August 13th. 20:30
If there is one place where one can go and find something worth of mysteries and tragedies, the dark desert of Nevada answers that doubt. The place where the nuclear tests were performed by the American government during the Second World War and the Cold War. But that is not the most interesting side of said desert. This aspect is the enigmatic base: Area 51.
While official reports say that this is actually just a US Air Force base for prototype planes, many people believe that it is actually a base containing secrets coming from outer space, including extraterrestrial life.
It later turned out to be actually true...now that the prey revealed the nest of the hidden hunter for all these years.
The outlook has changed. Traces of Zlocan machinery is present in every corner. Walkers, dropships, charge tanks, it didn't matter what type they were, all that mattered is that now an important zone from the American government has been stripped away from enemy hands.
A bleak figure hunches over a large desk, cornered by numerous monitors. The human technology is archaic, to his great annoyance, but it will do for now. Some display videos of Zlocu victories, others reports. Each screen reflects off his visor as he watches each dispassionately.
His duster shivers against the floor as the door behind him opens. If the figure bat an eye, it was lost behind his opaque visor.
"Report." He grunts. The gruff voice reverberates around the room, mechanical and rough.
The Zlocan sergeant behind him stands tall and salutes smartly. "Sir. The survivor you wanted is arrived."
"Bring him in. See that we are alone."
"Affirmative." The Zlocan stands aside and motions the bloodied Knight through. The Knight heaves and almost collapses, managing a weak salute. The door slams shut behind him.
"L...Lord Raven," he says as he coughs. "I..."
"Sit. You are wounded." The Knight takes a seat near one of the tables that are in the room as tries to keep his composure.
Lord Raven rises and offers his chair. His full form is revealed; even by Zlocu standards, he is massive. Standing a whole head above the Knight, his black pauldrons shinelessly repel the monitor's light and cuts a colorless silhouette--colorless except for a pair of crimson gauntlets on his forearms. Apparently, they were the same color as human blood, though to his disappointment Lord Raven cannot confirm this.
The Knight crumples into the seat and sighs. Lord Raven gestures brusquely at the top left monitor.
"What do you see?"
The Knight watches in shameful silence. Lord Raven tsks.
"Well?"
"...It's my patrol," the Knight murmurs. "Dying."
"Nothing unusual on the battlefield...but oh, look here."
He pinches the touchscreen and zooms in on a black figure, surrounded by four paler figures. But one is not like the others. One has teal skin and slender wings.
"What...do we have here?"
"We...we were doing our jobs in what you said. It was all going well until...the attackers ambushed and killed most of the units except me..." the knight replies, still in a trembling posture while sustaining his wound and shaky tone.
"Did you at least manage to identify them?"
"Yes, they were...Damn it! You're really not going to believe this but, they were the same people we were trying to hunt and recruit! Four ordinary people completely destroyed the unit!"
"So, the hunted becomes the hunter, am I right?"
"I...I don't know, Lord Raven, if you put it like that..."
"Now now. But whoever they are, I hope you have a good excuse about why your team, was exterminated by these 'ordinary' ones."
"It's...it's...impossible for you to believe..."
"Al that matters are the facts, the rest is irrelevant," Raven replies again.
"Well, for a moment we found four fugitives hiding in the woods, each one being hunted down by a different unit with the aim of recruiting them, but we thought we wasted too much time and our C.O ordered us to execute them. They were in clear sight, I swear. But then a white light appeared and it blinded us for a moment. Afterward, the light disappeared, and so did they!" the Knight says as he tries to keep his composure in check, all while clutching his hands together.
"Then what did you next, fellow Knight?" Raven asks in a near comforting tone, yet still deceitful.
"We tried to find them again, even digging underground to find them but suddenly, our walkers and drones started to get trashed by something, then the general and the rest were levitated by something and thrown away, and some sort of water wave splashed the remaining ones again... It was them, sir! The people we were looking for! And one of them, likely the sister of the man we captured recently started to interrogate me so she can know where he was taken!"
