A Reason to Live pt. 12
*Disclaimer*
The following (part 12 of the series 'A Reason to Live') contains both mystical/metaphysical and Judeo-Christian Religious aspects. If you are offended by any/all of these subjects, you are strongly encouraged to avoid reading this or any subsequent works with the title 'A Reason to Live' that are written by me. Thank you for your compliance.
A Reason to Live pt. 12
The man in black his two loyal Fur servants; a mutt named Red, though half of his fur was ash grey, and a Siberian husky named Jasmine, who's coat was almost untouched by the same grey. The two Furs each carried a bloody quarter of a mountain goat over their shoulders as they struggled to keep up with the human in the black powered armor. The two Furs stopped to catch their breath, tired from the steep incline and rough path they had been walking for the past hours.
"Lord" panted Jasmine. "Are we going to keep walking like this all night?" It was still late evening, but it was the time of year when the stars and moon were visible even this early. The gibbous moon appeared huge in the sky, at perigee. In the distance, leagues still from their current position, straight lines and right angles rose out of the side of the most prominent mountain. The man pointed with an armored hand off towards the construction.
"There, Jasmine, Red, is our destination. Mine, to be more precise, and you two are just along for the ride, but I digress. We hike until we are less than a kilometer from the facility, then, well, just ye wait, but it will be good." Satisfied with her master's answer, or not wanting to be rebuked for asking too many questions, Jasmine quieted and stood to rest. After both had taken swigs of water from the canteens hanging from beaded belts around their chests, they resumed their journey, scrambling over rocks and gravel patches that the human walked easily on top of.
Four Furs sat inside a large hollowed log lying amidst the duff of the forest floor, raindrops making a melancholy music as they drummed off the fallen tree.
"Go ahead and sleep now if ye want, but I would recommend only sleeping; something tells me you all we need all the energy ye can muster in the near future." Kyle, a sand tan desert Jackal, spoke to the other three Furs in the group; Raymond, a wolverine, Roxanne, his eagle wife, and Shelly, a tribal fox. Kyle sat just under the overhanging edge of the log, shielded from the rain, but blocking the entrance, watching intently outward. He wasn't even sure the others had heard him over the din of the rain. The others must have gone to bed, he decided, for he heard only the sounds of breathing. Keeping a silent, solitary vigil, he prayed as he observed, prayed that his God's Will would be done. The hours rolled on, twilight fading into dusk. In the forest few creatures stirred.
Shelly woke up early in the night, after receiving a particularly hard kick from the sleeping Raymond. She was irritated, and considering kicking him back until she realized she would be disturbing Roxanne, as well, because the couple lay tangled in each others' arms. She looked around, towards the end of the log where a tiny bit of starlight was drifting in, the other end blocked roughly be the Fur's gear. She saw Kyle sitting cross-legged, silhouetted in the light.
"Kyle" she whispered, a bit too loudly in the absence of the droning quality of the rain. She made her way towards him, careful not to step on any limbs or bodies. She sat down beside him at the log end.
"Shelly, go back to sleep; ye'll need yer rest." She ignored him, and scooted herself closer to him.
"Kyle, tell me the truth, what's going to happen tomorrow?" The jackal, contrary to his nature, put his arm over her shoulder and drew her to him.
"Honestly, I do no know. God has chosen to keep me ignorant of His plans." Shelly, at first shocked by the Fur she had known for so long to be cold showing emotion, was taken back, but then she leaned into his warm body.
"So" she began slowly. "What are we going to do?" Kyle didn't respond, just shock his head sadly. Fatigue overcame Shelly, and she fell asleep in the jackal's arms.
The trio stood about a kilometer from the chain link fence that surrounded the outpost. Icy mists drifted across the relatively flat plains that stretched from the rock they stood on deep into the base.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, watch this." The man in the ebony powered armor clapped his hands, a low, echoing sound this time. From nowhere, streaking deep out of the sky, a fireball crashed into the ground inches from where the man stood. His two Furs, afraid of this new miracle, hit the deck at the first sight of the thing coming at them. The man in black laughed as the thing in the new crater smoked. He walked over to where they cowered and pulled them both up by their shirts at the same time. He set them on the ground. Red quivered, bloodstream full of adrenaline telling him to fight or flee, and brain telling him he couldn't fight.
"Idiots, the lot of ya! Now, just watch, and for God's sake, Red, be a man; stop shaking like a scarred child!" the man waved his armored hand first over himself, and he metamorphosed. Standing before the two was a human, average height, average build, graying hair, and wire spectacles, dressed in singed clothes. The Furs had no time to marvel, as they found themselves changed.
Red now was a little human boy, no older than five, covered in soot and wearing burnt clothing. Jasmine was a human girl, thirteen or fourteen, identically covered in the evidence of fire.
"And now, we wait" said the middle-aged man. At the outpost, radar screens had detected a civilian aircraft approach the base, then suddenly veer out of control and enter a steep nosedive. Sentries at the base reported seeing a craft impact and blossom into a huge fireball. Immediately, the issue was given for medical personnel to look for survivors.
"Holy shit, we got survivors!" one of the medical techs screamed over her shoulder to her companions as she ran towards the crash site, carrying her bag. Her white lab coat with red plus sign flapped in the wind. Acting the part, Red had begun to cry, the man in black was sitting on a rock holding his head, and Jasmine was lying on the ground, mere meters from the impact zone, seeming to be unconscious. When he saw the approaching medical personnel, he got up.
"Sir" one of them demanded. "Is there anyone else in the vehicle?" the man ignored her at first, focusing on his child, Red. He picked up the crying child and tried to console him.
"Shh, James, don't cry; it'll be alright." He walked to the tech, and, covering the child Red's ears, whispered.
