"We are not heading to the Command Center," Adam declared both to Ajax's Team and to Elena on the radio. "We're heading to the front."
"Sir, no!" Elena's voice came with sure panic. "There are many unknown variables! For all we know, this may have been a warning shot from the other side. We lack vital intelligence for you to be in such a dangerous position."
"Then I'm needed more at the front than anywhere else," Adam said with determination. "I must lay eyes on that enemy and figure out what is the best way to counter it."
"Sir, this is unwise!" Elena didn't back down either, her tone turning colder. "Your presence is of highest importance to our operation; thus, as your acting second, I'll issue an official request to the Ordo Bellarium to secure you at once."
Adam heard the defiant voice of Elena as the H-Bug shook on the uneven road, and he couldn't help but smile.
"Fine! Send Captain Creed over," Adam replied and turned off the communication with Elena.
All eyes lingered on him, especially Ajax, Bolt, and Chip, who were seated together in the tight passenger area. Adam looked at them and put on a confident smile.
"Cheer up, Tommy boy! We'll go kick ass and chew bubblegum like your old man used to say," Adam said, teasing Bolt.
"Nah! He'd be saying you're being a dimwit for leaving your spot and going foolhardy," Bolt replied, not falling for Adam's provocative tone. "You're not a line breaker; you're a coach, admittedly a damn good one. You should be doing control from the back, not running the field."
"Hah!" Adam laughed and shrugged. "Can't believe you're being the wiseass here."
"The kid may be young, but he's wise beyond his years, sir," Ajax interjected. "Can't believe I'm saying this about someone as young as him, but sometimes I forget his age and rely on him like someone I knew from before."
Hearing that, Adam turned to Ajax, who was acting friendly despite his earlier insubordination. Adam decided not to dwell on it and nodded.
"That's good to hear." He said and followed up with a question, "Is he going to have a permanent spot on your team, then?"
Despite his high praise of Tommy, even Ajax became conflicted. Taking the young man under his wing felt like more responsibility than he liked, but Adam still had more to say.
"Well, it's either that or regular redeployment. Right, Tommy?" He asked, turning to his future brother-in-law, who simply shrugged.
"I would have gone with the Trench Dogs, but after Kave took Hammerhead's spot, I didn't feel like joining marine-based squads, especially those Martians. Megan keeps complaining about them a lot."
"You'd better do some networking, or I'll just have to throw you in the pool," Adam said before glancing at Ajax, who seemed to have had enough of this.
"Fine! He gets a spot."
Ajax let out a sigh afterward and looked away. As for Tommy and Adam, they subtly fist-bumped right before the car stopped. Fish announced that they had arrived, and Chip was already launching his drone into the sky.
Adam got out of the car alone, whereas Ajax and his team remained inside; as a mobile squad, their H-Bug was their greatest advantage. Yet, just as his boots touched the ground, a large shadow suddenly covered Adam, who was slightly startled by the Paladin's sudden appearance.
"Good lord!" Adam said, backing away a step, before glancing at Captain Creed. "You got here quickly, sir."
"I was heading this way," Captain Creed replied with a deep mechanical voice, coming from behind his helmet. His head turned to Adam, and an overbearing sensation filled the atmosphere. "It is reckless for you to be here."
"I must be here, sir," Adam replied, exasperated from a conversation that was yet to start. "I can't keep myself away from danger forever; at least looking at it in the eye once will give me perspective on what I am making my soldiers fight."
"It is admirable how you would lead this, but you, being the sole gateway to the Solarium, are more critical than you seem to fathom," Creed said and looked away. "We'll have a look at whatever is attacking us, but you will have to go back to your post afterward. I trust no one other than you to be on the Command Deck."
Adam resisted the twitch in his lips, having been praised highly by Creed, before hitting his chest with the side of his fist.
"Your trust honors me, sir," Adam said before putting on a sly grin. "As well as your escort."
Adam couldn't see it, but he knew that Creed was most definitely rolling his eyes just now. He couldn't see beyond the reflective visor, but he knew Creed could be sassy, and as the summoner, he just knew.
