The Pale War Read online

  A very strong, young looking man entered into a caged gun cache. It was a huge section of room where plenty of guns were kept. He pushed a small green button by the caged door and the door slid open. He took one step inside and looked the cage over. He was very familiar with the room. He headed to his right. He grabbed a thick, bulky shotgun. This shotgun he hooked to his back. The gun had two thick barrels. It also had a thick black shoulder butt. A barrel magazine was behind the trigger guard and by the trigger guard, was a belt of slug cartridges that ran from the side chamber where the first cartridge was loaded into; right into the under magazine barrel. On the other side, opposite the magazine barrel, was a small trigger lever. It was the speed setting for the shotgun's fully automatic ability. This futuristic shotgun was one of the weapons he was going to take into battle.

  He looked past where the shotgun previously hung and saw two small but high powered machine pistols. He took the two out of their holdings and stuck them into two holsters on his hips. These two machine pistols looked like small AK 47s. These were completely black though and their stocks were silver in color. They were already loaded with magazines which easily fit into the young man's holsters.

  The young man looked to his right and saw two magnum pistols that were hanging on the cage. He walked over to them and took them off the cage. These two pistols had two barrels on each. The two barrels on both guns lapped each other like a double barrel rifle. Only these were handguns. They had long clips already loaded into them. They were loaded in sideway instead of in the butt of the guns like older models of handguns.

  The young man walked back to the caged door and left the cache room. Staring straight ahead, he hit the green button, this time the door closed behind him. He walked away from the room a little weighed down by the heavy hardware but it was nothing he wasn't use to.

  This young man's name was Alerius Nova. More so, he was better known by his codename: RED FIRIUS. He wore a black trench coat that had its collar turned up giving it a cape like effect. On the back of this trench coat was a pure red dragon design in the shape of a crucifix. His feet were strapped with metal combat boots. His chest covered by a maroon red t-shirt with black dye stains which ran down it like blood.

  He was an agent. A super human classified as a "rogue". In the war to end all wars! The end war!

  The year is 2129 A.D. A war has been raging ever since 2031. A war between good and evil. The final formidable offence of Hell is on! In 2031, people known only as "rogues" emerged that could move like no other human on planet Earth. They headed the first defensive lines against the hoarding armies of the eternal inferno!

  By 2039 the war extended into space. Humans took the war from Earth to the evil hoards which seemed to be waging war on other planets besides Earth! As if Lucifer himself was trying to take over the whole universe!

  As man's reach into the stars extended, alien races had become in league with both sides and by 2056 nearly twenty species of life forms had picked sides. Some, which at first glance, you wouldn't figure to be on either side. By 2066 nearly half the human population had been either killed or scattered across the universe to the outer front lines. Rogues became more abundant as elder humans died and the younger generations became ripe with new rogues. Some humans by the end of 2066 were scared of this development and had joined the army of the eternal inferno.

  By the year 2074 the war was at a boiling point as now new demons of Hell were beginning to spawn and more humans and other species joined the damned. Some were dragged in by the promise of power; others for just plain pride that one side could offer that the other could not.

  By 2077 the war turning in the human's favor seemed to be quickly fading until the discovery of ten imprisoned angels on one of the hellions' base worlds. These angels were known only as Laylines. They were suppose to be creators of angelic weapons and of angelic beings that were suppose to fight for the sake of existence. It was later discovered that they had been imprisoned ever since the start of the war. The damned force that be had gotten an early start on putting down Heaven's only real contribution to the war.

  Ten rogues had rescued them from bondage by way of cover. A whole army of vicious fighting aliens known as hounds had given them cover. These Laylines were fountains of information and spread across the universe to help the frontlines.

  2091 came and in that year Hell had an answer for the Laylines. A new form of demon came known as Oadins. Powerful demons with tremendous destructive energy. They could wipe out worlds in mere moments!

  In the beginning were five Oadins. Now, there is one left and if it is destroyed it may mean the end of the war. Since the war escalated in that year, with the emergence of Oadins, then more soldiers were added to both sides. The Oadins had also destroyed seven out of the ten original Laylines. The remaining three are missing and both sides have no idea of their whereabouts. This is the present state of 2129.

  Alerius traveled down a short corridor away from the gun cage. He approached a small metal door. Outside the door he could hear the sounds of war. He could feel multiple explosions. He heard the wailing of cries from both sides as both good and evil collided outside.

  Alerius was inside a small bunker which he had entered along with a small human battle battalion. They were suppose to be giving support to the soldiers outside. When they arrived by way of a military spacecraft, they were bombarded by fire from the sky! Falling fire bombs which had the same effect as a missile. They were very poorly equipped and had not been informed to well either. They had walked right into a death trap. The soldiers in the skies were doing their best to keep the mounting evil off the small squad but they were failing. Alerius knew it to from the sounds outside.