"Ma'am, I can't find my wife; I think she might still be inside." One if the techs had picked up Jasmine, and was carrying her back towards the base.
"Don't worry sir; we'll do our best to find her. Now, I need you to come with me to the medical bay for treatment." She led the way back to the facility, and the man in black, carry Red, followed her and the man carrying Jasmine inside.
Roxanne woke up first, refreshed from her sleep. She saw Kyle sitting at the edge of the log, Shelly's resting form reclining against him.
"Kyle" she said, surprised anyone else was awake. "You're up this early?"
"I didn't go to sleep" he said, gingerly shifting the fox's form off of himself. He crawled out of the fallen tree and stood up straight outside.
"Rain stopped around three." He stretched his back after the cramped night guarding the log entrance. "Gonna want to get Raymond and Shelly up, we have some more walking ahead of us." inside the log, the wolverine sat up, and banged his head against the low ceiling.
"Stupid log!" he cursed loudly and rubbed his sore forehead. Raymond fell out of the gear pile on the other side, along with some damp leaves which had blown there during the night.
"G'mornin everyone. What's fer breakfast?" the eagle laughed as she helped her husband to his feet.
"Ray you lug head" she teased playfully. "It's always food with you isn't it?" the bang and Raymond's subsequent cursing had awoken Shelly, and she crawled out of the log. She walked around to the far side of their shelter and retrieved her gear wordlessly.
"Okay, okay, babe" said Raymond, conceding to his wife. "I'm not that hungry anyway." He bent down and grabbed his pack. He shouldered it, checking to see that his gun was still there. "But one of these days you're gonna owe me a real break- hey, do you smell that?" Shelly inhaled deeply.
"Smells like, fire, and, rotten chicken eggs maybe?" Kyle had noticed a patch of red and orange on the mountainside, too large to be a camp fire or a single light, and too small to be a forest fire.
"Sulphur, Shelly, brimstone, to be precise. It's probably coming from there" the jackal raised a hand to point at the spot on the mountain. Roxanne grabbed her equipment and she, too, checked to be sure her pistol was there. It was, and she breathed a little easier.
"Looks like a bonfire or something, Kyle" she commented, her sharp eyes noting more detail than the others.
"Doesn't matter what it is; the man in black is behind it, and its where were headed" Kyle said emotionlessly and began walking.
The others sighed, but seeing no point in arguing with the determined Fur, set off after him through the forest.
The scientists and military personnel at the facility had made the mistake of letting him in. of course, he could've walked in, lightning streaking from the sky, fire erupting from the ground, but where was the fun in that, the man in the black powered armor wondered. Shortly after clearing the gate, he let his projected illusion fall.
Initially surprised, the humans got over it quickly, and produced quite sophisticated weapons which now they were firing at him and Jasmine. He had no idea where Red was off to, but he felt him still alive, somewhere, and if he had wanted to he could have located him by his thought trail alone, but now was not the time.
Leaving Jasmine crouching alone behind a waist-high ferroconcrete barrier, he stood up, immediately attracting fire.
Plasma globules hissed in the air as the ionized gas projectiles hurtled towards him. A green glop hit him in the cuirass, but instead of melting in, or splattering and covering his whole torso, the goo slid pathetically off, not even leaving a trail behind. Bullets bounced off his armor with a ping, and lasers were deflected at wild angles, some finding their way back to the humans who fired them.
Out of the limit of his peripheral vision inside his helmet, the man saw a fireball shoot up into the air with a whoosh. Red came running by, knife in hand glinting, face and maw covered in rich crimson blood. The humans turned at this new threat, and that was when Jasmine leapt up from cover. She ran towards a human and tackled him, knocking him to the ground. She was on him in an instant, smashing his face in with the barrel of his rifle.
When for sure he was dead, she quickly searched him for bullets and confiscated the few she found. Reloading the rifle, she took careful aim, ignoring the chaos around her and pulled the trigger four times, not having to manually chamber a round with the automatic. Three humans fell, and the fourth survived only by ducking into a building, not the one which Red had torched.
She came out seconds later, struggling with the weight of a Gatling gun. She held down the button on the control panel, and the barrel began to slowly spin, picking up speed. The very instant the first sixty caliber incendiary rounds left the two-thirds meter barrel, the man in black raised his arms to right angles to his body. To anything watching other than security cameras, it seemed as though the field appeared after the man raised his arms, but to cameras, the field was there pico-seconds before he raised his arms.
It was translucent, but glue tinted, with lines and curves of darker blue energy roiling across its domed surface. Sounds were muted substantially, but came through the barrier. Red and Jasmine, suddenly in a calm, slightly electric world, watched in amazement as round after round of death was repelled from the barrier like two same pole magnets were of each other.
A lucky, or unlucky, depending, bullet actually reversed its direction, not shifting in the least, and flew back into its barrel as that chamber rotated around again. The heat of explosion after explosion detonated the semi-hard combustible jelly inside the bullet, and the chain gun was torn apart with a deafening boom and blinding flash, though inside the boom was much less and the light partially absorbed by the tinted barrier.
The woman's charred corpse flew backward, fire blackened fabric body armor rippling in the firestorm created breeze. A white piece of paper drifted out of her pocket and landed on the ground, where it was crushed into the gravel by the passing man in black.
He let the force field fall, every enemy either dead or surrendering. Jasmine was running from body to body, gathering up ammo, newer, better weapons, and any food stuffs the people happened to have with them. Red had run off somewhere again, probably butchering anyone who attempted to resist.
"All this, to defend a thoroughly worthless ship" the man in black remarked, then began to laugh, a grinding, metallic sound.
To be Finished...