Post by ch00beh on Jun 15, 2006 1:56:44 GMT -5
"I hate outer wall duty. It's so frikkin cold," said a man in a plain white snow uniform. He pulled his fur hat down farther on his head and tightened the scarf around his neck. The soldier had a face mask on, and was using that to communicate with the other, since the wind howled loudly in their ears.
"I hear ya, man," shouted the second man. His face mask was off since he was trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to light a cigarette. A silence followed, as the two trudged through the snow, when the first spoke up again.
"You know, Jeff, you should throw that thing away. They cause cancer, ya know, and the face mask is all warm and cozy on the inside."
"Heh, I figure I'll probably die from getting hit in the face with an energy ball before lung cancer even thinks of forming with this job." He shrugged, then came to a stop next to the only opening in the thick concrete wall that surrounded the APCARP outpost.
It was a remote outpost. There wasn't anything special about it. Even though it was part of the Power organization, Powers themselves rarely showed up. Instead, the most powerful persons that ever passed through on a semi-regular basis were the Nulls, the elite soldiers who used an injected drug to suppress their emotions and boost their thinking abilities, and even then only one or two showed up at fairly irregular intervals. The outpost was poorly defended and held no strategic advantage, so APCARP didn't bother supplying it with very much defensive equipment.
"It's gonna be a long day," sighed Jeff. Suddenly a loud crack rang out from the distance. Jeff instinctively ducked behind a small hill of snow and looked up to his companion, only to find that the other had a rather large hole in his chest. He threw away his cigarette, pulled on his face mask, and shouted over the comm link. "Mayday, mayday, sniper shots fired at the front gate, one man down. Requesting back up immediately. I repeat, requesting ba-"
His sentence was cut off by a rocket hitting the gate behind him, peeling it off its hinges and throwing the man away like a rag doll. Following the explosion, a horde of soldiers clad in white snow garb ran across the frozen expanse and through the wall, meeting no resistance as they ran towards the windowless, one doored complex.
Klaxxons sounded inside as APCARP soldiers ran to their practiced positions. A voice over the intercom shouted, "This is emergency code number 888. This is NOT a drill, I repeat, this is NOT a drill!" A dozen or so men gathered behind metal crates in the room right behind the only entrance, ready to shoot anything that moved in.
Suddenly, there was silence, whereas before, there had been banging and shouting on the outside. The soldiers knew what was going to happen, so they ducked down behind the crates, and a moment later, a series of explosions tore the door off the wall. Right afterwards, the APCARP soldiers started blindly firing at the entrance, but for nothing, since no one was there. While firing, several grenades were launched through the door, ricocheting off of various surfaces, then exploding moments later, silencing the room. It was then that the invading army rushed in through the room and into the corridor behind it, where they started to meet resistance from the soldiers inside.
***
A man in a black suit stared at himself in the mirror. He reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a syringe, which he flicked and squirted to get the airbubbles out, then inserted it into his neck. He squeezed, nearly instantly getting the familiar yet terrible feeling of... not feeling. He calmly looked at himself again, then threw away the needle, fixed his tie, and stepped out of the room to meet two unknown soldiers running by him.
The two came to a stop and turned to fire their rifles at Shadow, but his mind was already racing at impossibly fast speeds. His reflexes and reaction times went so far up that the world seemed to go slower in his mind. He couldn't see the bullets, but by just looking at the two soldiers he knew what he needed to know. Both were holding the guns as right handers would, one was within two steps of him, and the other was about 30 degrees to the right and five steps farther.
Both started to shoot, but by then, Shadow had closed the distance between himself and the first soldier. He grabbed the rifle with his right hand and pulled, knowing that with the force he pulled with, there was only a 10% chance that the soldier would let go. As expected, the soldier held on, so Shadow stepped to the right, held out his left hand, and let the soldier's face come into contact with his arm at a speed that would most likely break his neck. It did.
The other soldier had begun shooting, but with the precisely timed sidestep, Shadow had used the other soldier to block the incoming bullets, knowing the average speed at which a right handed rifle holder would move the gun. With a quick flick of his wrist, Shadow twirled the stolen rifle into shooting position and shot the other soldier in the neck, then quickly threw the gun at the man's hand, since the trigger was still pressed and bullets were still firing. Shadow then listened through his earpiece for where to go, then took off running.