As he hoped, Creed led Adam through the trenches, acting as a bodyguard and an awe-inspiring force of nature. Adam followed him, inspecting the Earthlings and Wartopians huddled in the earthen fortifications, all worried about any volley of stone-age weapons raining from the sky.
Creed looked past the trenches for a while, causing everyone around to feel like he was sticking out as a target, but he simply stood silently, looking in multiple directions, before moving on.
"Do your scanners tell you anything, sir?" Adam asked.
"There are signals," Creed replied.
"Humanoids?" Adam asked.
"Anthropoids." Creed rebuked.
The word sent a cold chill through Adam, as no Solarium adherent would ever sully the word 'human' by associating it with freakish mutants or xenos.
"We've captured one of them; apparently, this triggered the assault," Adam said, and watched the soldiers around them who were also tracing them with their eyes. "I believe we are facing sorcerers of mutated Earthlings. Their powers come from neither runes nor technology, so we are a bit stumped as to whether it is the System or something else we don't know."
"It sounds to me like Esper Sorcery," Creed said, giving a verdict on what Adam was conflicted about.
If this comment came from Solana, who would discriminate against anything that looks funny, Adam might have tried to argue. But as it was coming from Creed—the guy who was accused of heresy a hundred times and still walked out innocent—it would carry weight. Adam also knew that Creed would think long and hard before branding something as "Sorcery," so Adam couldn't help but nod.
"I've never killed a human before, though." He said and seemed a bit shaken. "I made the resolve, but knowing that I am fighting those who were my own kind is… unnerving."
"You will do fine, Justiciar," Creed said.
"I know," Adam nodded.
The two reached the forward base's Command Center, which was simply a bunker dug down with a fortified ceiling. Before they could enter, though, Adam saw a few troopers moving over the dead: three Earthlings, one with his chest torn open by a rock, one with half of his head gone, and the last with a spear straight to her heart. The three were recruits Adam had approved, their eyes still open with shock and fright.
Adam's steps froze for a while, gazing silently at the three, knowing full well that his encouragement and propaganda had led to this scene. He wasn't to blame for their deaths, but he would still bear whatever part of the guilt he could.
Then there were the graying bodies of the seven dead Wartopians, so brittle they were crumbling into ash from mere touch. He felt that, despite everything, the graying was some sort of mercy to them since he wouldn't be able to resummon them, nor for them to die again.
Twice was enough as it is.
"Let's get going."
Adam walked into the Command Center and soon received all manner of reports from the operators there, giving him a fresh perspective on what had gone down.
"Issue a command to all troops to be ready for assault on my signal. Take proper defensive positions and get ready for a prolonged fight."
Adam, his resolve hardened for a bitter fight, advanced to the front trenches with Creed at his side. Drone operators were attempting to pinpoint the enemy beyond the distant rubble and ruined buildings, but the enemy remained hidden, though an estimated five hundred units were observed; this alone outnumbered Adam's troops two to one.
"What do you think, sir?" Adam asked, trying to gain the wisdom of a seasoned warrior like Captain Creed.
"It is most curious." The Paladin spoke, clearly more bothered than amazed. "My scanners seem to malfunction the more I look in that direction, but when I look back, they work fine."
"Some sort of scrambling tech?" Adam asked before shaking his head. "No, those Neanders are primitive. It must be sorcery."
"I doubt it." Creed shook his head. "Something is out there with them."
"Something dangerous?" Adam asked.
"A servant of Sol sees glory when others see danger, so no. It's probably the xenos behind their mutation," The Paladin replied.
"So you'll cover my ass if I try something a bit more reckless?" Adam asked, an idea brewing in his mind.
"Depends on the context."
"I'll just draw our Canadian friends closer, that's all. They're probably in an 'After you!', 'Be my guest!', and 'Oh, I insist!' deadlock!"
"…"
"It's a Canadian thing."
Adam immediately went to the side and approached the officers standing around with a megaphone—one used while drilling recruits—and he held it over his mouth before shaping a small earthen golem and puppeteering it into a medium-sized variant. Adam stood over the shoulder of the earthen humanoid as it grew and stepped out of the trench, the megaphone over his mouth.