  Alerius and the rest of the team had dodged into the bunker for cover. The bunker was first erected for rearming purposes for a small battalion like the one Alerius had been put with. Of course, there was no way one of them was going out there. They were going to send Alerius out there because that was Alerius's purpose.

  Alerius was a rogue and a rogue human's purpose in the military was to go on extremely deadly assignments that no normal human could do. Some where put with small army teams like Alerius was. Others were made up teams themselves which were somewhat the military's Special Forces. Sent to either extreme battle zones or covert missions of seek & destroy or search & rescue.

  Alerius was not a team player. He liked to be alone. He was partnered up with the squad about only a week ago so this was a little new for him. He was happy though that the first mission that he was sent on with these guys had went to hell. Now, he had to save all of them himself. Not to mention salvage the mission!

  He was at the metal door which leads back out to the chaos. By the wall to his left was the entire squad somewhat cowering with their rifles. This was Jack Company. Mostly comprised of rookies. Not one of them had hardly stepped foot on an alien world before this. Alerius could see this to and he reveled in it.

  They were dressed in normal combat attire. Alerius was free to dress in whatever attire he wanted because he was a special agent so he had more rights then these lowly grunts. All of that equipment would weigh him down too.

  The one in front approached him and he knew by the face and the military insignia on his combat helmet that he was the captain. The commander of Jack Company. Suddenly, an explosion rocked the bunker and the commander instinctively ducked along with the rest of his platoon. After the foundation settled he got back up to Alerius. He looked at him with somewhat concerned eyes but he was still glad neither he nor any of his teammates were going out there!

  "Hey Firius, you sure you should do this? EVACs going to be here soon."

  Alerius looked down at the commander and simply said in his gruff sinister voice, "Not here. I've got to cl
ear a path to that EVAC point. You're 'green boys' aren't going to be able to do that. Look at them. They'll just slow me down."

  The captain looked down at the solid concrete floor of the bunker and began to turn his foot in his shoe. "Well…" He said cutting himself off.

  Alerius smiled and looked back at the metal door. He took the automatic shotgun in his hands and cocked the first shell into place. "Besides, I live for this!"

  He grabbed the handle on the door and swung it open! He raced outside to meet the enemy while the captain and a couple others closed the door behind him. One of them turned to the captain and simply said, "Beg pardon sir, but that guy…is insane!"

  "Yeah well, you better pray he's as good as he thinks he is!" The captain said looking back at the metal door as he heard that chain fed shotgun going ballistic.

  Planet Reign: Battleground

  Alerius ran outside and his senses were met with chaos! Huge clumps of dirt met the side of his face from explosions that were happening around the small building. While the two armies swarmed in the sky. He scanned the planet surface as it was loaded with small craters in its layer of gray dirt. This planet was a barren planet before but now its barrenness was exuberated by war scars. Smoke covered the landscape like a morning mist. The smoke reached all the way into the overcast sky where the flying shadows of the two sides could be seeing. Fireballs fell in numerous places all around Alerius. Alerius could only smile at the war torn landscape.

  The two armies could be heard in the sky. The one side was the natives of the planet and the others were the demon hoards sent to conquer it. The natives to the planet were huge flying fire spitting reptilians. Alien dragons. These dragons had sided with the humans as soon as their planet had been attacked about twenty years ago by the destructive armadas of Hell. A shaky alliance had been reached with these dragons and even though they were unable to speak and somewhat smarter then dogs, they still had somewhat of a good idea who was on their side and who wasn't. Even though they were not fully trusted. They were thought of more in the war as weapons then actual living beings.

  The hellion flying forces were of two parties. Baragons and troggles. Troggles were basically giant eyeballs with spikes coming out of the sides. They could also blast huge red beams out of their eyes as big as the eyeball itself! Since these troggles were about fifteen feet high it was a pretty big beam! Not much on brains but abundant on destructive power!

  Baragons, on the other hand, were smarter then most humans! Two legged ram humanoids that had big bat wings coming out of the tops their shoulder blades! Some of them had straight horns like bulls. Others had the rolled horns like rams. There torsos were human looking but their legs and heads were completely goat looking. In those heads were red reptilian eyes that held the intelligence of centuries! They could form huge fireballs in their hands, some as big as plane tires! The fireballs that fell to the ground so often were their doing.

  Alerius began to run across the plain gray ground looking for ground forces too. Even though the native dragons were out numbered four to one in the skies by both types of demons; Hell had still sent some of their ground forces too! Neither Alerius nor Jack Company had seen any on the way in but he could definitely feel them. Rogues had a unique gift of being able to sense demons they had not seen yet on the battlefield. A sort of sixth sense about unknown enemies and for most it didn't stop their either.

  Alerius could sense evil getting close to him even though in the accursed smoke he couldn't see three feet in front of him! As he ran across the gray dust lands, he stopped abruptly. He could see a shadow coming his way right in front of him. It was a big, black mass that looked like a dark blob, at first.