A minute or so later, the Null found three soldiers, still rookies, catching their breath behind a blast door. "Soldier, report!" He said to the nearest one.
"Yes sir!" the boy replied, saluting. "The invading army has been overwhelming our small forces. From what we've gathered, it seems as though the enemies are EPRA soldiers. Also, we haven't been able to find out the enemy's objective. Our squad was wiped out in the room behind this blast door, and about twenty EPRA soldiers are trying to break through, last we counted."
"Thank you. Now go to the nearest squad that needs assistance. I'll take care of this room," Shadow commanded. The three saluted and ran down the corridor while Shadow walked towards the door. There were bangs behind it from explosives, but the Null felt no fear, couldn't feel fear, as he punched in the code to open the door. He could feel the m-adrenaline, the modified super adrenaline that he had been 'upgraded' with, course through his veins in preparation for the fight. He reached for his two customized semi-automatic pistols on his waist, then hit the green button the panel to open the door.
In his mind, just from the sounds coming across the door, he already had a picture in his mind of what it would probably look like on the other side. The explosion had just gone off, so no one would be near the door, nor would they be looking at the door. Two to three wouldn't have weapons ready since they would be the ones setting the bombs. The other 17 or 18 would be ducking for cover as far from the door as possible, but with a good chance that two or so would be ready, rifles aimed at the door to shoot anyone who would be behind the door. The only problem with their plan was that the explosives wouldn't have opened the blast door. However, it would leave smoke from which Shadow could use as cover.
The door opened, and as expected, thick clouds of smoke covered the entry. Shadow pointed both pistols forward and shot a burst of three rounds at the two most probable positions, then took two more bursts at the next most probable spots. Barely audible was the cry of pain as three soldiers were shot. 'Next, average 3 seconds to realize what's going on, then average 5 to draw weapons, most likely same issue rifle as the ones I killed,' Shadow thought. With that, he sprinted forward at inhuman speeds and burst out of the cloud of smoke to see something similar to what he had expected earlier.
One man crouching behind a crate that had wires leading to it, with another man nearby reaching for a gun on the ground. 16 soldiers were fumbling with their guns, trying to get into a firing position and aim at the Null.
Shadow quickly dove straight forward. While in the air, he let a burst of bullets hit the one directly in front of him while with his other hand aimed his gun at the soldier who was about the press the trigger. With the momentum from moving his right arm sideways to shoot that man, he ended up with his back to the ground. He let out another burst of shots with both pistols, killing the two more soldiers, before landing on his shoulder blades. He gracefully kicked his legs as he landed to complete a backwards roll, ending with one knee on his ground. He quickly scanned which soldiers were still alive, looked at how they held their guns, which direction they were pointing, and used that to create a priority list of which were currently the most threatening and how much time he had before the next most threatening would have a bead on him.
Still on one knee, Shadow held his arms straight out to the right and left, shot the soldiers he was aiming at, then rolled towards his right which put his back to a 6ft tall crate. He quickly brought both hands forward and killed the four that were in plain view. From his observations, the other eight were behind the crate. He pulled up memories on files that showed where humans tended to hide when trying to defend themselves, then compared that with the arrangement of crates that his photographic memory had captured a moment earlier.
Shadow turned around, threw one of the dead men's helmets to the left of the crate while running around the right side. He saw where the rest of the soldiers were when they popped out of their hiding spaces to shoot at the helmet. They were all near each other, forming two lines of four. The Null sprinted towards them, jumped onto one of the shorter crates, then leapt off of that to land right in the center of the two lines. He stood stone still in the same spot, in the same position, while his arms were a blur of motion, positioning the guns so that they could put a bullet in each of the soldiers multiple times.
As the room was finally silent, Shadow listened for any updates through his earpiece. "This is 11th squad, we've checked the security room, the inside of the complex is clear, all intruders have been neutralized. Wait, what's that? OH SHIT! The enemy has Powers! There are 3 obliterating the men that are outside near the main entrance. It seems that one controls ice, another has stretch limbs, and the third makes whatever he touches explode. Wait... there's also MORE enemy soldiers coming this way!"