"Test, test…" Adam said, cranking the device to its maximum volume. He then looked at the endless dark landscape ahead of him, barely seeing any movement, yet he still remained under the cover of his golem. "Greetings, our neighbors from up north! This is certainly not a tourist season, eh?"
The golem's appearance surely made some movements in the distance; the Neanders were surely freaked out, and on the tactical holo table, such frantic movements were clearly observed. Adam, however, kept trying to draw them out.
"So, I suppose there are not many of you guys who can speak with us. Like… I know some Canadian if you guys are no good with regular English. What was it called? Aboot? Like… there's a moose loose aboot the hoose… oh my God!"
And just as he began with a racial stereotypical joke, the air around him whistled as multiple projectiles started hitting the golem with the power of cannonballs.
Adam immediately curled the golem's body, as it took immense damage to its limbs. He took cover and stayed hidden, giving his troops the opportunity to return fire.
All types of Blazer systems started firing into the night, red bolts of energy meeting head-on with the enemy's sticks and stones. Now that the troopers had an inkling of where these projectiles were coming from, their shots were more precise, hitting the ranks of the Neanders and dropping them by tens each second.
As the onslaught continued, two large drones buzzed through the sky; each was slightly smaller than a V-Bug. They immediately started mowing down all life signals, both hovering to fire their Blazer cannons and moving fast to drop their HE payload.
Fire erupted everywhere the drones moved; their operators were back in the main base, but their presence had finally broken the spirits of the tenacious Neanders. Adam returned to the trenches immediately, under cover fire from Captain Creed, who even stepped ahead to tank anything that might be hurled at Adam with his power armor.
As soon as the two jumped back into the trenches, especially Creed with a thundering mechanical thud, they turned toward the scene and watched the mayhem that broke out.
Adam had a faint smile that disappeared gradually upon hearing the shouts and wails in the distance, following the conclusion of the bombardment. The nearest radio operator approached him with a call from Elena.
"The bombardment was successful; more than half of the enemy count had disappeared. They seem to be pinned down; you can order a charge to fully eradicate them, sir."
Adam listened, his heart growing heavier with every second, but he didn't let this delay a decisive decision.
"Will do! Refuel the Stingrays and send them for support. We can't take any chances with whatever surprises they can…"
Just as Adam mentioned surprises, Elena immediately interrupted:
"Sir, something is happening with the map. Two clicks southeast, all signals are going dark."
Adam frowned and looked south.
"You're saying they found our Scanner Beacons?" he asked, but the reply he received made his heart sink.
"What was — kzzzt! We are losing — kzzzt!… errors."
"Shit!" Adam cursed, turning to Captain Creed. "We lost comms! Those fuckers must have found…"
Creed, however, remained passive as he looked south before interrupting Adam:
"It is coming."
Adam blinked twice before looking south, his heart gripped by an unnerving feeling.
"What is coming?" he asked, his entire being going dry from fright.
Creed replied with only one word:
"Disturbance."
That word heralded the great chaos that followed only a second later. Right away, a gust of wind hit the trenches from the south, followed by a wave of frost that covered everything in a thin layer of snow.
Adam couldn't fathom the phenomenon that felt like a tidal wave on solid ground, but as the snow settled, the horrifying reality unfolded.
He noticed it first with the radio buzz coming from the handset; it was no longer there, so to speak. While many factors could have contributed to that, Adam noticed it second with the confused troopers around him: the glow of their Blazer guns was no longer there.
Some of them aimed up and squeezed the trigger a few times, but that wasn't just a weapon or two; it even reached Adam's own Blazer in its holster.
Adam panicked, turning to Captain Creed, but then saw the most terrifying thing he could think of.
The sole summon from which Adam drew his confidence—the undefeatable constant in all of Adam's calculations, and the trump card Adam was sure could stand up to a dragon-level threat if it had to—it stood silent like the dead, not a single motion in its terrifying form.
Of all the things the Neanders could surprise Adam with, a stone-age EMP was the farthest thing in his calculations, and now the time of primal retaliation had come.
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