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Post by Silent on Aug 18, 2012 20:33:19 GMT -5
Chapter Thirty-One: The Parabola
There was no transcendence from real space to warp as the fleet moved through the portal. They simply reappeared on the other side.
Silent was standing in the main run of his dropship, accompanied by Jamsie, Timmy and a host of twenty marines. They fell silent as the main view screen in the hold switched to the view of the Curly-Wurly, the Super Star Choclifier under Dark Chocolate.
Silent frowned as he saw the Conglomerate fleet. They outnumbered the UN by at least five to one. Then he saw it, lying in space just below the Conglomerate army. It was parabolic in shape and Silent sighed to himself in his own description… of course it was. It was the parabola. It looked very similar to the Chocolate Rings, being chocolate in nature. It was larger than a planet, at least, larger than Earth as far as he could see.
On the bridge of the Curly-Wurly, Lord Chocolate sat in the captain’s chair, surrounded by Oompa Loompa staff. He stared intently at the view screen and his brow furrowed.
‘Lord Chocolate, the enemy fleet outnumbers us five to one.’ One of the Oompa Loompas announced.
‘Good. It is an even fight.’ Chocolate replied, his rebreather constantly effective throughout his speech, as always. ‘Open fire on the largest ship to the right, aim for the engines, rupture them and it has a 72% chance of igniting the nearest two vessels.’
The Oompas acknowledged and the vast cannons on the vessel began to fire, sending huge bolts of chocolate organisms through space, splashing onto the huge enemy capital ship and ripping it to pieces. The rest of the UN fleet joined in and fighting began in earnest and both fleets moved forward to engage, hangars emptying as fighters in their thousands swooped to attack.
As Chocolate had said, the huge Conglomerate vessel exploded, sending deadly and massive shards of debris into the ships to its left and right, destroying another three vessels.
‘Alright, prepare to launch dropships while the Conglomerate fleet is distracted.’ Silent announced across the dropships on the Crimson Flag.
‘Green light from Obeseman, the fleet is dropping our army now.’ Jeevsie announced from the cockpit.
The hangar doors of the Crimson Flag shot open and six dropships swooped out, driving into the fusillade of combat. Silent stared intently out of the cockpit windows as thousands of rounds peppered space around the ships. To his left, he saw what looked like a sea of thousands of vessels dropping from the Curly-Wurly and then he realised that there were hundreds of LAAT vessels swooping from its vast hangars to the Parabola. Silent gasped.
‘There must be thousands of them,’ he voiced, holding his hands up to the window. ‘Hundreds of thousands of Oompa Loompas in their holds. How can the Conglomerate match us now.’
The vessels plummeted downwards shooting straight for the Parabola. Silent saw one of the dropships to his right erupting in flame as it was shredded to pieces by a torrent of fire.
‘Go as fast as we can Jeevsie, we can’t afford to get shot down before we arrive.’
The dropship shot down, heading for the light chocolate desert on the lower half of the Parabola. The others followed in behind. Then, as they were reaching their destination, a wing of enemy space-fitted screamers swooped by, lacerating their transports with laser fire. Jeevsie and the LAATs responded with a devastating hail of fire, yet the Screamers got through, blowing another three transports and sixty UN marines to pieces.
As they made their return flight to strike again, suddenly the whole wing was annihilated by a brisk spread of chocolate shells, shattering their craft and brutally ripping apart the pilots. Silent stared out the view screen as he saw Dark Squadron swoop passed, faster than any fighters he had ever seen.
Dark Leader’s voice shot over the intercom, ‘Transports, we have your back. You’ll be safe landing from now on.’
Silent drew his rifle and headed to the main hold of the dropship, knowing it would be only moments before they broke atmosphere. He strapped himself in just as the heat and pressure of the craft picked up.
‘ETA one minute!’ Jeevsie called, ‘Prepare to disembark!’
‘Alright guys, we’re looking for the Loud Satnav of this thing, same as on the rings, in order to locate the control centre. Destroy any Conglomerate we come across.’ Silent voiced as the ship hovered to the edge of a cliff just before the expanse of chocolate desert.
The main hatch opened and the UN stormed out, weapons at the ready. There was no sign of the Conglomerate, not yet anyway. It seemed they had landed just before the Conglomerate stronghold in this sector of the Parabola.
The UN forces under Silent’s command formed up. There were over three hundred soldiers, the other groups were landing elsewhere, surrounding the Conglomerate forces.
‘We’ll make for lower ground, where the land is flatter. That will allow for Commander Lochs to land her ship and provide us with heavy support.’ Silent announced to the assembled host.
They followed in a slow and cautious column, advancing down through the cliff slopes, there was plenty of cover on all sides as rocky outcrops lay in abundance on the high landscape. Plenty of places for an ambush. Silent was wary, even though he knew the dropships had scanned the area, he couldn’t be sure… perhaps some of the Conglomerate had slipped through their net.
Luckily, his fears were not needed, there were no attacks. They reached the lowest level of the mountain, making their way out onto the desert itself.
Silent picked up his binoculars and looked ahead. He halted the group.
‘Trouble?’ Jamsie asked.
‘Yes… Big trouble.’ Silent nodded, ‘There’s a dust cloud, do you see it?’
Jamsie shielded his eyes from the light of the Parabola’s sun and squinted, ‘Yeah, I see it.’
‘There’s a Conglomerate army advancing, their tanks are churning up the sand, which is making that cloud.’ Silent replied.
‘How many?’
‘More than us. That’s for sure… Six Boomers too.’
‘Oh dear.’ Timmy muttered, softly.
‘Get to the cliffs, take cover in the rocks, I want heavy weapons set up and locked onto those tanks!’ Silent ordered to the troops, who separated quickly at his order and broke for the outcrops.
‘Becoming quite the general, eh Silent?’ Jamsie grinned.
‘I was training to be a super soldier once, remember?’ Silent replied, making for the cliffs himself.
‘Yeah, sometimes I forget you had a life before us.’ Jamsie said, quietly.
Silent stopped and slumped, ‘Sometimes I do too.’
It was almost half an hour before the Conglomerate army reached the cliffside, by then the UN were ready.
‘Check your targets,’ Silent whispered over the comm. ‘Make sure that heavy weapons teams are targeting different vehicles, there’s no point in overkill, that’s just a waste of ammo.’
Silent could clearly see the forces arrayed against him now, roughly fifty Germanians, two hundred lemmings and around seventy halflings. There were no Mochs, thankfully – but there were those six Boomers to worry about.
Silent looked up, seeing the huge flashes and bangs of massive weapons fire from the space battle above the Parabola, it was not clear who was winning, yet he was determined to get Rachael’s frigate to safety on the Parabola before it had the chance to be destroyed in the battle.
‘Alright everyone, we have to clear a path for Commander Lochs to land. Now open fire!’ he roared, standing up from his cover as he let loose with his rifle, puncturing the head of a Germanian in black armour.
The Conglomerate horde broke immediately, searching for cover in small grooves of sand or behind the tanks, but to no avail as the rest of the UN joined in. A storm of bullets littered the air, dropping the enemy with precise, pre-aimed shots. The Germanians fell first, as Silent had planned as without them, the Lemmings and Halflings were leaderless and would have to fend for themselves. That meant a lot of running away as most of those that still lived had already had enough. They were shot down anyway as a Boomer tanks erupted in flame from a perfect rocket shot straight to the engine.
The other heavy weapons opened fire, sending a score of smart missiles into another three Boomers, blasting them apart in great gouts of blue fire. The remaining two Boomers attempted to fire at the UN, reminding Silent that there was still danger. The first blast shot harmlessly out of the way, yet the second found its mark, dissolving six marines as they desperately scrambled out of the way.
Angered now, Silent leapt from his hiding place and onto the battlefield below. As the UN regrouped to continue fire, he jumped up onto the nearest of the two Boomers and wrenched the hatch open, pulling out the Germanian pilot. With a swift and brutal swipe, Silent cut the man’s head from his shoulders as the final tank exploded in a glittering display of fireworks.
He dropped the headless body and leapt down onto the sand. The UN filed out of the rocks and formed up in front of him.
‘Well done.’ He breathed, before switching on his comm. ‘Rachael? Are you there?’
There was static for a second before she answered.
‘Land at these co-ordinates, the desert is clear of Conglomerate, for now.’
‘Thanks Silent, I’ll be there soon.’
Silent nodded to himself and switched off his communicator.
Jamsie approached him, ‘Now what?’
‘Now we wait for Rachael, then we bust open the Loud Satnav and destroy the Conglomerate.’ He replied.
‘Doesn’t sound too hard… at least not the waiting part.’ Jamsie grinned.