  Alerius's ears could hear through the destructive blasts around him small tank treads rolling across the ground. He looked at the big black mass as it came closer to him. He held tight to the shotgun as the large mass became visible.

  He first saw the tank treads come into view. Rolling on the gray dust towards him. He raised his sights a tad and the tread was attached to a gray kind of metal that was only as wide as his own stance. He saw that a little above that was a pivoting metal stick on top of the tank treads. It swiveled to the left and then to the right. Alerius's ears also being filled with a machine type of sound that the pivoting metal stick was making.

  On the pivoting stick was a torso. Half of the torso was metallic while the other was a red, fleshy substance. The right side of the torso was metal with a fully operational four-barrel, automatic gun extending out of the metal like a robotic arm. There were bullet belts loaded into each barrel which went from the barrels to the back of the metal arm. The left side of the torso was the red, fleshy tissue. It seemed to hang onto the metallic side like it would fall off the machine body if it didn't cling to it. On this side was a huge red arm that had thick black claws on three malformed looking fingers. The fingers twitched at Alerius as well as the arm as if beckoning him to his doom.

  Alerius saw a neck that was also split in two like the torso and on top of the neck was a head. This head was just like the torso. The right side looked like a metallic canine snout. A red, glowing glass-eye that was encased in a metal skull structure. The left side of the face looked identical only it was flesh. The flesh clung to the metal skull just like the left side of the torso. The eye, surrounded by the red skin, was yellow with a green and red pupil. Very feline looking but in a "hell-hound" head. On this side was a canine-like ear that was pricked to a peak. The head twitched in Alerius's direction as he saw the thing rolling towards him!

  He knew what this thing was. It was a denek! A powerful machine/demon that was used for heavy assault against armored forces. The thing towered over Alerius, at least a foot taller then him! It was a common destructive monster. The real thing that intimidated Alerius was that this type of demon never traveled alone. Either it had a transport vanguard or it traveled in a battalion of its own. Alerius could sense the others too.

  The thing rolled up almost half-a-foot from him when another appeared out of the smoke. Then another from behind Alerius. Three more came and then two more extending the number surrounding him to seven. Alerius saw another one come at him to and he knew that the whole battalion was all around him! All eight!

  Alerius looked around at the group to see if there was a gap of some kind that he could slip through. He saw nothing of the kind! He was trapped in a circle of destructive force. Alerius looked at his shotgun and just looked back at the first mutated demon he had seen. It screeched at him from its half-flesh, half-metal mouth. A type of screech that sound like a buzz saw on metal. The Gatlin arm on the first aimed right at Alerius as the thing took special care with its aim. Alerius got a short grin on his face.

  He raised the shotgun's double barrels right at the demon and pulled back on the trigger. The gun kicked and Alerius's arm almost snapped in half from the recoil! The demon was knocked back on it own tracks as it was dead after at least forty shells hit it! Alerius jumped in the air as soon as he heard the other deneks' guns go off. Two shot themselves and they both exploded while the others just hit nothing but air.

  Alerius landed on a random denek's head and began blasting shells right into the top of the cranium! The head blew off the body sending pieces of metal and flesh everywhere! He stopped firing and did a crescent moon jump off of the shoulders. The rest of the demon blew up and all that was left was the bottom metal and the treads.

  Alerius landed right in front of two of them and they both kept the barrage of bullets at Alerius. He jumped in the air again but this time not as high. Just high enough to get his body level with their heads. He turned in midair and was now horizontal while he was still in the middle of the jump. The bullets from the demons' guns flew below him into oblivion. Alerius pulled the trigger and sent a barrage of his own in both of the demons' heads. They both blew up just like the last one. The bullet rampage was over and when Alerius hit the ground he rolled to miss the second explosion of the bodies.

  H
e got back up were the last of the group was refiguring its aiming. It was locked on him but before it got a round off, Alerius already had his arm wrapped around the four barrel gun! He pulled as hard as he could and ripped the gun right off of the demon! He threw it to the ground, kicked the demon, and it toppled right into the dust. Alerius saw it was trying to get up with its arm and hollering at him as soon as it hit. Alerius just walked solemnly over to it and put on shell right into its cranium. He then walked off. It exploded from behind him in a ball of fire. The explosion left a crater in the ground on top of so many others made by balls of fire.

  He began to run after the explosion happened and were he was running to he had no idea. He did know however that he was running straight. He ran for about forty seconds before stopping cold in his tracks again. He could sense another evil presence getting near him. This one though was more evil then the last demon-machines he had tangled with. This evil felt ancient and extremely sinister. Its cold terror made Alerius tremble a little bit. He could feel the very essence of brimstone off the approaching force. He tightened his grip on his shotgun and began to look around for the oncoming monster. He found it not. He could sense it getting closer. His palms sweating profusely and getting more soaked as the energy came more near. He had both of his hands gripping the shotgun as his mind reeled with the possibilities of what the essence was.