Disposable heroes

[sodalitas]

Years ago I was in a club and they were playing this animated movie in the background. From what I can recall, it was a futuristic war and there was this awesome soldier kicking ass and killing everyone, and then he gets mooked by some other soldier, who goes on to do all sorts of heroic things and then is killed in turn, and so on. I never knew the name of the movie, but I thought it would make an interesting thread concept.

Mostly this is for practice in writing combat posts, and maybe trying different styles of writing/different voices. I’ll be writing about a character, killing him off in the next post, killing the next guy in the following post, etc. Feel free to jump in and do the same if you like, but keep in mind your character will die.

 

[sodalitas]

Dust billows as he throws himself against the stack of crates, finding some degree of cover from the openness of the warehouse ahead. Two more soldiers join him as he reloads his pistols. The crates are piled askew and he positions himself so as to have clear line of sight to the most obvious enemy positions.

There – a shadow flitting around a corner.

There – a blur of motion behind a tank.

The warehouse is sparsely occupied, providing a functional kill zone for anyone approaching. He spies a group of cylindrical containers tied together like a pillar about a third of the way across the warehouse floor.

He holds his breath, counts to three. Then he makes a break for the new position, firing from both pistols as he runs. A figure emerges from around the corner with a rifle, but as he does a bullet meets his head and he drops. Two bullets hit the tank before the third strikes the soldier hiding behind it. In his periphery he senses motion, and without breaking stride he swings his pistols across to the other side of his body. Two soldiers emerge from behind the fallen arm of a crane. One is shot in the heart and dies instantly. The second soldier is hit in the leg, the hip and the neck. It’s not until he has safely made it to the cylinders and reloads again does the soldier finish dying.

He starts to motion for his men to follow. Then – WHIRRRRR…

A stream of bullets pours from somewhere ahead, and the crates hiding his men explode, leaving splinters of wood and bone. The stream sweeps across the warehouse towards his location. Holstering his pistols, he ducks behind the cylinders, hoping the metal they are made of can withstand the onslaught.

The sound of the bullets hitting the metal is deafening; but as soon as he hears it, he launches himself back in the direction of the crates. He makes for the arm of the crane and leaps into the air, grabbing hold of a crossbar and hoisting himself up onto it. Too late the wielder of the gatling gun sees him run, and before the weapon has swept back along its prior path of destruction, he has re-drawn his pistols and is running along the length of the upwards sloping arm, firing down on both sides.

Men drop left and right, and when he reaches the apex of the slope he finally glimpses the gunner. Dropping his spent pistols, he pulls two more from side holsters and launches himself into the air. He empties both clips into the gunner and lands nimbly in front of his limp, smoking body.

 

[sodalitas]

From her vantage point on the second story landing she watched the little mice scamper around the warehouse. Her attention was drawn to one mouse in particular – a slippery little thing that the others were having trouble with.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Went the little mouse’s guns, and mice died all around him. Her hands moved of their own accord, pulling an arrow from her quiver. Her eyes never left him.

She watched him scurry up a beam, attacking and killing indiscriminately. “Tsk tsk tsk little mouse,” she whispered, imperceptibly shaking her head. As he landed and caught his breath, the fell swoop of her arrow took him in the chest. He collapsed to the ground, whimpering and twitching, yet somehow managed to start to claw his way towards cover. She patiently watched his progress for a while with mild interest, as he cried out for help and bled a trail behind him.

It wasn’t long before his calls brought others to help him. They approached nervously, timidly, looking for danger. Looking for her…

She waited until they were close enough, then she struck. Silently she loosed her little claws towards the ones lagging behind; they flew through the air and found their prey.

Confusion, as they saw their comrades die but heard no sounds to betray her whereabouts. They thought she was behind them; they turned their attention back towards the way they came. Poor little mice. She was already on the move, running across the landing with padded footsteps and, dropping down, took up a different position.