Timmy waddled over, with a smile etched on his old face, ‘I got one Silent. I killed one of the mean old Germanian guys.’
‘Well done Timmy, seriously, well done. I never thought you’d be able to get anything at that range.’ Silent smiled, tussling the creatures hair. Timmy purred like a cat and Silent stopped.
Suddenly the air pressure heightened around them and Silent looked up to see the Backwards Into Dusk swooping down to their position. He roared to everyone to get behind cover again to avoid being crushed by the fierce pressure of the vessel entering the atmosphere.
Silent shielded his eyes as the chocolate sand shot towards him as the vast ship floated slowly to the ground and landed. The huge turbine engines ceased their turning and the sandstorm died down.
All the hangar doors opened and the forces within began to exit. Silent smiled and stepped forwards to greet them. The ten tanks were definitely going to be a huge help in taking out the Conglomerate army. There were also around forty warpigs, all fully manned, followed by five hundred marines.
He rushed to the boarding ramp as the command crew exited. Rachael Lochs, followed by Johnny, Innocent Flame and Dopeman.
Rachael grinned as they hugged one another, ‘Good work taking out that army segment, Silent. I’m impressed, you only lost six men.’
He smiled, ‘I’m annoyed that I lost any at all.’
‘Well all of our forces are moving in on the Loud Satnav now. Scouts are reporting heavy resistance all over the main facility. Also there are six millipedes, they’re going to be a real problem.’ She informed.
‘You’re telling me, those things are nearly impossible to kill.’ Silent voiced, ‘Well I suppose we’ll figure out how to beat them when we come to that problem.’
‘Yeah, Jeevsie still has a large flight of gunships under his command, those could come in handy for air support in taking out the millipedes.’ Jamsie suggested.
Suddenly, Dopeman coughed, ‘Alternatively, you could just ask me nicely.’
Silent turned to him, ‘Alright, please Dopeman will you take out the millipedes for us?’
He grinned, turning to Rachael, ‘If… you go out with me?’
She sighed, ‘No Dopeman.’
‘Worth a try…’ he grinned.
‘He’s been trying that all day.’ She laughed.
‘He does that.’ Silent replied. ‘Now we better get on with this in case the Conglomerate suddenly get the upper hand… somehow.’
They all nodded and began the slog towards the Loud Satnav building. It took roughly forty-seven minutes until they could see the massive facility looming before them. As Rachael had said, it was indeed heavily guarded. They could see a huge host of tanks and Conglomerate units roaming the desert and ramparts around the building.
Rachael ordered the attack over the comm. and Silent saw plumes of fire from artillery barrages light up all over the Conglomerate ranks. Silent and Dopeman took point in their force and charged forwards, weapons at the ready. They were soon overtaken by the warpigs yet they took this as cover as they charged, followed by the entirety of their army.
A warpig to their right exploded and flipped towards them, covered in flames. Silent rolled to the left as the burning vehicles hit the ground and halted, almost cleaving his head from his shoulders.
They were soon in range of the enemy and both sides poured fire into each other. Dopeman sent a cloud of toothpicks onto the enemy, who took cover beneath the heavy canopies of the facility. The unlucky few who remained in the open were skewered by the deadly vessels of the God of Dope. Silent took the opportunity of the cowering Conglomerate to charge forward in the brief respite, followed by Johnny, Jamsie and Timmy.
Johnny and Jamsie were eager to get to the enemy, happily readying their weapons whilst Timmy was more sort of… screaming and running with his eyes closed and arms flailing.
The column of tanks behind opened fire in a simultaneous volley of high-powered shells, taking out a large number of the enemy vessels guarding the facility. Rachael took position beside Dopeman, blasting a Germanian in the chest with her sniper rifle. Dopeman through a wink at her before clicking his fingers, causing the nearest millipede to suddenly explode in a shower of confetti.
She laughed as he grinned before moving onwards, following Silent as he rushed inside the building, his shotgun taking care of the door guards. Johnny, Jamsie, Timmy and Rachael filed inside with him… Innocent gliding slowly after them. Dopeman and the others remained outside to deal with the majority of the Conglomerate.
As Timmy hobbled inside, he noticed the facility was very similar in terms of constructive techniques as the buildings on the two Chocolate Rings, of course, the Parabola must have been built by the same race of beings, given that this construct was designed to fire the others. The Conglomerate had turned much of this building into a sort of hybrid with their own machinery, especially insofar as the weapons systems, where perhaps once ancient human weaponry shot out to attack intruders, now Conglomerate laser-carbines descended to deal with the foe, backed up by the numerous soldiers of the alien races forming the organisation.
As Timmy watched his friends deal with the enemy, he noticed the subtle movements and nuances of Rachael Lochs whenever she was in close proximity to Silent. Hiding from the main fighting, he saw things others did not, he recognised the symptoms… she was in love with Silent. He picked up the feelings because he knew exactly how she felt. To love that which you cannot have. As he loved Sarah… Rachael loved Silent. Neither could have what they wanted. Timmy sighed, watching the slightly forlorn features on Lochs as she helped Silent finish off a large Germanian soldier.
Timmy readied his pistol, pointed it towards Silent and fired, passing over his shoulder and hitting the wall, causing Silent to turn with a look of confusion on his face, he then noticed the bullet ricochet, bouncing several times before impacting behind Timmy and splitting the head from a halfling who was sneaking up on him.
‘Wow…’ Silent muttered to himself, ‘Ever since the motorway engagement Timmy thinks he’s John Wayne.’
‘Amazing thing is, it actually works.’ Jamsie replied with a grin.
The group made their way upwards through the myriad levels of the building, eventually finding themselves out in the open, facing the glaring sun as they discovered they were on the opposite roof of the construct from where they had started off. They were facing a large sea where some of the UN dropships hovered to cut off Conglomerate escape routes. This strategy appeared to have worked, as there were no enemy units to greet them here.
Rachael led the way over to a small control console protruding from the centre of the roof. It seemed to be the same sort of console found all over the facilities of the Chocolate Rings, yet Silent had the feeling that this particular panel was important in finding the Loud Satnav. He was right of course, as no sooner had Lochs activated it than a hidden console sprouted from the ground nearby.
This console was exactly how Silent had remembered from the and Rachael stepped forwards to retrieve the location of the control centre on a memory stick. The second she did so, the sky seemed to shift and vibrate as hundreds of Guardian droids fluttered out into the air from hundreds of maintenance ports along the walls of the facility, Silent raised his weapons to defend himself, yet the Guardians ignored them.
‘Where are they going?’ Rachael asked Innocent.
‘I’m not sure, but they will not harm us. I am not the monitor of this installation, so I have no control over their actions.’ He replied.
‘Alright, we know where the control centre is now anyway and until we kill Prudence and stop the rings from firing… nothing else matters.’ Rachael voiced, calling in dropships to pick them up and send the entire army to the control centre.
Silent nodded, ‘It’s almost over.’
He turned to Timmy and smiled slightly, ‘Then we get Sarah back.’
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Post by Silent on Aug 18, 2012 20:34:43 GMT -5
Chapter Thirty-Two: The Conglomerate
As a single fleet, the full array of the UN’s gunships launched, swooping across the sea towards the huge island of light chocolate and sugar grass where the control centre and the remnants of the Conglomerate awaited them.
‘This is the last of the Conglomerate. We win this battle today and the war is over.’ Rachael spoke over the entire fleet’s radios.
‘Yes but these will be the fiercest opponents yet.’ Silent interrupted, ‘They know they’re cornered with their fleet crippled so they will fight to the death and an enemy who knows he is going to die is not easy to deal with.’
‘Which is why we will strike them hard,’ Rachael announced, we are splitting into three main attack groups. Silent and his force will strike at the first of one of three massive defense towers projecting a shield against the inner, polar section of the island. Dopeman and the Russiians will take the middle tower and Johnny and I will take the third. The rest of us will land and provide support, engaging any Conglomerate forces to stop them from regrouping.’
Silent nodded to himself as Jeevsie swerved his gunship to avoid incoming flak from enemy fire. They were close to the island now and the Conglomerate below were unleashing all they had in an attempt to cull the numbers of their enemies. Silent peered out the view port to see the cavernous mountains rearing up before them were crammed with enemy soldiers and cannons, all blasting out their hatred for the Earth force, sending torrents of heavy laser fire their way.
A gunship nearby erupted in flames and Silent saw the wreckage plummeting into the ocean below. With this destruction, Jeevsie decided it was time to fire his own weapons and, as one, the UN fleet attacked. If the barrage of the Conglomerate was something to be feared… the hail of UN fire was something to be paralyzed with shock about as whole fireteams of enemy soldiers were turned to molten slag and burst apart from the inside as heavy missiles, rockets, stubber rounds and organic chocolate blasts raked the island.