"One of the last of the Soranians? I never expected that one of them was going to take revenge against the Zlocu for this. But nonetheless, quite interesting, and ironic," Raven says.
The Knight can only nod in response, still wanting to go away from the terrible memories he's enduring to tell.
"But tell me, did you slip out our secret?"
"Not fully...I was forced to give a hint to them in regards to the name and something that surrounds it but don't worry, they'll never find our secret weapon!"
"I see, let's hope that is the case."
"Good, good, good....but sir, can I leave now?"
"No. You know the consequences of letting your comrades die and letting the enemy get information. Remember the old Zlocan proverb: Your brothers are your brothers, you must always be with them, even in death. And as the Zlocan command established, break both of these rules and you'll face the consequences," Raven says as soon as he gets up from his chair and goes behind him.
The Knight starts to tremble as tears fall down from his eyes and get reddened.
"No no no! Please! No! I do like being with my comrades but this is the first time it happens to me! Just please give me another chance, I swear to you that we will find these weak humans for killing my brothers and prove that we-"
Just as he's continuing his rant, he stops speaking, as if something affected him, making him gargle as orange blood starts coming out of his mouth.
He then looks downwards and sees what had caused it.
Stabbed in the back by a metal claw, coming from Raven's hand. Blood dripping outside of it, gushing out in many droplets. After a brief pause, the knight stops moving and Raven takes out his claw out of the knight's chest and later kicks him off his chair to the floor.
"Failure is not an option in this empire," Raven replies as he swipes his claws battered in orange blood, as he heads toward the door where the Knight entered and proceeds to knock outside.
"He's finished with his therapy. Now let's hope he has time to reunite with his brothers."
The guard did as he's told and took the dead Knight out of his room.
Later, Raven sat on his desk again, crossing his fingers while thinking about what happened.
"This seems interesting, a group of humans going from weaklings to warriors. Now, they may think that their newfound strength may stop us, but we have our Humans as well. But whether they kill them or not, it will show them that there's no such thing as a hero, only monsters."
***
In another part of the complex, there's a man with silverish-blue-hair in a ponytail, his eyes as yellow as a werewolf, a black tidy bandanna on his forehead, and an armband on his left arm. He's slicing and dicing mechanical training dummies he sees on sight, both up and down, holding his golden curved sword in all positions.
He's panting with each slice, but he kept a determined look on his face, not willing to stop. After vertically slashing a mechanical drone, he then impales the remains of the drone, all in a victorious way.
"This is it...I'm truly the best!" the man says.
"Best novice at least," a voice says, likely outside the room.
"Oh shut the hell up, I'm just getting started and I already turned these idiotic things into scrap metal!"
"Dakrin Cavendish, putting up with hot stuff in level 1 doesn't make you into a great warrior just yet."
"If you insist...give me the level 20 course!"
A door opens, in which a bulky, industrial-looking machine emerged, with a vertical visor and shiny red glowing eyes. It looks like a dumb, monotonous scrap of metal at first.
"Alright, are you ready to taste this sleek example of-"
But before he could finish his line, the robot then thrusts forward towards him, then knocks him out cold before he could even react. All because of boasting his "great" combat skills. This makes the technicians chuckle at his misfortune while the machine was deactivated and put back to one of the gates.
***
In another dimly lit room, there are eight prisoners stripped down to their underwear, all looking beaten down and sweaty. All had many kinds of injuries people could expect, cuts, slashes, damaged eyes, the usual, but some had suffered partial dismemberment. One had an amputated hand as well.
In front of them is quite the total opposite of Amira. A yellow-skinned female figure, with purplish short hair that covers her green eyes, hiding a piercing glare that's as venomous as poison ivy, and pointy, elvish ears. With scalish bat-like wings in her back, an unusual sight compared to most normal Zlocans. She wears metallic armor, which served to accentuate her ferocity in and out of the battlefield.