This time she fired at the ones closest to her bait, who had some time since bled out and no longer needed them. She sent their deaths to them much more silently than they died. Confusion began to give way to fear. Some of the mice began to fire at random, hoping to hit her by sheer luck. She smiled. They rallied - closed ranks and clumped together, facing outwards and scanning the warehouse for her.

That’s when she rushed them, preferring her dual blades now. She swept into the midst of them. They were afraid of hitting the other mice with their bullets, so they hesitated shooting at her. She lashed out with her talons, cutting them down for their weakness. The steel of her swords alternated between ringing against the metal of their weapons, if they were quick enough to bring them to bear, or ripping into their flesh if they were not. In a dozen heartbeats she was done. Encircling her were the dead little mice. She was out of breath, covered with their blood, and her arms were heavy with the effort; but she had had a successful hunt.

 

[sodalitas]

Around the corner of the crate I watched the bitch take out the rest of the squad. If I hadn’t dropped my fucking rifle I would’ve filled her so full of lead you could pick up her limp bloody corpse with a fucking magnet. Or whatever metal bullets were made of – what am I, a fucking scientist? As it was, there was no way to get to her without being cut to shreds. I waited, looking for an opportunity. Each second that ticked by also ticked me off more and more until I could barely fucking see straight.

She spun around slowly, looking for more of us. Finally, noises outside drew her attention and she turned away from me. I slipped out from behind my cover and rushed her. Too late she heard me and started to turn around, but I was ready for her and smoked her so hard in her fucking shoulder blade with my fist that it spun her in the opposite direction. I grabbed her arm with one hand as she came around and snapped her elbow with the palm of my other. I don’t know what sounded more satisfying – the snap of her bone or the scream that came afterwards. Her blades dropped from her hands and I had the fucking bitch. Still holding onto her arm, I kicked her legs out from under her and then brought my knee up to meet her chin, snapping back her head.

She was dazed. I let go of her arm, grabbed her by the hair and looked down at her. I didn’t’ like her beady fucking little eyes, or her pointy fucking little nose, so I smashed her face into the cement floor of the warehouse. Again. Again. It felt good. I could have spent all day there, painting the floor with her blood and her brains, but there was more fighting outside that needed my attention. I picked up her foot and dragged her to the far side of the warehouse where a huge window with large frosted panes took up the majority of one wall. Although I couldn’t see shit through it, the sound of gunfire and the brightness of muzzle flash was enough to tell me there were more shitheads out there. I grabbed her thigh in one hand and her neck in another, lifted her over my head and threw her as hard as I could against the glass.

It splintered, but didn’t shatter. Her body crumpled against it and fell to the floor with a thunk.

“FUCK!” I yelled.

I dragged her back to where I was standing, picked her up again. This time I spun around a couple of times building up momentum and tossed the bitch like a fucking shotput or something. The window exploded outwards, raining huge fucking shards of thick glass on the bastards. Roaring like a fucking lion or a dragon or something else equally bitchin’, I jumped out of the window after her.

The glass had impaled a few of them, or severed off a limb or otherwise fucked them up. The rest were still recuperating from the shock, and I descended on them like a fucking wolf descending on a pack of fucking bunnies. Or a herd of bunnies or whatever the fuck you call them. What am I, a fucking zoologist? Either way when I was done they were all dead or close enough that I didn’t give a shit.

 

[The_gladiator]

Others perhaps fired more shots, others were showier more destructive, but in his own way he was more lethal. He lay and he watched. Waiting was his role, he would wait hold his breath, center himself; only then would he let the breath out, take the shot, and end a life.

The stock of the long laser sniper rifle felt good against his shoulder. It cradled in the hollow of his shoulder better than any lover’s cheek ever had. It had been a long time since he’d known the touch of a woman. For so long, the worn grip of the rifle was more familiar to him than the flesh of a lover.