The Conglomerate took cover and Silent noticed the gunships take this minor respite to begin their landing, feeling his own transport dipping. He turned to his men, as usual, Timmy and Jamsie were included amongst them and bade them to ready their weapons. The rear exit ramp of the vessel dropped slowly and Silent readied himself, watching the vessel behind burst, shattering the sea with ragged metal and torn corpses. A laser scorched through the cockpit window and Jeevsie ducked to the left, narrowly avoiding it. An unfortunate marine was hit instead, blasting through his chest and causing his body to slump.
‘Jeevsie!’ Silent called over the harsh sounds of the battle, ‘Land us now!’
Jeevsie nodded and the craft drifted down, stopping just above the ground at the beachhead of the island. Silent leapt down, followed by his squad as he saw other nearby dropships do the same as more still passed on for their destinations. He rolled to dodge an explosive round as Jeevsie took off again to provide air support. He led his men to cover behind a fallen tree and peered between the gaps of the branches to see where the enemy was.
Lasers streaked towards them as they blind fired above, littering the air with shells. Jamsie blinked mud from his eyes as lasers kicked up the chocolate ground around them. Silent saw the enemy, they were on a ridge opposite them. There was a small incline leading up to them where they could strike but it was guarded by a pair of the orb turrets, backed up by a Boomer tank.
Silent frowned and called for a heavy weapons trooper. A man from a nearby squad taking cover behind some rocks rushed over, lasers churning up the ground behind him as he pelted for the tree. The man was armed with a shoulder-slung missile launcher and Silent called for him to aim at the central orb turret.
Thought the man destroyed the weapon with resounding success, he too was killed as return fire scorched his face and sent him sprawling to the ground. Silent frowned and sprung himself up over the log, firing his assault rifle’s full clip into the enemy. The more precise shots of his aimed fire managed to severely reduce the Conglomerate forces. Luckily, his superior armour held against the return fire, though it was turned from the severe heat of the laser weaponry. Inspired by their leader, the UN broke from cover and attacked in full force. Jamsie took out another of the orbs with an excellent shot to the occupant and soon the UN took position atop the enemy held ridge, slaughtering the last of the Conglomerate.
With the first step taken, the UN pushed forwards again, moving around the ridge towards a mountain pass. Silent looked up to see a pair of shrieking Screamers swoop overhead, firing their rapid lasers. Another of his men was burned to death by this sudden attack before Jeevsie’s gunship dropped around to take out the first Screamer with heavy machine gun fire as a heat-seeker followed the second to its explosive death.
‘Alright guys, let’s move it up, the tower is just passed this mountain, then we can kill Prudence and go home!’ Silent roared, charging up the hill where more Conglomerate were waiting, sporadically shooting down at them with a sense of desperation.
Timmy waddled along behind, he was filled with a sense of anticipation and excitement, Silent was right, it was almost over. Soon it would be the way it used to be, Sarah would be back with them and life would be fun again. Timmy could hardly remember how life was before the war, for months it had raged now and it was all he seemed to know. Admittedly, the battles had made him stronger and far more efficient. Perhaps now the Godfather would give him a larger role in things. Perhaps he wouldn’t be the sidekick any longer. He did like Silent, he liked him a lot but there were times when Timmy wished he could be the hero for once… if only he had been born a hero…
‘Come on Timmy, you’re falling behind, the tower is just ahead!’ Jamsie called back. Timmy nodded and rushed up after them, passing by the lead-filled corpses of lemmings and Germanians.
As Timmy passed the top of the hill and began to head downwards, he looked at the valley spread out below him. It was not a particularly large valley yet it was still big enough to hold the base of the extremely vast tower to which they were tasked to destroy. It also held a pair of Boomer tanks surrounded by Conglomerate troops who were clearly ready to make a final stand, as a blast tore apart seven marines just in front of Timmy, causing him to dive for cover behind a rock as their bodies slowly dissolved under the intense heat.
Silent and Jamsie led the way, their guns blazing away into the nearest Germanian soldiers. Silent managed to navigate his way passed the enemy rounds to clamber onto the nearest Boomer, dropping a grenade down into the half-broken hatchway before leaping off to the side, landing on a Germanian and slitting his throat as the vehicle erupted behind him in a spectacular fireball. The flames licked the back of Silent’s armour, causing his entire suit to blacken so that he resembled a soldier entirely formed in crisp, jet-black armour.
He stood from the flames, wiping the ashes from his hair with his hand before making his way to the door of the tower and kicking it down with the force of a charging rhinoceros. Jamsie rushed after him as Timmy made his way down from his hiding place. The other marines formed a tight circle around the doorway to prevent other Conglomerate from breaking their way in as the second Boomer exploded from sheer concentrated firepower.
Waiting inside for Silent and Jamsie was quite a surprise as neither of them were quite expecting a pair of lemmings giving a penguin a mud bath. The duo froze for a second and Silent burst out laughing.
‘We go through all that, all that war and death and destruction and we find a bloody penguin getting a mud bath! Oh this is gold!’ Silent laughed as Jamsie too grinned. Even the penguin and his companions looked at ease and joined in.
Suddenly, Timmy stumbled in behind them, tripping over a piece of broken ground and letting his pistol off. The round punched through the penguin’s head and it slumped in the bath, sending green goo leaking into the mud.
‘Oh well, moments over.’ Silent muttered as he shot the two lemmings, who had suddenly drawn rapiers.
‘That was… weird.’ Jamsie said, still half-laughing as they moved on, looking for the stairs to the next level.
It appeared that there was no stairs and they were in fact expected to ascend via a short range elevator. The trio stepped onto the platform and it shot upwards, stopping about three seconds later at the next level, where they leapt off. Silent took point through the narrow corridors of the bizarre tower, there seemed to be no Conglomerate in the building at all, there was no sound or sign of any enemy activity. After a short time of scrambling around the many various corridors and alcoves of this level, they found the next lift, which brought them surprisingly to the top floor. There, they found the answer as to where the Conglomerate troops where.
Silent gasped slightly as Jamsie and Timmy looked on, confused. They were dead. Every Conglomerate soldier was already dead, their blood pooling beneath them to form little rivers as it pumped down from their dead veins to slope into a lake at the incline of the storey.
Silent stepped forwards, there were so many… at least twenty Germanians were hacked apart by a force of sheer brutality. He approached the nearest and looked at his dead face. There was a look of surprise and fear etched onto it. Silent was not quite sure what to say.
‘What the fudge is going on?’ Jamsie asked to no reply.
Suddenly, there was movement up ahead. Silent looked up at the panel controlling the tower’s shield for the first time. It was sitting just at the top of the incline above him, lying in way before a vast glass pane looking out into the polar region.
Yet it was not the panel that drew his attention, it was the figure standing… or rather sitting just in front of it. It was a creature the like of which he had seen many times now, yet never before this fierce, cruel and… well… angry.
A prophet floated down towards them, a blood-dripping axe in each of its hands, sheer fury etched into every line of its terse body.
‘Die in the name of the Conglomerate!!!’ It screamed as it sprang forwards, axes flailing above its head.
Surprised, Silent did not get out of the way in time and was bowled over, knocking him flat on his back. Timmy shrieked and ran to look for cover as Jamsie fired. His shots went wild as the prophet collided with him, an axe blade cutting his artificial leg clean off.
‘Dammit not again!’ he cried as he stumbled and fell.
Silent rolled back to his feet and drew his wristblades as the prophet turned to face him.
‘You will all burn before our might! The Little Quest is at hand!’ Anger roared, pelting towards the bounty hunter.
Silent, prepared this time, managed to just get out of the way as the hover lounger ploughed through a glass ornamental pane, shattering glass all over the blood-slicked floor. Jamsie crawled to Timmy’s hiding place where he reloaded his rifle and took aim on the prophet.
Anger turned in his chair, drawing from the back of it what seemed to be a minigun.
‘You gotta be kidding me!’ Silent mouthed as it opened fire, littering the air with rounds. Silent dived as the space above him turned to lead, glancing his rear armour plate and tearing its supports. His back armour fell off, hitting the ground with a clash as the support holders were torn off.
Aware now that he was not nearly as protected as he used to be, Silent rolled quickly into cover behind some metal structure in the centre of the large room, drawing his pistols to engage the prophet in long range. However, no sooner had he done this than the prophet discarded his weapon for lack of rounds and shot forwards again.
