The Primal War : First Elements Saga Book 1

Chapter 10: Null and Void Canal

“Good hunting, sir!” the staff sergeant that had led them on board, shouted over the sounds of explosions, gunfire, and the helicopter’s engines as they hopped out.

“Thanks. And thanks for the lift!” Marcus replied with a nod.

“Any time, sir.” Then the Blackhawks were lifting away to let their door gunners hammer away at nearby dug-in black tag positions with their M134D miniguns, as their pilots added LOS firing from the Blackhawks’ fixed M240 miniguns.

Having visually plotted a couple of attack jumps as they were coming in, Marcus gathered himself to immediately go on the offensive. The sooner they hit Null Faction assets in the mouth, the sooner this fight was going to be over!

“Going hot for a quick strike,” he said with a look over at Val.

“Copy, but circle back after your first run so we can go over what we’re going to do here,” Val said as she used hand signals to direct her operators into position.

“Copy that.” Then Marcus skip jumped towards the nearest cluster of Soulless that were conveniently standing close to several small fires.

Appearing in the heart of the first cluster, quick hands leached most of them out before they could react to his presence. Then, with the stolen energy, the fire primal blasted the remaining two back with devastating firestorms, bludgeoning the life out of the survivors.

Nodding in satisfaction, Marcus quickly repeated the lightning quick attack two more times before the fourth group, close enough to see him devastate their comrades, were more ready for him when he blinked into sight. The young fire primal had barely enough time to coalesce in the heart of the fourth knot of Soulless when he was being battered by stone hail propelled by gale force winds.

“You made a mistake attacking us, primal,” an earth Soulless snarled as Marcus desperately threw up an expanded air shield to deflect the slashing stone particles. Deflecting and superheating before redirecting them at the earth Soulless, who shouted in alarm before screaming as they tore into him. Then a battering ram of force was slamming into the beleaguered primal’s body and he found himself getting flipped over and driven into the ground before he could react.

“That … hurt!” Marcus managed to groan before a shadow moved over him.
Looking up the fire primal found yet another earth Soulless looming over him, fists sheathed in stone.

“And now you die, primal,” the Soulless grated in a voice that sounded like rocks rubbing together.

Before the rock sheathed fist could descend onto a stunned Marcus, the earth Soulless’s head snapped back. Then he was dropping bonelessly to the ground facing a wide eyed primal, his eyes vacant of life and a nine millimeter round hole in his forehead leaking blood and pulped brain tissue.

Marcus twitched then as the remaining Soulless in the team he had attacked, also started quickly dropping, twisting like macabre marionettes getting their strings cut before tumbling to the ground. Then he was the only person left alive, the last Soulless, a water shell, twitching before going still just as the first bead of blood and brains finished oozing down the earth Soulless’s forehead to drip onto the ground.

Then he was being pulled out of the shallow depression in the ground his body had made on impact by strong grips on his arms.

“You need to come with us, sir,” a hard, male voice said in his ear.

Looking around, Marcus found himself in the middle of a knot of US 75th Regiment Army Rangers. Besides the two that were holding him up, there was a full squad equipped with a mixture of FN SCAR, and HK G28 rifles with suppressors held at the ready as they checked the downed Soulless for usable intel and to make sure they were dead.