His eye was to the scope, and he watched, and he waited. He was alone now, truly alone. With one hand he reached up to wipe more blood from his face. It wasn’t his blood; it was the blood of his partner, his spotter. The kriffing bastards had taken her out with a fragmentation grenade. He had to just lay there while pieces of her body rained down all around him, even on him. It was disgusting, however if he moved he could be spotted. If he was spotted he was dead, it was as simple as that. And so he waited for a clean target to vent his rage at Cass’s death on.

Through the scope, which turned night into day, he watched a body come flying through a plate-glass window in the building across the street. His finger tightened on the trigger, but loosened again, this woman was dead; she did not need to be removed.

She was followed through the window by a man who howled with his animalistic rage. He was unarmed, but that did not even seem to slow him. He watched as the man’s inhuman rage empowered him to take hit after hit by the troops he faced and still keep going.

No more, he would put a stop to this maniac; his hedonistic destruction reminded him of his partner’s death. Brutal for the sake of brutal. They could have taken her out with a bullet, a particle beam, a knife, but no they had utterly blown her apart with a grenade. His jaw tightened, he now had a target for his rage at the senseless killing. This raging unarmed killing machine would die. He would die cleanly, without fanfare or ceremony.

He took a long slow deep breath, centering his shot on the man’s forehead. He stroked the trigger once lightly, the nonlethal ranging shot missing the man’s head. The fool didn’t even see the split second flash of light.

Making a few alterations to the aim he took his deep breath again. When he let it out he pulled the trigger back. The single red beam shot out from the rifle’s long barrel. There was no kickback from the weapon, and almost no noise. The beam lanced out, stroked through the air and just like that the image in his scope went from that of the man’s snarling face, to a spray of red as the beam punched a hole through his forehead. Superheating the man’s blood and brains, his head exploded with a mist of red that he could see through his scope. He could not hear the sound it made, but he could imagine it well enough, the crackle of burnt flesh, the meaty thunk of the man hitting the ground. His mind cleared. Even though this man had had nothing to do with her death, he still felt a little like he had avenged her in that one smooth pull of trigger.

 

[The_gladiator]

She watched the rise and fall of his slow even breaths. She watched the controlled killer, master of his craft, hard at work. Her gut roiled watching the dispassion with which he killed.

Born a gentle soul to gentle parents in a gentle town, her life had been turned upside down when they came. They came from all over, bringing their guns and their blades, their canons and their energy weapons. She had long since lost track of how many sides there were to this bloody war. It had become a cesspool of kill or be killed, a glorious perversion of an orgy of death. How many had died in this bloody conflict seemingly without sides? Did anyone even care? No one cared, it was every man, or in this case woman for himself, well, herself.

The handle of the knife felt warm and slippery in her palm. It was not wet with blood of her victims; no it was wet with the sweat of her palms. Could she actually do this? Did she have the guts? Did she have the strength and fortitude to take a life? She had seen so much, her barely adult eyes had aged in these past days. From the sight of a man ripping other men limb from limb, to the horrid grenade blast that had blown the sniper’s spotter to ribbons, to the cool killer himself before her now.

Could she really join the ranks of all the killers before her? They said that war changed people and she had learned this the hard way. Gone was the girl who wore dresses and made coquettish eyes at the handsome men in uniform. She was a dirty girl in too large combat boots, taken from a dead soldier to keep her frozen feet from leaving anymore bloody footprints that could be tracked. Her dress was in rags, and her pretty eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep and from crying silent tears that no one would even hear over the roar of this maniacal hell.

The knife felt awkward in her hand once, but no more. She had learned its balance, and yet there still was that hesitation. Never used it, I have never used it; this moniker kept floating through her mind. She squashed the doubting voices, she wasn’t a girl anymore, she was a woman, and god damn it she would take back her home even if it meant killing everyone that stood in her way.

Even amidst this bloody carnage, he was an island of calm, of solitude, of peace. His peace was a lie, he meant death as much as any of the others. His tranquility mocked the surrounding maelstrom, but he really wasn’t above it he was a part of it, separate but just as equal.