Silent ducked as a massive axe imbedded itself into the structure where Silent’s head had been only seconds ago, sending a cloud of dust and debris into the air as the structure was cloven in two. Silent took the opportunity to leap onto the prophet’s chair, yet Anger was no slouch and his second axe hit home, cutting both of Silent’s pistols in half. Silent punched the prophet in the mouth, shattering its jaw. Anger spat out blood and teeth and sent another axe blow to Silent’s chest. Silent only just back flipped out in time as Jamsie filled the vacant air with rounds, puncturing the prophet’s lounger and causing it to erupt, launching Anger several feet in the air before coming to a halting crash on the rough metal ground.
Silent charged over to him before he could stand and cut his head from his shoulders, panting from the intensity of the battle.
‘Do I have to be the one who says, ‘Wow, that guy had some anger issues,’’ Jamsie grinned, walking over, gun in hand.
Silent smirked and glanced around at the bodies, ‘I bet he killed his own men.’
‘From his own anger?’ Jamsie asked.
‘Yeah, he was probably pissed that they couldn’t hold us back so he killed them.’ Silent muttered, making his way over the control panel.
‘Makes sense,’ Jamsie shrugged, glancing at Timmy, who was crawling very slowly from his hiding space.
Silent switched off the energy shield and his communicator crackled into life as Rachael spoke.
‘Good work Silent, that’s one. Dopeman should be just about to-‘
She stopped as Silent saw the second tower from the window suddenly explode.
‘That’s two.’ She continued, ‘We’re almost taking out ours now and… Oh my God, what is that? Johnny take it out!’
There was sounds of scuffling and commotion and then suddenly there was silence.
‘Rachael?’ Silent called, ‘Rachael? Please respond? Commander?’
There was no answer.
‘We’re going to their tower to help them.’ Silent turned to the others, leading them out of the building.
As they made their way to the lift, there was a flash of extremely bright light as a warp hole opened right before them and Dopeman stepped out.
‘Hi, long time no see.’ He grinned, ‘Going to save miss Lochs? Might I recommend travel via Bob? It’d be way faster.’
Silent grinned, ‘Now we’re talking.’
As they shot into Dimension X, Dopeman turned to Silent, ‘By the way, I killed one of those prophet guys in my tower. Some guy called Pride, tried challenging me to a single combat. It was a laughable performance. I cut the blade from his sword and then I cut off his trousers. He was so ashamed he killed himself.’
‘These prophets are just insane. I don’t know how the Conglomerate functions with leaders like them.’ Silent replied as they reappeared inside the third tower in front of two dead marines.
They each readied their weapons as they stepped into the next corridor. A dead moch later and they found themselves in the central room with the elevator. It was guarded by a pair of Germanians who were put down faster than they could blink by Dopeman.
‘We better hurry up, we can’t let them capture any human or they’ll be able to activate this thing.’ Silent voiced, clambering onto the elevator with the others.
Dopeman nodded as the lift shot upwards, depositing them on the top level where they found themselves facing laser carbines from every angle.
‘Ah,’ Silent muttered, dropping his weapon and raising his arms while staring into the masses of Germanians.
The others did the same as they drew close around Dopeman, who moved his wrist slowly.
‘Where’s the commander?’ Silent asked the assembled Conglomerate, who merely grunted and snorted in response.
‘No answer?’ Silent asked, ‘Alright Dopeman, do it!’
Silent, Jamsie and Timmy ducked as Dopeman spun once on the spot, sending a wave of toothpicks at head level in a circle, killing every single Germanian at once.
Silent grinned, picking up his weapon and stepping over the massed bodies, heading for the control panel, located in the exact same place as it was in the first tower, in fact, this whole tower was exactly the same… even down to the hulking form in the hover-lounger sitting beside the panel.
Silent groaned, ‘Not another one.’
This creature was really fat and panting from simply opening its mouth to talk.
‘You’ll… you’ll never… take me… alive.’ It breathed, attempting to lift up a fallen carbine.
It gasped and coughed, dropping the gun and relaxing back into its lounger, ‘Oh… just kill… me… it’ll be… quicker… and… I won’t have to… do anything…’
Silent frowned at the prophet of Sloth and eventually came to the conclusion that it was telling the truth, he sighed and fired, blasting out its chest.
He turned to the others, ‘Wow… that was really really easy.’
Dopeman nodded, ‘Yeah it was.’
Silent switched off the final shield console and watched as the shield around the control centre vanished completely. Almost as soon as he had done this, the Crimson Flag floated down from orbit to take position above the centre, readying its weapons to fire.
Silent grinned, it was over.
Suddenly, something shot out of warp in orbit, something immeasurably massive, like a moon. It shot through the air and hit the Crimson Flag, shattering it apart in a blazing explosion before crashing to the earth a hundred miles away. Yet even in the tower, they were lifted a foot from the ground from the devastating reverberation of the blastwave.
‘That was the Low Greed!’ Silent gasped, ‘Sarah’s on that ship!’
Dopeman grabbed him quickly, ‘The Conglomerate first Silent! The Conglomerate first!’
Silent shook himself from Dopeman’s grasp, seeing something heading straight for the window behind. A large fleshy pod smashed it open and a horde of Timmyforms erupted from its split innards, reawakening the corpses of the Conglomerate. The Timmy’s had arrived.
Arriving outside, they discovered the Timmy’s were everywhere and the UN were hard pressed to hold them off as the tide of retarded zombies swept over them.
Silent knew what had to be done and headed straight for the control centre, ignoring the pleas of friend from a nearby Timmy as Jamsie put it down with a brutal swipe of his combat knife.
As the group turned down the mountain pass leading to the centre, they saw the ground was turning from chocolate to freezing sugar as they made their way into the polar region. Here, before them, lay their final goal and the last of the Conglomerate. Here… lay victory.
Obeseman shook himself out of the wreckage. He was the only survivor, he was certain of that as he had felt death a thousand times as the Crimson Flag was utterly destroyed. When he had finally crawled himself to the edge of the crushed vessel, he found he was standing inside a large building facility. Unsure of what was going on, he approached the nearest door and stepped inside.
Upon seeing the lemmings, he realised this was a Conglomerate controlled area and began his attack, swallowing the creature’s whole.
Gluttony sat at his table, a banquet large enough to feed a planet sitting before him in the cathedral sized-hall. Lemming waiters surrounded the room, all ready to serve their master as he began to dine, his mouth sloshing as it moved from sheer girth.
‘Waiter!’ he roared, twenty chins wobbling as he did so. A small, terrified lemming in a waistcoat approached. ‘Get me some more ice cream and an elephant!’
The lemming scrambled off with all the others to get the food. The final lemming turned to close the door but Gluttony ordered him back.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he asked before swallowing the creature whole.
Gluttony waited for a full half an hour before he realised his servants weren’t coming back, ‘What’s going on?! Where is everyone?!’
‘I ate them.’ Was the reply as Obeseman stepped into the room and sat at the table opposite him. ‘Fine banquet you’ve got here, mind if I join in?’
Silent gunned down the last Germanian in the small outpost tower and looked out into the valley below. There it was, the huge pyramidal structure sat in the centre of the frozen area, a host of Conglomerate barring its access.
Dopeman took point, leading the group down as Silent took over the UN’s communication’s channel. They had their plan.
Dopeman sprouted a white flag and the four of them walked down, straight down, hands up to the Conglomerate, halting in front of their thoroughly surprised army. The final two millipedes locked their weapons onto the small group as the Germanian commander stepped forwards, staring at the white flag as the group lay down their weapons on the frozen ground.
‘What is this?’ the commander asked, suspicion layered across his voice.
‘It’s clear that we’re surrendering,’ Dopeman smiled, happily.
‘Surrendering?’
‘Yes. You’ve beaten us. Well done.’ Silent grinned.
‘But… you were winning!’ the commander replied.
‘Yes, but the Timmy’s are attacking us from behind and we don’t have the forces to fight both of you, so we are suggesting an alliance until the Timmy’s are defeated.’ Jamsie answered.
‘Yes… but… no… we cannot!’ the commander replied.
‘Oh alright then.’ Silent shrugged, lifting the communicator to his mouth and shouting, ‘Now!’
Time seemed to slow as many things happened at once. The millipedes fired, Dopeman waved his arms into a vast shield of toothpicks, the Germanian commander died with a knife in his forehead and over three hundred UN gunships shot down over the mountains to fire on the Conglomerate.
‘What blasphemy is this!’ Gluttony roared as Obeseman took a bite out of a piece of pie.
‘I am Obeseman and I challenge you to an eating contest.’
Gluttony laughed a deep, guttural laugh, ‘Me! You cannot hope to best me at my own game! I accept.’
