriggle on his arm, and looked at a pack of maggots oozing some sort of dripping, sizzling fluid. He slammed his arm hard against the concrete wall as he ran, figuring (and rightly so) that dripping, sizzling fluids on your body aren't good.

And tripped over a quite dead corpse, stumbled, and slid through the sewage directly into a Red. He slammed it into the wall, absorbing his blow. He slashed at the stunned Red, wondering what the hell he was going to do now. He heard a hiss behind him. "Aww no you don't, ya little fuckers!" He turned and brought his "sword" forwards. The lunging Red impaled itself on the blade.

And the makeshift sword snapped in his hands. The PGU started to overload as its power fed back into itself. Cade dropped the blade and ran back for the manhole. The Red chased him, a flow of flesh and blades. He gasped for air in the murky darkness as the PGU unit faded into the distance and exploded. He felt something grasp for his leg, kicked out, and felt it snap. He saw the shaft of light coming through and sprinted harder.

There were eyes just beyond the light, watching. Waiting. Cade saw a shadow over the manhole, saw it start to descend. It was a youngish looking man in, of all things, a black trench coat that completely covered him. He was carrying a lost, ancient, wondrous piece of technology in the form of a rifle, as well as a real sword. Cade nearly gaped, but felt something slash through his rear armor, and didn't.

Loki wondered why the hell he'd gone out in daylight. Why the hell he'd gone into gang turf. Why the hell he'd gone into a sewer. And why the hell was there a militiaman sprinting at him? Pursued by more Red than Loki had ever known lurked in the bowels of the forgotten city. And still alive? Must be one hell of a guy.

Loki felt a moment's pity, nearly gagged on it, then tossed the guy a rifle he'd picked up off the guard he'd fed on. Cade caught it as he sprinted, flipped it down, under his arm, and fired back repeatedly as he started up the ladder. Loki felt a moment's admiration for the human, then was lost in tangle of blades and…well, and his blade.

He was slashing and blocking and weaving between blows that were encased in molasses. A pair of Red had set up a sort of double combo, one going high and the other low. Loki took one blade on the tip of his own sword, then used the force from the blow to help spin his own blade into the path of the other, which then set it counterspinning directly into the Red behind him.

Loki ducked and scythed his leg out, shattering Red carapace. It was hopeless, obviously. One man against a thousand Red. Well, according to a fantasy novel he'd picked up off a dead guy, it wasn't, but then, that guy was a Drow. Loki was merely a vampire. He decided he'd had enough, jumped up the ladder, and winced as he forgot to cover himself. He rolled into the shade to buy him enough time to cover himself in a thick, massive shroud of darkness. As an afterthought, he tossed an "Experimental Anti-Red Acidic Chemical High Explosive" or EARACHE. The EARACHE exploded, in a mist of acid and fire. The Red screamed as they died, then spawned maggots, which in turn died from the lingering gas.

Loki sprinted home, wondering what the hell had driven him here. Some force above? It was almost as if he was a character in a story…

(NOTE TO FOG HERE: THIS WOULD BE A GOOD ENDING, IF IT GETS TOO LONG OR YOU WANT TO TAKE IT FROM HERE.)

Redslag cursed as another of his men fell. He was down to less than a score left, and the gang was pushing through. He was manning the barricade nearly alone now, just two others to help where there had once been fifteen. He stood up, looked over out into the street, where he saw the buildings' corpses where his attackers hid.

He fired at one, just barely visible in the distance, and wondered where his backup was. Wondered if Cade had betrayed him. Nah. He might be British, but he was a good man. Redslag crouched back down, reloaded his happy gun. Private Bush sprinted next to him and crouched. "Sir, the remaining engineer is sorry to report that there is no exit. He's punching the numbers now, but he thinks our chances of survival are less than 7%."

Redslag smiled grimly. "Thank you, Private. Tell the engineer to continue communicating with HQ. Our 7% depends on backup." There was gunfire above the barricade, designed to keep the defenders down. Redslag stayed crouched, and shifted a foot to his left, where he rose and fired. There was thirty enforcers sprinting at his position now. "Go!" he screamed to Bush. Bush rose and sprinted back.

Redslag diverted the attention of the enforcers by bringing it upon himself. The two steady folk who were firing with him opened up in earnest as Redslag danced and bobbed to avoid getting pegged. That shot in the ambush had hurt.

And then the enforcers were inside the building, clambering over the barricade. The one remaining sniper, beleaguered and overloaded with targets and not enough ammunition, picked off two or three before she had to drop to reload. "Shit! Return fire! Return fire dammit!" Redslag echoed his own words, rushed out to meet the dozen remaining sprinters.

He slammed bodily into one, and they went down. Redslag shot him at point-blank, then rolled off the corpse behind the sprinters and fired into the back of them. Several turned back and fired on him. He took a glancing blow to the shoulder, killed his marksman, and took a full blast to the chest. He stumbled backwards and heaved all over the inside of his helmet. He fired without a pause, killed his second attacker, and sprayed fire indiscriminately over the outside to keep their friends down.

One of the two defenders was down already, a gaping hole in his helmet. The remaining one was firing and sprinting at them to force them to shoot at each other. She went down, caught in multiple crossfire. Redslag saw the engineer scream something. He leapt off of a pile of crates. The enforcers turned to track him…and the engineer's pile crushed them. The engineer rolled and was hit by multiple snipers. Redslag and a handful of friendlies, now.

Where the fuck was Cade? Redslag reloaded, having to resort to the shorter clips for guard duty rather than the standard issue fifty shot clip for actual combat operations. Somebody screamed again, and then the rest of the enforcers were coming, some sixty in all, a hectic blast of energy and metal flying towards Redslag. He held steady, kept his finger on the trigger, and mowed down three before they were surrounding him, beating and kicking and blasting.

He went down multiple times, only to struggle back up and take another down. Three of the remaining eight sprinted at the enforcers, screaming and firing. Sergeant Johnson went down missing his head. Redslag struggled to his feet, straining to breathe, and slumped against a pole. His vision swam, and the enforcers were fuzzy. He could see the dead, clamoring around him, their rotten hands reaching for him, asking for his warmth and life.

He coughed violently; and it scared them away. He spat blood, and sank to his knees. A scream broke through his tortured pain. He looked up, saw the sniper being slowly mutilated and dismembered. He found his rifle again, and saw he had three clips on his belt. He could see every individual scratch on each individual bullet, but he could not see the details of the box a yard in front of him.

He stood, slowly, almost in a trance now. His vision was spotty, but he could see the gang enforcers. He fired, and screamed. They turned, saw the bleeding, dying man they had thought dead. His bullets ripped into them. They screamed, their blood turning into sweet champagne spray that was drunk by a vengeful god, which in turn was eaten by a corpse, as sea of corpses that surrounded a robed figure with a staff. No, a scythe. Death stood alone in a sea of corpses, slashing and hacking that did nothing.

The blackness of the corpses started to ebb over Death, but he was soon aided by shadow, a darkness that was at once apart from the black of undead.

Cade reached out and draped Redslag's arm over his shoulder, and started to for the Toyota Corolla he had found underground, the rusted junk that had gotten him here. He shoved Redslag in the backseat, then drove off, down the ruined highways and through rubble.

Redslag saw Death and the Shadow, again, still in the sea of rot and corpses. Alone. Like him. Alone…