Teeth gritted, turning a once pretty smile into a rictus of pain and anger. She made her move. A catlike leap had her on his back, her core pressed to the small of his back. It was a position that could have been erotic under other circumstances. It pushed her dress up, exposing her legs. But there was nothing erotic about this move. Strong thigh muscles clamped onto his ribs, to prevent him from rolling her off and despite the slickness of the knife handle the point was rock steady as it came to rest against the back of his neck.

The sniper froze, he knew as well as any what it was at the base of his skull, he knew one push, and not an even very hard push and his spine was severed and he was probably dead.

She heard his words as he let the rifle drop away from his eye his hands splaying out flat on the pavement of the rooftop, “Mercy.” That was his brilliant plea? Mercy? Was he out of his fucking mind? Had his kind granted her mother mercy as they had bent her over her own countertop? Raping her in long lines of men, using and abusing her before someone finally killed her with her own sewing shears.

Her laugh was not the giggle of a girl; it was the mocking chuckle of a woman who would have her vengeance. “I’ll show you the mercy you pigs showed my mother. I want my mother back you son of a bitch.” The knife slid home with a sickening squelch. As she looked down at the body of the now dead man she felt numb, killing him hadn’t been difficult. It had taken one push. Physically demanding it hadn’t been, but mentally, that was a different story. Killing this man hadn’t stopped her pain; it hadn’t brought back her mother. In that startling instant she realized she had become one of the monsters she had despised so much.

 

[sodalitas]

He spit out the remnants of his cigar and, after removing the cap with a practiced bite, popped another one into his mouth, lighting it on the red hot metal comprising the barrel of his flamethrower. Inhaling deeply before letting the smoke ease out of his mouth to climb up and caress his face, he snorted at the battlefield ahead of him with contempt.

Most of the lads out there were either too brash – running headlong into the fray, firing with both barrels and cutting a short swath of destruction before being gunned down in turn; or too cautious – hiding behind cover and taking (seldomly effective) pot shots until they find themselves overrun. Either way, they weren’t likely to be an annoyance for long.

He shrugged, repositioning the straps that held the tanks to his back, and trudged towards his first objective– a cluster of ratways held by the enemy and preventing his own forces from making headway into the adjacent area. Luckily there was little activity as he approached, but he could hear them moving about inside. He readied himself before entering, and shot a quick stream of liquid fire around the corner by bouncing it off the wall - one of the advantages of using a liquid based thrower over a gas one. No screams. He entered, stepping over a puddle of flame, and approached the next corner.

Again he bounced the flames around the corner, and this time he was met with screams of anguish and abject terror. He turned the corner, walking past and ignoring the figure sprawling on the floor, ineffectively attempting to put out the flames that were melting its skin and bones, and moved on to the next passage.

This one opened to a larger area where a number of passages met. Before he entered, he unleashed a jet into the room. He held off lighting it, instead spraying accelerant throughout and covering the ground and the walls. He waited, taking a couple of pulls on his cigar. After a few heartbeats he heard them coming - a combined attack down two of the passages. He ducked back down the passage he came from and sprayed a quick burst of flame in a random direction to let them hear him and to encourage them on. Finally, he whipped around the corner and sent a quick blast back towards them before ducking back quickly as the bullets came for him.

It was enough. The room erupted, engulfing the men. He finished his cigar as he waited for them to die and for the room to cool enough for him to walk through. Then he plodded through and took the passage that sloped upwards to create a switchback to the top of the ratways. He met no further resistance, but stopped short as the passage opened up onto an elevated, open area.

From up here a sizeable portion of the battlefield was visible. Signs of battle were everywhere: smoking pieces of debris, shells, even body parts. He made out movement ahead – a shadow swayed. It almost resembled someone sitting - an odd position for a soldier. Perhaps someone was tending to their wounds. Regardless, his men weren’t in this position yet so whoever the figure was, they were fair game. He rushed out and covered the area in flame before the soldier ahead had time to turn around. A woman, judging by the death scream.

Satisfied, he loosed a jet of flame straight up, signalling his men that the way was clear.