Obeseman grinned as they both began to eat. They ate everything in the room, from food, to wood, to metal, to the walls, to the ceiling, to the corpses on the floor until there was nothing left around.
Gluttony panted as Obeseman stepped forwards.
‘A draw…’ Gluttony breathed, ‘I think…’
‘No,’ replied Obeseman smiling as he widened his jaw to fit Gluttony, ‘I win.’
The Conglomerate were dying. All around them. Silent leapt out of the shield as the millipedes crashed to the ground under the firepower of the gunships and charged to the control centre, remnants of the Conglomerate kicking up laser fire around him as Jamsie and Timmy followed, dodging the random explosions as they went. Dopeman cut down another Germanian and followed the others.
They reached the control centre’s main doors and crashed inside, finding themselves in a long corridor surrounded by video screens. The group stopped as the screens flickered on and they saw, for the first time in months, the face of the great enemy.
Prudence was smiling, though clearly he was under pressure, he spoke with a fervour of someone achieving their dream.
‘Brothers! My Conglomerate! The Little Quest is at hand! In a moment I will ignite the rings and all who believe will be saved!’
Silent watched, almost disbelieving as he saw a huge blond Germanian holding Johnny firmly in position, a muscled bicep crushing his neck as he struggled. Rachael was nearby, under the hold of a small Germanian.
‘We have to help them!’ Silent called to the others and they rushed down the corridor to the huge elevator at the end. The elevator had its own screen and they watched as it began its slow crawl upwards.
Johnny struggled further as Prudence turned to him, ‘Don’t be foolish human, it is all over. I have won.’
‘No you haven’t!’ Rachael cried, breaking the wrists of her captor and taking up his rifle.
Germanians turned to confront her and she fired, blowing the head off the first before blasting a hole through the chest of the next. She moved to Johnny’s side, shooting a gaping hole into the arm of his minder. Johnny broke off the rest and moved to engage, punching the Germanian in the face before leaping on top, hitting him again and again. Then, there was a gunshot. A pistol round and a body hit the floor.
In the elevator Silent cried out as he saw Rachael fall to her knees, blood pooling from her chest. Johnny paused, turning to see her hit the ground. He froze as the large Germanian picked him up again, crushing him.
Prudence dropped the smoking pistol to the floor and walked to Johnny with something of a smirk on his face, ‘You see. I have won.’
Suddenly, the Germanian holding Johnny collapsed to the ground as there was a roar of utter rage, ‘Rachael!!!’
Silent charged from the elevator, running full pelt at Prudence, hitting him and knocking him with a head-splitting crash to the ground. He hit again and again, smashing the prophet’s ribcage, rupturing his heart and cracking his skull. As the prophet of the Conglomerate lay dead, Dopeman set about the last of the Germanians, who tried to flee before his might.
Silent stood from the high prophet, blood dripping from his fist as he saw another prophet step from the shadows. He stopped, confused. Why was the prophet of Prudence standing in front of him?
‘Who are you?’ Silent demanded, pointing at the prophet.
‘I am Prudence, high prophet of the Conglomerate,’ it replied, ‘You killed the prophet of envy.’
‘Envy?’ Silent asked.
‘Yes, he was envious of me, so he knocked me out and took my place. I’m glad he did after what you did to him.’ Prudence smiled slightly.
‘Oh well, time to kill you too.’ Dopeman muttered, drawing a toothpick across the prophet’s neck.
‘Very well, Molgath.’ Prudence sighed, ‘It was ordained to be so…’
Dopeman paused.
‘Why aren’t you killing me?’ Prudence asked, ‘I must die.’
‘Well… you’re Prudence right?’
‘Yes.’
‘So I’m going to kill you late.’ Dopeman grinned.
‘What? No… I must die now! I must die now!’ Prudence voiced, scrambling to get at a weapon.
Dopeman held him back as the prophet fought and after a minute he slit his throat. ‘Ah… wonderful vengeance.’
Silent wasn’t listening, he was holding Rachael’s body close. It was too late to save her… she was already dead. A single tear streaked down his face as he turned to Dopeman, ‘We were too late…’
Titanic laughter suddenly erupted around them. Deep, guttural and yet slightly sophisticated. Silent stood, rifle at the ready as massive tentacles shot from the ground around them, lolling onto the platform.
‘Good… good!’ roared the voice of the Timmymind, ‘You have stopped the procedure. Now the Timmy’s are free to control the galaxy!’
‘Not if I have anything to say about it.’ Silent replied fiercely, ‘Listen to me, Timmymind. I’m going to kill you, I’m going to save Sarah and I’m going to destroy every single Timmy in the galaxy!’
The laugh continued, ‘You’re welcome to try!’
The tentacles withdrew as Silent made his way out of the control room, then he stopped as he noticed a side corridor he had not seen earlier. The others followed him as Johnny carried Rachael’s body.
At the end of the corridor was a huge metal door. Silent turned to the controls beside it and activated them, the door slowly lifted and Silent’s eyebrows furrowed in anger at what he saw revealed behind it.
A Chocolate Ring. A new Chocolate Ring was floating in the air before him, as vast as the one’s before it. Innocent Flame suddenly zoomed in from outside to greet them.
‘Why Silent, how nice to see you,’ He hummed, happily, ‘Do you like my new installation? When they saw it was gone, the guardians of the Parabola very kindly rebuilt all for me to monitor once again.’
Silent frowned, ‘Can we fire it yet?’
‘Why?’ Innocent asked, cautiously.
‘Because I want to know, that should be enough for you.’
‘It is ready to fire on demand but it will not be fully active for several weeks.’
‘That’s all I needed to know. Go enjoy your new ring, we’ll come to visit soon.’ Silent smiled.
Innocent paused, confused, ‘Oh… very well Silent.’
He hovered off again as Jamsie turned to Silent.
‘What was that all about?’
‘After I rescue Sarah I’m going to fire that ring.’ He replied.
The others stepped back, ‘What?’
‘You heard him, it isn’t finished yet. If we fire it, we could destroy the ring, the Parabola and the Timmys.’ Silent replied happily.
Dopeman grinned, ‘That could work. I’ll get the UN prepared to leave. Good luck with Sarah Silent.’
He vanished swiftly and Johnny also took his leave, preparing to take Sarah to the fleet also, leaving the trio alone.
Silent smiled and turned to Timmy, ‘This is it Timmy, this is where we get her back.’
The trio and stood, turning from the ring to look right, where… just visible in the huge plumes of smoke, lay the Low Greed.
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Post by Silent on Aug 18, 2012 20:35:17 GMT -5
Chapter Thirty-Three: Sarah
‘So, what you’re saying is, the UN sent a team into Low Greed… to what? Look around?’ Silent asked the scared marine, who shrugged fearfully back.
‘I… I… dunno why. Probably to see if it was dangerous.’ The man replied, leading Silent over to the nearby view screen of the main control room of the frigate upon which Silent had rested before making his way to Low Greed.
Jamsie and Timmy were waiting for them there, anxiously awaiting the playback of the security footage rescued from the fireteam who had so drastically entered the infected vessel. Silent knew he was spending precious time, but he wanted to know exactly what he was up against, he was sure the Timmymind would have some surprises up its… sleeve.
‘So basically, for some reason, you guys thought a massive, infected Conglomerate city-ship that blew our allies flagship in half might contain something dangerous but you wanted to investigate to make sure?’ Silent asked, skeptically, ‘Are you guys completely and utterly retarded?’
The man shrunk back and whispered, ‘No…’
Silent sighed, ‘Play the recording then.’
The marine waddled to the control panel and placed a disk into the receiving slot. Shortly afterwards the view screen switched on and began to cycle through images as the marine skipped to the most relevant point. From what Silent could see, it wasn’t looking good, the ship’s corridors filled with jagged holes and no signs of any bodies. The walls had become gooey, almost like they were living, pulsing creatures and he frowned.
The film began to move at normal pace when it focused on a small group of marines moving slowly into, for want of a better word, the hive.
The camera of a marine called Hudson scanned the outer shell as he began to move inside, followed by the others.
‘Watch your fire and check your targets, remember there may be civvies in here,’ the sergeant of the squad called out as they all advanced cautiously, two members carrying vast machine guns.
‘Take it easy,’ the sergeant informed as the squad moved in under a low-lying pus wall.
‘It’s like some sort of secreted resin,’ one of the soldiers muttered.
‘Yeah,’ another replied, looking uneasily at the surface, ‘But secreted from what?’
‘Nobody touch nothin’,’ snarled the sergeant, advancing ahead of the others.
‘It’s hot as hell in here,’ another complained, moving passed another pus-covered mound of pulsing saliva.