She's Yamja Tomentradi, the daughter of the Zlocan emperor, Malgan. If there's someone as wicked as a killer like him, the answer lies within the offspring.
She stares towards the prisoners, looking down like captured prey who are ready to be served. The prisoners are in a kneeling position. And even though none of them have their hands tied up, they're too weak to strike back against her. Her sly, sneaky smile is something that can catch them off guard as well.
"Oh my, my! Look what we have here! Bunch of new kids eager to learn from their new instructors!" She taunts as she cackles with a hint of madness in her.
"But, what are we gonna learn, you may ask? Well, let me say this. Your age of superiority has come to an end. All your days of savoring your own hubris and asinine ideas have led to your own downfall at the hands of the Empire. And what do you think you will do next? Rot painfully and left behind with a worthless death not worth even remembering for future generations and serving as feculent remains for the unworthy? Or restart once more...at the hands of the Inquisitors. In other words, you'll serve all of us as my father conquers the rest of this pitiful and weak galaxy."
One of the prisoners, who is an Asian-looking man, didn't take kindly to her words.
"And then sacrifice our own cause for something so heinous?!"
"Speak for yourself, you hypocritical Human. Our way is one that can guarantee the redemption of your race in the eyes of the galactic community. Genocide and wars, all unnecessary elements for your race that don't mean anything to you. And yet for all these years when you committed to making things more peaceful, you went on in exterminating those who don't share the ideals of yours." Yamja strokes one of the prisoner's hairs as she paces back and forth.
"But now with the Inquisitors, you will learn respect and well-deserved power among the weak. Now, here's the choice, in order to prove someone's worth of sticking up to what they truly believe, then they should step forward and accept immediate execution while I spare the rest. But, if no one here makes a decision in twenty seconds, then better pray for a journey to the next life."
The prisoners soon became more anxious and terrified, all while looking at each other and telling each other to do it. The needs of many should outweigh the needs of few as well. But who can tell which one can suit best in a conflict? Ten seconds pass, and just as she was about to raise her hand, the same Asian guy then stands up in front of her.
"How about if you take me instead!? Kill me, and I won't watch any more people suffer! Just please..."
Yamja is surprised as such gesture, for someone who tried to defy, he too would also sacrifice for his fellow Human beings, known and unknown. With her sole focus on him, she grabs his arm and helps him stand up. She smiles at him, in awe at his conviction.
"There, now you see a great man of pure conviction that shows how much you mean to him. I must congratulate him for his bravery...but unfortunately, there can only be one out of many for a war like this. So, dear man, bid farewell to your comrades. It must have been nice for you to meet your baby-brothers but I guess it's the time to raise you into a grown up."
"What?! Stop it now!"
His pleas fell on deaf ears, as soon she starts charging electricity between the soles of her hands, turning into a zig-zagged pattern while wildly zapping some of the objects close to her, and prepares to aim it towards the other prisoners.
Such is the way of the Zlocu...and some of the worst of demons that inhabited Earth for years.
***
In another room, there are many different walled posts, all showing a long range of objects filled with bullet holes. Some of the people present practice their skills with their guns with varying success. Some are Human, some are Zlocans.
But among them, there are 20 target models approaching towards an unknown person. It's a woman.
She is strafing every target she sees, almost never turning in another direction with her Walther CCP gun. Her direction is clear, all in the head, not turning away or anything, all hitting the same spot from the same target practice model that emerged.
She is blonde with pulled back hair, a black eye patch on her right eye, a sign of her expertise in what she's capable of. She's Jeanette Worren, the most deadly female mercenary of the UK, and the whole world to some extent.
An alarm blares in the background, and the models stop moving.
"Clear. High score of today goes to Jeanette Worren, a whole new record of shooting all targets in just 45 seconds," a voice says.
Some either applaud at her records while other watch her with visible grimaces on their faces, in which soon they turn away from her. Nonetheless, Jeanette doesn't mind at all, she's just herself, nothing less, nothing more.
The Inquisition is truly something at hand, nothing to underestimate at all.