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Description
Chapter 3

The loose gravel crunched beneath my armored boots as I sprinted toward the meeting point. The pods were launched in a spread pattern so that casualties from incoming Anti-Air fire would be minimized. It looked like I was on the inside of the pattern, and didn't have far to go. I had a flashback to the beginning of the war. It had taken one bloody, disastrous mission for the higher-ups to learn that piece of common sense. Ghost images flashed before my eyes, darting from one side to the other in streaks of morbid memory. A full HALF of my unit was lost that way. Fifty good soldiers were killed before they hit the ground. My hands clenched, and I forced myself to calm down before I accidentally shot something. Gotta focus! The rendezvous point is just up ahead, past the next bluff. The rest of my unit would be there. The boys upstairs figured out that hot dropping us directly into the middle of an armed convoy of mechs and tanks was a REALLY bad idea, so this time we were dropped 50 meters outside sensor range. This time we were doing things MY way. We were going to set up an ambush, and unload with our ELRAT-7 Anti-Material rifles. This time, we were going to hit their weaknesses without giving them a chance to react. This time, my unit was going to make it home.

I topped the rise, expecting to see my unit preparing the ambush. They weren't. They were all dead. There were dead bodies everywhere. 99 soldiers, the likes of which the world has never seen, wiped out in a matter of moments. HOW was this possible?! I howled my rage, my frustration, my loss to the winds. Before you could say "Oh SHIT!" I was surrounded. Here then, were the people who killed my brothers-in-arms. Their armor was sleeker, lighter, and designed to completely hide them when activated. They had plasma blades at the ready, and charged me without a second's hesitation. I screamed my defiance, and my A.I.s screamed with me.

"Hostiles! Multiple contacts! They are everywhere!" screamed Athena while Ares yelled "Watch out! Running threat recognition software."

My HUD lit up. Numbers, circles, crosshairs, and squares of all shapes and sizes flashed red as the enemy charged me. The figures made no difference to me. I didn't care that I was outnumbered five hundred to one. I didn't care that my foes were armed with deadly plasma swords and rifles that could cut through my armor and shields in minutes. All I cared about were my dead friends lying there, broken, on the ground all around me. My rage coalesced into a primal force. It was brutal. It was relentless. And it made my blood burn. I deployed my claws, activated them, and charged my foes, three foot long serrated claws wreathed in unholy light, blacker than any abyss. I screamed "For the Fallen!" as I charged the enemy, the faceless hundreds who killed my friends from behind cloaks of shadows and light. My anti-matter edged claws met plasma edged titanium alloy, and cut right through in a blaze of light and thermal boom. The annihilations* created blasts of light, shockwaves of sound, and flashes of bone searing heat every time my claws bit into my enemies. I didn't fight them, I didn't even kill them. I completely and utterly destroyed them. The battle raged on for what seemed like eternity, but what was probably only a few minutes. After the first clash, the enemy fell back. The paced a couple of feet away, prowling in a circle around me, looking for an opening. My HUD started clearing up as Ares took stock of the enemy casualties, the remaining hostiles, and their resources. Athena ran diagnostic after diagnostic in the temporary ceasefire. I looked at the figures and asked Ares if he was sure.

"Damn right I'm sure. I can account for every single one of those kills. Now be careful. I saw some of the ones in the back cloak. Be ready."

Huh. I sure didn't REMEMBER carving 200 stealth armored soldiers into flaming bits. Guess time flew by. There was a sudden shift in the stances of my enemies. I tensed up, ready for round two. Then something weird happened. Something weird, but totally expected. Some poor idiot de-cloaked right in front of me while trying to slam his plasma swords through my guts. I sidestepped, and gave him a nice, bone shattering push-kick. He went flying into his comrades. I then pointed my left claw at the unlucky bastard, and pulled a trigger on the inside of the gauntlet that the claw mechanism was attached to. The claw, without the anti-matter edges, flew through the air on a length of spiked chain, and impaled the poor sod in his right shoulder. Then I pressed a different trigger, and the chain winched back, dragging the screaming asshole to me. And to his death. When he got to me, still skewered on my claw, I pulled him up into the air. Their soldiers weren't genetically engineered like me, and the guy was only a paltry 5' 10" to my 7'. Then, I slowly and deliberately drew my arm back and activated the anti-matter blades of my right claw. Then I gave the guy an upper cut that ripped the fucker in half, from the bottom of his hips to the top of his head. Then I flicked my left claw in a short, vicious right to left motion to fling the burning remains of the stealth soldier away from me and into his buddies on my left.

"Who else wants some?"