‘Yeah man, but it’s a dry heat,’ a marine up ahead called back, grinning.
‘Knock it off Hudson,’ the sergeant ordered, frowning at the surroundings.
The recording switched to a view of the commanding officers of the squad, who watched the squad cameras and technical redoubts of the ship carefully. A female frowned at the blueprints and turned to the others, ‘Lieutenant what type of ammunition do those pulse rifles fire?’
‘Ten millimeter explosive tipped, caseless, standard light armour piercing round, why?’ replied the man beside her, a little confused.
‘Well… look where your team is. They’re right under the primary heat exchangers.’
‘So?’
‘So… if they fire their weapons in there won’t they rupture the coolant systems?’
‘No… oh… no.’ the man behind them began to frown. ‘Yeah she’s absolutely right.’
‘So? So what?’ the lieutenant replied, impatiently.
‘Look this whole station is basically a big fusion reactor… right.’ The man continued as the lieutenant’s face suddenly flushed with fear. ‘So… you’re talking about a thermonuclear explosion and adios muchachos.’
‘Oh great,’ the lieutenant complained bitterly, ‘Wonderful… shit.’
The marines halted as he sent an incoming call, ‘Look… eh… Apone? Look, we can’t have any firing in there. I… eh… I want you to collect magazines from everybody.’
The marines collectively began to complain.
‘Flame units only, I want rifles slung… just do it sergeant,’ came the reply as Apone began to question the order. ‘And no grenades.’
The sergeant frowned and turned to the others, ‘Alright sweethearts you heard the man, pull ‘em out. C’mon let’s have ‘em.’
As he collected the ammunition, two of the marines conspired to keep a magazine each. Once collected, the group moved forwards again, ever deeper into the infection.
They moved into an opening where there were large, fleshy pods littering the half-metallic, half-organic ground. They all stared horrified up at the hanging figure of a human being, suspended against the wall by a layer of goo.
‘Holy shit,’ Apone mouthed as they saw the figure’s chest was burst open from the inside.
Back where the commander’s where watching, the female turned to a young girl sitting beside her and said, ‘Newt, go sit up front. Go on, now.’
As the marines moved further in, they found yet more suspended humans, all burst open from the inside out. One marine, from his camera Silent could see his name was Hicks, moved to inspect an open fleshy pod, shotgun barrel etching into the opening. With slow and careful movements, he used the weapon to lift up the dead body of something that Silent assumed was a Timmy infection form, having many spindly legs.
The marines kept moving under the steady instructions of sergeant Apone. One of the marines moved to a human stretched out on the wall… it was not yet dead. The human, a young boy, it seemed, or perhaps a girl opened its eyes and the marine backed away as the others moved to close in on it.
‘Get over here! We got a live one!’ the marine yelled before turning to the now shaking figure to utter words of comfort.
‘Please…’ the human breathed. ‘Kill… me…’
The marines backed away as the chest of the human began to convulse violently before hideously erupting in a spout of crimson blood as a small growling, snake-like creature burst out.
Suddenly the recording stopped as the marine beside Silent stepped up, apparently embarrassed and switched it off.
‘What the hell was that?’ Silent asked, almost angrily.
‘I’m so… so… sorry. Somebody must have slipped the copy of Aliens in there instead of the recording.’ The marine replied, ‘I can’t believe I didn’t notice it sooner.’
Silent came close to laughing and calmed the man down, ‘It’s alright, the recording is probably similar enough anyway.’
Silent sighed before turning to the other two, ‘Well then, ready to get Sarah back?’
They both nodded in a smirking unison and the trio headed out towards Jeevsie’s dropship. Jeevsie waved them inside as he took off, swooping down from the hangar bay and out towards the wreckage of the Low Greed, sweeping under the vast newly built Chocolate Ring.
Silent glared down at the vessel as they pressed towards it, passing a flock of Guardians zooming to garrison the new ring and diving under a low-lying beam of metal wreckage jutting out from the crashed ship.
The dropship moved down through the scarred opening of an energy blast in the skin of the Low Greed and landed carefully in the depths of the pus-filled, pulsating ground. The trio clambered out, their feet squelching against the living surface. Silent turned uneasily around to Jeevsie, who was squirming slightly in the cockpit, holding his Tommy gun in uncertainty.
‘Will you be alright here, Jeevsie?’ Silent asked.
‘Sure, just get going, I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to,’ he replied, shooing them away.
Silent nodded, ‘Don’t worry Jeevsie, neither do I.’
As one, the trio descended the slippery slope of the fallen craft and entered a large room filled to the brim with moving pods. Silent glared at them angrily and destroyed them with one, lethal swoop of his flamethrower. Stepping over the popping, squashing remains of the pods, the group made their way down the corridor and out into a vast room, possibly one of the former hangar bays. It was now decorated with criss-crossing tendrils of hard saliva and pustules.
Silent frowned as he finally heard it, the voice of the enemy. The endless chittering of the Timmys was pouring into the room from all sides. It took a few minutes before the callers emerged, thousands of the creatures swarming in, from doors, hatchways, scars and even the gaps in the ceiling and the floor around them.
Silent dropped to one knee and raised his rifle as Jamsie did the same behind him. Timmy took a pistol in each hand and pointed them to the other two sides, covering all angles. Silent smirked, it was finally time, ‘Give ‘em hell guys!’
As one, they opened fire, shards of flesh sloughing from the zombie-like tide as they flailed forwards, limbs, chests and heads bursting as round after round penetrated them. As they drew closer, given that there was simply no shortage of the beasts, Silent tossed his rifle at the closest one, smashing its head and drew his wristblades. Behind him, Timmy and Jamsie drew combat blades and leapt forwards to meet the enemy, ripping open stomachs and cutting off arms.
A ragged talon tore at the cloth beneath Silent’s left arm and drew a small sliver of blood before he kicked the beast back and pulled off its head with a vicious tug, cutting open the side of another creature as he did so. Another vast tendril swept down to his face, but his gauntlets were already stuck in the flesh of another. Suddenly, the tendril was split in two as one of Timmy’s knives slashed through it, before the rat took the jugular of the beast it belonged to with his sharp teeth and ripped open its neck.
Jamsie kicked back the swarm before him with a heavy push and brought up his gun to bear again, raking the line until they managed to knock the weapon from his grasp.
‘There’s too many!’ Jamsie yelled as he was knocked off his feet and he broke the neck of the creature on top of him.
‘We have to keep fighting!’ Silent replied, tossing a grenade into the depths of the swarm ‘We must keep fighting!’
Timmy snarled as he vanished beneath the tide, still ripping limbs and bodies with his clawed hands and feet even as they bore him away. Silent reached in to pull Timmy out yet he too was lifted from his feet. He struggled, slicing the heads off two of his bearers and sending himself crashing down into a pool of their viscous blood. He rolled from the sloshing pool and leapt to his feet, his wrist launcher sending a dart of toxins straight into the cloud of Timmy’s before him, killing another of their number.
He had lost sight of Jamsie amidst the thousands of Timmy’s encroaching the hangar and realised he was alone amongst the enemy. As one, they leapt at him, all fangs and sharpened talons. Snarling, he took his shotgun in one hand and his flamethrower in the other and unleashed all hell.
He roared in anger as a torrent of the beasts burned to his right, another group fell to his left, their bodies blown to a pulp until he was out of ammo. Tossing the guns aside, he dived at his foe and began to slice them apart. However, his energy was failing and a club to the back of his head did enough damage to send his vision reeling. He lashed out again, ripping out the heart of another before he finally collapsed beneath the sea of bodies.
When he at last awoke, the first sense he had was of the painful concussion on the back of his head which had not died down one bit. The second sensation was the absolutely repugnant stench drifting all around him. He had smelled it only once before this bad and, judging by the tight holding sensation around his waist, he was in very similar circumstances.
As his eyes finally focused in on his surroundings, he saw that he was again in the private sanctum of the Timmymind. The creature reared its ugly head before him and Silent looked away, taking in everything in the room. It seemed the beast had completely transformed the inner sanctum of the prophets to look exactly how his layer on the Chocolate Ring looked. There were a few differences however, the first being that Timmy and Jamsie were there too, each held in a separate, vast tentacle of the giant.
However, the major difference between now and Silent’s last confrontation with the Timmymind came when he caught a whiff of a different smell through the veil of stench. It was the smell of honey and lavender, drifting up from the ground, piercing through the horrid reek of the Timmys.
Silent followed the smell with his eyes and paused, finding its source. With one fluid movement, his frown turned to a beaming smile. He had found her.