Shadow ran for the entrance. This wasn't good. Although the Nulls were considered APCARP's non-Powered Power hunters and could match a Power one for one, he himself couldn't take three at the same time.
"I hear ya, man," shouted the second man. His face mask was off since he was trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to light a cigarette. A silence followed, as the two trudged through the snow, when the first spoke up again.
"You know, Jeff, you should throw that thing away. They cause cancer, ya know, and the face mask is all warm and cozy on the inside."
"Heh, I figure I'll probably die from getting hit in the face with an energy ball before lung cancer even thinks of forming with this job." He shrugged, then came to a stop next to the only opening in the thick concrete wall that surrounded the APCARP outpost.
It was a remote outpost. There wasn't anything special about it. Even though it was part of the Power organization, Powers themselves rarely showed up. Instead, the most powerful persons that ever passed through on a semi-regular basis were the Nulls, the elite soldiers who used an injected drug to suppress their emotions and boost their thinking abilities, and even then only one or two showed up at fairly irregular intervals. The outpost was poorly defended and held no strategic advantage, so APCARP didn't bother supplying it with very much defensive equipment.
"It's gonna be a long day," sighed Jeff. Suddenly a loud crack rang out from the distance. Jeff instinctively ducked behind a small hill of snow and looked up to his companion, only to find that the other had a rather large hole in his chest. He threw away his cigarette, pulled on his face mask, and shouted over the comm link. "Mayday, mayday, sniper shots fired at the front gate, one man down. Requesting back up immediately. I repeat, requesting ba-"
His sentence was cut off by a rocket hitting the gate behind him, peeling it off its hinges and throwing the man away like a rag doll. Following the explosion, a horde of soldiers clad in white snow garb ran across the frozen expanse and through the wall, meeting no resistance as they ran towards the windowless, one doored complex.
Klaxxons sounded inside as APCARP soldiers ran to their practiced positions. A voice over the intercom shouted, "This is emergency code number 888. This is NOT a drill, I repeat, this is NOT a drill!" A dozen or so men gathered behind metal crates in the room right behind the only entrance, ready to shoot anything that moved in.
Suddenly, there was silence, whereas before, there had been banging and shouting on the outside. The soldiers knew what was going to happen, so they ducked down behind the crates, and a moment later, a series of explosions tore the door off the wall. Right afterwards, the APCARP soldiers started blindly firing at the entrance, but for nothing, since no one was there. While firing, several grenades were launched through the door, ricocheting off of various surfaces, then exploding moments later, silencing the room. It was then that the invading army rushed in through the room and into the corridor behind it, where they started to meet resistance from the soldiers inside.
***
A man in a black suit stared at himself in the mirror. He reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a syringe, which he flicked and squirted to get the airbubbles out, then inserted it into his neck. He squeezed, nearly instantly getting the familiar yet terrible feeling of... not feeling. He calmly looked at himself again, then threw away the needle, fixed his tie, and stepped out of the room to meet two unknown soldiers running by him.
The two came to a stop and turned to fire their rifles at Shadow, but his mind was already racing at impossibly fast speeds. His reflexes and reaction times went so far up that the world seemed to go slower in his mind. He couldn't see the bullets, but by just looking at the two soldiers he knew what he needed to know. Both were holding the guns as right handers would, one was within two steps of him, and the other was about 30 degrees to the right and five steps farther.
Both started to shoot, but by then, Shadow had closed the distance between himself and the first soldier. He grabbed the rifle with his right hand and pulled, knowing that with the force he pulled with, there was only a 10% chance that the soldier would let go. As expected, the soldier held on, so Shadow stepped to the right, held out his left hand, and let the soldier's face come into contact with his arm at a speed that would most likely break his neck. It did.
The other soldier had begun shooting, but with the precisely timed sidestep, Shadow had used the other soldier to block the incoming bullets, knowing the average speed at which a right handed rifle holder would move the gun. With a quick flick of his wrist, Shadow twirled the stolen rifle into shooting position and shot the other soldier in the neck, then quickly threw the gun at the man's hand, since the trigger was still pressed and bullets were still firing. Shadow then listened through his earpiece for where to go, then took off running.