Description
Chapter 3

The loose gravel crunched beneath my armored boots as I sprinted toward the meeting point. The pods were launched in a spread pattern so that casualties from incoming Anti-Air fire would be minimized. It looked like I was on the inside of the pattern, and didn't have far to go. I had a flashback to the beginning of the war. It had taken one bloody, disastrous mission for the higher-ups to learn that piece of common sense. Ghost images flashed before my eyes, darting from one side to the other in streaks of morbid memory. A full HALF of my unit was lost that way. Fifty good soldiers were killed before they hit the ground. My hands clenched, and I forced myself to calm down before I accidentally shot something. Gotta focus! The rendezvous point is just up ahead, past the next bluff. The rest of my unit would be there. The boys upstairs figured out that hot dropping us directly into the middle of an armed convoy of mechs and tanks was a REALLY bad idea, so this time we were dropped 50 meters outside sensor range. This time we were doing things MY way. We were going to set up an ambush, and unload with our ELRAT-7 Anti-Material rifles. This time, we were going to hit their weaknesses without giving them a chance to react. This time, my unit was going to make it home.

I topped the rise, expecting to see my unit preparing the ambush. They weren't. They were all dead. There were dead bodies everywhere. 99 soldiers, the likes of which the world has never seen, wiped out in a matter of moments. HOW was this possible?! I howled my rage, my frustration, my loss to the winds. Before you could say "Oh SHIT!" I was surrounded. Here then, were the people who killed my brothers-in-arms. Their armor was sleeker, lighter, and designed to completely hide them when activated. They had plasma blades at the ready, and charged me without a second's hesitation. I screamed my defiance, and my A.I.s screamed with me.

"Hostiles! Multiple contacts! They are everywhere!" screamed Athena while Ares yelled "Watch out! Running threat recognition software."

My HUD lit up. Numbers, circles, crosshairs, and squares of all shapes and sizes flashed red as the enemy charged me. The figures made no difference to me. I didn't care that I was outnumbered five hundred to one. I didn't care that my foes were armed with deadly plasma swords and rifles that could cut through my armor and shields in minutes. All I cared about were my dead friends lying there, broken, on the ground all around me. My rage coalesced into a primal force. It was brutal. It was relentless. And it made my blood burn. I deployed my claws, activated them, and charged my foes, three foot long serrated claws wreathed in unholy light, blacker than any abyss. I screamed "For the Fallen!" as I charged the enemy, the faceless hundreds who killed my friends from behind cloaks of shadows and light. My anti-matter edged claws met plasma edged titanium alloy, and cut right through in a blaze of light and thermal boom. The annihilations* created blasts of light, shockwaves of sound, and flashes of bone searing heat every time my claws bit into my enemies. I didn't fight them, I didn't even kill them. I completely and utterly destroyed them. The battle raged on for what seemed like eternity, but what was probably only a few minutes. After the first clash, the enemy fell back. The paced a couple of feet away, prowling in a circle around me, looking for an opening. My HUD started clearing up as Ares took stock of the enemy casualties, the remaining hostiles, and their resources. Athena ran diagnostic after diagnostic in the temporary ceasefire. I looked at the figures and asked Ares if he was sure.

"Damn right I'm sure. I can account for every single one of those kills. Now be careful. I saw some of the ones in the back cloak. Be ready."

Huh. I sure didn't REMEMBER carving 200 stealth armored soldiers into flaming bits. Guess time flew by. There was a sudden shift in the stances of my enemies. I tensed up, ready for round two. Then something weird happened. Something weird, but totally expected. Some poor idiot de-cloaked right in front of me while trying to slam his plasma swords through my guts. I sidestepped, and gave him a nice, bone shattering push-kick. He went flying into his comrades. I then pointed my left claw at the unlucky bastard, and pulled a trigger on the inside of the gauntlet that the claw mechanism was attached to. The claw, without the anti-matter edges, flew through the air on a length of spiked chain, and impaled the poor sod in his right shoulder. Then I pressed a different trigger, and the chain winched back, dragging the screaming asshole to me. And to his death. When he got to me, still skewered on my claw, I pulled him up into the air. Their soldiers weren't genetically engineered like me, and the guy was only a paltry 5' 10" to my 7'. Then, I slowly and deliberately drew my arm back and activated the anti-matter blades of my right claw. Then I gave the guy an upper cut that ripped the fucker in half, from the bottom of his hips to the top of his head. Then I flicked my left claw in a short, vicious right to left motion to fling the burning remains of the stealth soldier away from me and into his buddies on my left.

"Who else wants some?"