Sarah was lifted towards him by another large tentacle of the Timmymind and she laughed happily as the tendril delivered her straight into Silent’s arms where they hugged each other tightly. He kissed her softly and turned to the Timmymind, feeling her holding him closely.
‘Why are you giving Sarah to me?’ Silent asked the creature, completely confused.
‘Because, contrary to popular belief, I’m not a bad guy Silent, if you’d listened to me the first time you would have realised that.’ It replied, almost with the hint of sadness.
‘But… you attacked us, you wanted to destroy us.’ Silent argued.
‘No… no… that was a misunderstanding. I’m only new to this whole being the lord and sole controller of a hive mind y’know. I hadn’t quite grasped the basics yet, so I couldn’t control what my children were doing, otherwise I’d have gladly helped you guys to stop the Conglomerate. I never meant to harm any of you, least of all Sarah.’ The Timmymind replied, earnestly.
‘You love her?’ Silent asked, suddenly dawning upon realization as he watched the real Timmy nearby, who was beaming at Sarah.
The Timmymind sighed, ‘Yes… I do. I am possessed of all the feelings of my creator with one notable exception… I have a brain and clear thoughts.’
‘So… you were trying to help us all along?’ Jamsie asked.
‘Yes, when the Conglomerate attempted to activate the Chocolate ring, I teleported you to the most likely sources of the Conglomerate threat so that you could stop them. I hadn’t realised that the Russiians had joined you when I reached the Parabola, so I crashed the Low Greed into the capital ship that I thought was guarding the control centre. If I’d known it was your allies, I never would have done it. I even let Sarah send that hologram of her to Earth in a frigate just to help you beat the Conglomerate.’
‘Yes Silent,’ Sarah smiled, ‘He has really been very sweet.’
Silent frowned, ‘I can’t believe this. The whole time you were on our side? So why did all your Timmy’s swarm us when we got into this ship then?’
‘Oh, that was a misunderstanding. I sent them to greet you and bring you to Sarah but they can’t really say anything except for Blarg, Honk, Timmy, Xbox, Tyranids, Halo and Narg… so that didn’t really go to plan… When you started fighting I knew I wouldn’t be able to get you to listen to them so I had to carry you off to get you here. I really am quite sorry about all this and I’ll be glad to help you in any way.’ Timmymind smiled, a big, toothy grin.
‘He really is quite a nice big fellow really,’ Sarah smiled, patting the creature on the head gently, ‘We have to help him to thrive.’
Silent nodded, ‘Well Timmymind… thank you for looking after Sarah and helping us defeat the Conglomerate. Sarah is right. We will find you a world of your own where your species can live and prosper.’
‘Thank you Silent. You are a most gracious man. For I admit I have done despicable deeds for which I could not stop my warriors. But that is no excuse.’ Timmymind bowed his head, almost ashamed.
‘It was not your fault and now that you have finally learned control, we are glad to make you an ally of the federation of Earth.’ Silent replied, grinning to shake the smaller tentacle that Timmymind used as an arm. ‘I must inform you however, that I plan to destroy the Parabola soon, if not today. So I will ask Dopeman and Obeseman to find a suitable planet to relocate you to.’
Timmymind nodded, ‘Perhaps Stretch, might I suggest? Sarah told me it was glassed by the Conglomerate early on, yet I could easily turn the planet organic again.’
Silent nodded, ‘Very well. I’m sure the UN will gladly give you control of Stretch, perhaps we should rename it given your control?’
‘Alright, how about planet Blarg? That kind of suits us I think.’
‘Blarg it is,’ Silent grinned, ‘Now, could you please let us down so I can make a few calls.’
‘Of course,’ the Timmymind smiled, letting them all gently to the squishy ground below.
Before making any calls of any sort, Silent gave Sarah a long, warm hug. Timmy waddled nearby, anxious not to get in the way before Silent grabbed him and pulled him into the hug as well.
Timmy smiled as he held Sarah close. Sarah kissed him softly on the cheek before letting him down again. They held hands as Silent picked up his phone and called for Dopeman. Everything was the way it should be.
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Post by Silent on Aug 18, 2012 20:36:18 GMT -5
Chapter Thirty-Four: Return to the Chocolate Ring
‘Alrighty then, one portal to Stretch coming right up,’ Dopeman grinned, flexing his hands before launching Bob high up into the air. The toothpick swirled above the Low Greed before ripping open the sky above it and sucking it through and closing with a clap of thunder.
Dopeman clapped his hands, ‘That’s that then, now what?’
‘I’m going to fire the new ring and destroy the Parabola, so get the UN out of here, now.’ Silent ordered.
Dopeman nodded, ‘Will do. I’ll find Obeseman and we’ll rally our troops. Dark Chocolate and Columbo’s guys have already left. In fact, they left almost as soon as they arrived. Something about Columbo losing his pimpstick back on Earth. I’m sure we’ll hear all about it when we get back.’
Silent smirked, ‘I’m sure we will. Now get out of here.’
Dopeman saluted and turned to gather the UN. He watched the dropship lift off, heading for the Chocolate Ring and pondered for a moment. What would things be like now. Before Silent was just a grunt in an organisation. Now he was a hero of Earth and a general of the UN. Dopeman paused, things were not going to be the same now… He sensed it wasn’t all over yet. And yet… he sensed his part was not yet over. There was more that could be done. More lives to be saved. He thought of Huggles and sighed. More battles to be fought.
He watched almost sadly as several UN commanders carried the body bag holding Rachael Lochs onto the Backwards Into Dusk. Sarah had not taken the death of her friend well. Then again, she could not be expected to. Nobody took the commander’s death well. Dopeman could still see the pain in Silent’s eyes whenever he looked at him. Yet Dopeman still found himself powerless. No matter how strong he seemed, things kept getting around him and killing his friends. He turned to Lochs’ body again and his brow furrowed. No more. He stepped over to it and removed the sheath where the commander lay almost looking as though she were asleep. He snarled and thought of Huggles before laying his hands over her wounds. If he can do it, why can’t I?
‘Ok Silent, I’ll land my frigate on the opposite side of the ridge and provide fire support.’ Johnny called over the communications line.
Silent nodded, ‘Good, Innocent won’t like it when he discovers what we’re going to do and we’ll need all the help we can get when he does.’
‘I’ll see you in the control room.’ Johnny smiled, he paused, ‘And Sarah, it’s good to have you back.’
Sarah smiled, ‘Good to know you’re still alive Johnny.’
‘We’re coming in on the ring now, get ready.’ Jeevsie muttered to the others, who gathered up their weapons and prepared for debarkation.
The dropship hurtled down through the polar region of the ring, moving swiftly through the torrential hail of sugar cubes rocketing down from the frozen peaks of the fudge mountains all around. Jeevsie swung the vessel low under a bridge of frozen chocolate and sent the ship plummeting downwards to the ground where it stopped briskly and allowed Silent, Sarah, Jamsie and Timmy to leap off safely to the ground.
‘Alright Jeevsie, see you when we get back!’ Silent called over the howling wind.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to stay and help?’ the faithful driver replied.
‘No, go while you can. I’m risking as few people as I can.’ Silent answered, waving him off.
The group watched as the drop ship took off and disappeared into space before heading off through the frozen tundra, crossing a sugar bridge and moving down a ridge before entering the large valley containing the control centre. The entire place was an exact replica of the first ring, right down to the location of the centre within the ring.
They moved up quickly without opposition to meet Johnny who had clambered down the ledges to their left. They arrived at the tall, sturdy door of the centre which slid open to reveal Innocent Flame flanked by a pair of Guardians to escort them inside.
‘Oh, welcome everyone,’ he beamed, ‘Please come in, I’m afraid the facility isn’t entirely ready yet, so please excuse the mess. I’m quite flustered as it is.’
‘That’s alright Innocent,’ Sarah smiled, ‘Could we please see the control room?’
‘Of course y dear and might I say it is wonderful to see you again. I am so glad they rescued you from those wretched Timmy creatures.’ The robot grinned, its eye bright blue with happiness.
‘Oh thank you Innocent, it turns out they weren’t as wretched as we thought. They were actually quite nice.’ Sarah replied.
Innocent stopped, his eye turning a neutral yellow, ‘Oh… I had no idea. That’s interesting. Well come with me then. Mind the wiring.’
They moved through the long corridor slowly. It was indeed unfinished, with the occasional wiring sprawled across the centre of the ground before the floor was put in place. Jamsie clunked along at the rear, his mechanical leg not yet fitted with a noise dampener to soften the heavy footfalls.
Timmy kept glancing almost feverishly at the Guardians whom he saw as definite enemies if Innocent took the Timmy race to be hostiles. Silent and Sarah walked hand in hand behind Innocent, doing their best to make it appear as if this was the nice social visit they were trying to pull off.