A minute or so later, the Null found three soldiers, still rookies, catching their breath behind a blast door. "Soldier, report!" He said to the nearest one.
"Yes sir!" the boy replied, saluting. "The invading army has been overwhelming our small forces. From what we've gathered, it seems as though the enemies are EPRA soldiers. Also, we haven't been able to find out the enemy's objective. Our squad was wiped out in the room behind this blast door, and about twenty EPRA soldiers are trying to break through, last we counted."
"Thank you. Now go to the nearest squad that needs assistance. I'll take care of this room," Shadow commanded. The three saluted and ran down the corridor while Shadow walked towards the door. There were bangs behind it from explosives, but the Null felt no fear, couldn't feel fear, as he punched in the code to open the door. He could feel the m-adrenaline, the modified super adrenaline that he had been 'upgraded' with, course through his veins in preparation for the fight. He reached for his two customized semi-automatic pistols on his waist, then hit the green button the panel to open the door.
In his mind, just from the sounds coming across the door, he already had a picture in his mind of what it would probably look like on the other side. The explosion had just gone off, so no one would be near the door, nor would they be looking at the door. Two to three wouldn't have weapons ready since they would be the ones setting the bombs. The other 17 or 18 would be ducking for cover as far from the door as possible, but with a good chance that two or so would be ready, rifles aimed at the door to shoot anyone who would be behind the door. The only problem with their plan was that the explosives wouldn't have opened the blast door. However, it would leave smoke from which Shadow could use as cover.
The door opened, and as expected, thick clouds of smoke covered the entry. Shadow pointed both pistols forward and shot a burst of three rounds at the two most probable positions, then took two more bursts at the next most probable spots. Barely audible was the cry of pain as three soldiers were shot. 'Next, average 3 seconds to realize what's going on, then average 5 to draw weapons, most likely same issue rifle as the ones I killed,' Shadow thought. With that, he sprinted forward at inhuman speeds and burst out of the cloud of smoke to see something similar to what he had expected earlier.
One man crouching behind a crate that had wires leading to it, with another man nearby reaching for a gun on the ground. 16 soldiers were fumbling with their guns, trying to get into a firing position and aim at the Null.
Shadow quickly dove straight forward. While in the air, he let a burst of bullets hit the one directly in front of him while with his other hand aimed his gun at the soldier who was about the press the trigger. With the momentum from moving his right arm sideways to shoot that man, he ended up with his back to the ground. He let out another burst of shots with both pistols, killing the two more soldiers, before landing on his shoulder blades. He gracefully kicked his legs as he landed to complete a backwards roll, ending with one knee on his ground. He quickly scanned which soldiers were still alive, looked at how they held their guns, which direction they were pointing, and used that to create a priority list of which were currently the most threatening and how much time he had before the next most threatening would have a bead on him.
Still on one knee, Shadow held his arms straight out to the right and left, shot the soldiers he was aiming at, then rolled towards his right which put his back to a 6ft tall crate. He quickly brought both hands forward and killed the four that were in plain view. From his observations, the other eight were behind the crate. He pulled up memories on files that showed where humans tended to hide when trying to defend themselves, then compared that with the arrangement of crates that his photographic memory had captured a moment earlier.
Shadow turned around, threw one of the dead men's helmets to the left of the crate while running around the right side. He saw where the rest of the soldiers were when they popped out of their hiding spaces to shoot at the helmet. They were all near each other, forming two lines of four. The Null sprinted towards them, jumped onto one of the shorter crates, then leapt off of that to land right in the center of the two lines. He stood stone still in the same spot, in the same position, while his arms were a blur of motion, positioning the guns so that they could put a bullet in each of the soldiers multiple times.
As the room was finally silent, Shadow listened for any updates through his earpiece. "This is 11th squad, we've checked the security room, the inside of the complex is clear, all intruders have been neutralized. Wait, what's that? OH SHIT! The enemy has Powers! There are 3 obliterating the men that are outside near the main entrance. It seems that one controls ice, another has stretch limbs, and the third makes whatever he touches explode. Wait... there's also MORE enemy soldiers coming this way!"
Shadow ran for the entrance. This wasn't good. Although the Nulls were considered APCARP's non-Powered Power hunters and could match a Power one for one, he himself couldn't take three at the same time.