Johnny meanwhile, skulked in the centre, his arms itching to draw his chainsaws and stop the charade to enter into good and honest warfare.
Innocent appeared to have no idea what was going on as he was humming loudly and happily to himself as he led the visitors deeper and deeper into his installation.
When they at last did reach the main centre itself, Johnny set off to secure the control panel as the others moved cautiously behind him, Innocent still humming softly.
‘Alright Innocent, is this ring ready to fire?’ Silent asked.
‘Why yes, but the station will not sustain the blast yet. It will be fully operation in just a few more days.’ Innocent replied.
‘We don’t have a few more days,’ replied Johnny, starting up the main control panel.
‘Bu-bu-but a premature firing will destroy the Parabola!’ spluttered Innocent suddenly, ‘It will destroy this installation!’
Suddenly his eye flashed red and without warning a beam shot from it, hitting Johnny hard in the chest and launching him several metres off his feet to hit the ground hard nearby.
Silent and the others drew their weapons and fired, the Guardians going down fast but Innocent barely slowing as he advanced forwards menacingly.
‘This is absolutely unacceptable!’ he roared, sending a laser blast careening into Silent’s left shoulder and knocking him off his feet.
Silent rolled beside Johnny and frowned at the smoking hole burned through his chest. He got to his feet and turned to Innocent Flame.
‘You knew this was coming Innocent, you didn’t think we’d just leave an installation this deadly lying around for some other megalomaniac to takeover, did you?’ Silent snarled, throwing himself at the monitor and gripping his eye tightly.
‘Oh my!!!’ Innocent roared as Silent’s wristblades shot out, cutting through the thick metal exterior of the droid and pulling the eye from its socket. Innocent hit the ground as Silent rammed his shotgun into the vacant eye socket and fire, blowing the monitor to pieces.
He turned and rushed over to Johnny, who was coughing and spluttering on the ground, trying to stand.
‘Johnny?’ he called, ‘You can’t die!’
‘It’s too late Silent. That little bastard did the trick.’ Saw coughed, a trickle of blood running down his cheek.
‘No,’ Silent muttered, ‘I can’t let you die!’
‘Sorry Silent. Look after Sarah alright. Keep her safe.’
Silent nodded and shook his hand, ‘I can’t believe it… after all you went through, a bloody eyeball killed you.’
‘Just the way it goes sometimes. No get outta here and do me a favour…’ Johnny coughed, his life fading away, ‘Send me out… with a spleen.’
Silent flinched… ‘Ooh… that’s gonna be a bit of a problem…’
‘Oh… goddamit…’ Johnny muttered and his head fell, eyes rolling back.
Silent bowed his head and moved towards the control panel and activated it. Strangely enough, it now counted him as a celebrity and he smiled slightly before firing the weapon.
The station began to shake around him and he turned to the others, ‘To the frigate! Run!’
Silent could not quite remember how it was that they did reach the frigate. He remembered the hordes of Guardians and a vague memory of a chase involving a warpig but he knew they had made it.
Jamsie and Timmy had rushed to the cockpit and taken off as Silent and Sarah secured the doors of the hangar bay. Behind them was utter chaos as the Parabola shook with intense fury under the rising force of the explosion of the ring. It was only a matter of time before it went supernova and Silent prayed that Jamsie could get the vessel to light speed in time.
As the ship shook, Silent and Sarah where both lifted off their feet as a blinding light enveloped the entire hangar bay. They shut their eyes as the Parabola erupted. They could hear the desperation in the frigate’s engines and machinery as they whined to move out of the fire. Suddenly, there was the sound of an explosion and metal tearing, something hit Silent hard on the head and he fell unconscious.
‘Humanity is safe. The Conglomerate are defeated and we owe our thanks to a great many people,’ Dopeman began, standing uncomfortably in the limelight of the conference room at the White House. The stage around him was covered in wreaths and flowers, all decorating the photographs of the fallen.
‘The UN and their military have defended the human race time and again but it was in this war that they have really proved their worth. We were at the brink of extermination, the Conglomerate were burning our homeworld and yet we struck back and defeated them and now all in the galaxy know, this planet is defended!
‘Now we can rebuild following the terrifying days of occupation. Unfortunately, air lanes are still closed due to the tremendous EMP lines still crossing the planet’s atmosphere so we will have to make the best use of our other forms of transportation for now.
‘I must also thank the armed forces of Columbo del Monko, a friend of mine who gladly lent the strength of his private army to aid us in our fight for freedom, come on up here Columbo!’
There was a thunderous applause from the numerous press and official members who gathered before the stage as Columbo del Monko stepped forwards and clambered upwards, followed as always by Charles. However, something was not right. Dopeman saw it straight away. There was a subtle, sullen expression on the man’s face and he wore black, not his usual purple suit.
‘Thank you everyone,’ Columbo said through a grated smile, ‘Do please forgive me for not staying longer but I do have very pressing matters to attend to.’
Dopeman frowned as the man walked away, something was definitely not right. Then he saw it, the crucial factor. The pimp stick was gone. Dopeman shook his head to himself as the gathered crowd looked to him. He put the thoughts of the pimp stick out of his mind and attended to the task at hand.
‘Now I would like to make a special thanks to the members of the organisation known as the Mafia. They are an independent force outside of the government working for the good of the UN. I only found that out recently myself. Anyway. I would like to thank their leader, the Godfather and the various other workers amongst their ranks. However, special thanks is due to Timmy the rat, Jamsie and Jeevsie who fought beside me with courage and honour throughout the entire war against the Conglomerate. Without them, it would not have been the victory it was.’
Dopeman shuffled slightly and cleared his throat. He bowed his head as he made the next announcement.
‘Finally, I would like to thank our honoured dead, those who fought on to the bitter end and never gave up. Amongst those are Captain Jason Lochs and Johnny Saw. But most importantly of all, I would like you all now to bow your heads in sorrow, for we have lost two of humanities greatest heroes. Please, I wish you all now to think of Silent of Cakamorse and Sarah Angel. Sadly, they both fell in the final day of the war and without them, we could not have won. Together they killed the prophets of the Conglomerate and successfully stopped the firing of no less than two Chocolate rings and the Parabola itself. A minute’s silence if you will.’
All present bowed their heads and Dopeman knew that all over the world, people of every nation were doing the same. He turned to the photograph of Silent and Sarah on the wall behind him, the largest of them all and ran his hand down it carefully.
Then he frowned and slapped himself on the head, ‘I’ve been a fool!’
He turned to the crowd, a smile across his face, as he roared ‘God!!!!’
In a flash, the being was there, ‘What’s up?’
‘Sarah?’
‘What about her?’
‘Is she alive?’
God backed away, ‘Of course, why wouldn’t she be?’
Dopeman grinned and shot Bob into the air, following the toothpick to vanish in a billowing cloud of wind.
Seconds later, he shot back to the stage, holding a pair of people in his arms. As one the assemble host clapped and cheered as Silent and Sarah stumbled away from Dopeman’s tight grip, smiling and waving to everyone.
‘I was beginning to think you’d forgotten how to teleport!’ Sarah beamed, hugging Dopeman.
‘So was I, I really can be an idiot sometimes,’ he smiled, ‘So what happened?’
‘Oh, the ship got ripped in half during the jump to light speed so we drifted off towards some weird metal planet while Jamsie and Timmy got here, where are they anyway?’ Silent asked, waving into the crowd as he spoke.
As if in answer to his question, the two leapt up onto the platform and jumped to join in the hug.
‘We did it!’ Jamsie roared, ‘We beat them all!’
‘We sure did mate,’ Silent smiled as the group turned to face the crowd and bowed as one.
‘So, anyone up for a MacDonald’s?’ Dopeman asked.
‘Let’s go,’ they all replied, laughing happily.
‘Oh yeah, one more thing…’ Dopeman muttered, moving towards the front of the stage again.
‘Hey, news people and military, you guys never asked why I never mentioned Commander Rachael Lochs in my speech!’ he yelled.
They stepped back and the Godfather called, ‘Sorry!’
‘Well it was because… Tadah!… bring her in Obeseman!’ Dopeman beamed, waving to the right of the stage where Obeseman walked briskly up, followed by… Rachael Lochs!
Silent and Sarah both stared, open-mouthed and turned to Dopeman, ‘But how?’
Dopeman grinned and waved his hands, ‘Huggles isn’t the only god with healing powers.’
Everyone grinned and rushed over to embrace Rachael.
‘Together forever, eh?’ Sarah asked the huddled bunch.
‘Forever,’ they all replied, beaming.
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