Story Phoenix Unit

highdarklord · Mar 8, 2012

Well, I wrote this when I was a senior in high school, my teacher liked it, though fair warning, its long as hell. I'm perfectly fine with being critiqued so fire away!?

Phoenix Unit: Part One

-Target Retrieval-

“With Strength I serve...”

The moon was out in full glory, lighting the residential streets in a pale, ghostly glow, the small, but lavish, houses outlined as they were passed by the convoy of steely black vehicles, so black that it seemed as if the light itself was absorbed, so dark that they could send a chill to the bone of even the most seasoned soldier. An armored car, followed by four SUV’s, a hummer, and three more armored cars, silently flowed along the streets, their lights off and their electric engines making barely any noise. The people who were inside thankful for this one useful result of the feverish environmentalism that had flooded the area after terrible natural disasters in the previous years. While many had simply written it off as a particularly nasty year from Mother Nature, more then a few were convinced it had been because of human interactions. Either way, regulations and been tightened in a knee-jerk response.

They’d gone over the objectives a thousand times while preparing for this mission. If they succeeded, their infallible leader would be overjoyed, assuring them a place in his final garden when it was prepared. Their mission would alter the future course of a thousand different dealings, would alter the outcome of World Wars III and IV, and perhaps most bizarre and jarring of all, would lead to the end of the production of diamonds, due to a long series of events that few would ever be able to properly link back to its true origin.

As they pulled along the deserted roads, the lead car took a turn down a lone street, accelerating to quickly pull to the end of the short road, skidding to a stop as it reached the end, blocking the lone connecting road. The SUV’s pulled up directly in front of one particular house, a lone red brick house, cozy in size and just right for a small family, the house to it’s left vacant, and the house to it’s right separated by two driveways and a tall privacy hedge. The hummer silently pulled up into the driveway of the little red brick house, easing to a stop, even as the remaining three cars blocked the end of the street where the convoy had just glided in from, each one angling itself to block one of the three roads that approached the street. In perfect synch, almost all of the doors in the vehicles opened, three men from each car left their respective drivers in them with the ignition running, five from each SUV leaving them completely vacant, and three from the hummer, the driver left impatiently, or perhaps nervously, tapping his fingers on the driving wheel as he glanced about, looking towards the rooftops. Each man carried a weapon, and the drivers all had pistols of some exotic caliber custom to each one, holstered to their sides. They were all dressed strangely, their clothes seemed to ripple, and unless one was looking directly at them, focusing, and already knew they were there, all that person would have seen was a slight ripple, like a heat distortion on a highway, whenever the men would move. They were nearly perfectly cloaked, except the strange suits gave off an exotic radiation that was easily traced, but completely unknown to the world at large as even existing, one of the futuristic suit’s few flaws.

The men from the cars, two each of whom had compact sub-machine guns that were clearly silenced and the third of which had an assault rifle with an extended barrel, a customized silencer adding even more to it’s length, took up positions around their respective cars, the man with the rifle standing on the side of the car where any approaching cars would come from, and the two with sub-machine guns taking cover on the other side, their bodies pressed tight up against the black, icy steel, so cold it almost seemed to burn them, even in the middle of summer in the Great Plains region of the United States, an area well known for it’s dry summer heat waves.

The men out of the SUV’s carried a different assortment of weaponry. The men who had rode next to the drivers each had a large pistol holstered loosely to their sides, and, like all the men out of the SUV’s, had a large combat knife strapped to their chest, however, they went to the back of the SUV’s as the other men from them watched the rooftops, as if expecting something. What two of the men pulled out were battering rams, the same kind as those used by SWAT teams, while the others brought back ballistics shields, the same as used by SWAT teams in breaching buildings. They split up into two teams, each one had a ballistics shield and a battering ram, and an equal number of the men from the SUV’s, armed in a variety of manners. Two of the SUV’s had brought a man each with shotguns specially designed to be nearly silent, the other two bringing a man each with compact assault rifles, custom silencers included. Two of the remaining men in each SUV carried a sub-machine gun identical to that of the car guards, while the final man in each SUV carried a silenced pistol. As the two teams split up, one heading towards the back door while the other more cautiously approached the front, a slight swishing sound could be heard in the distance, approaching rapidly.

A black helicopter flew towards the area at a high altitude, the slight swishing being the only way to detect it as it shimmered against the night sky. Its side doors were pulled open and a man sat down in each one, as soon as they were fully strapped in, a heavy machine gun was slid into place in front of them, the machine gun was not silenced, but it was big and very fast firing, capable of turning a man into a pile of squishy glop in less then a second. It lazily circled, it’s specialized equipment scanning the nearby neighborhood for certain signatures that each man in the helicopter and convoy had memorized.

The three men that had gotten out of the hummer were completely calm about the entire thing, even though the men around them were clearly nervous. These men were also dressed differently, though not by much. In addition to their camouflaged suits, they wore a distinct dark red patch that didn’t auto-camouflage with the rest of their suits. The patch was of a pair of eyes, separated by a capitol “S” that lay on its side. While it was hard to tell, they were covered in weapons, but not of the same style as the other men. They were covered in knives, daggers, and various other sharp close combat and throwing weapons, all of which climaxed to a sword strapped to their back, each one using a different blade. One used a long sword, one utilized a katana, and the third had a pair of scimitars on his back, each user different, each weapon custom crafted. All three of them calmly looked on from the small perimeter they had created around the hummer, one of them grinning when he thought he saw a slight movement in the bushes, but frowning when he saw it was but a cat, and before the cat could even look at him to see what all the commotion was about, a dagger had already caused it to collapse, killing it before it had even begun to collapse, and long before it could have wailed in any manner. He grinned, he was feeling good tonight.

“Report.” the man with the scimitars on his back hissed into a wrist cuff.

“Rear breaching team in position, ready on your mark.”

“Forward breaching team, ready and waiting.”

“This is blockade leader, no targets sighted yet, we’re keeping our eyes peeled.” He grinned, nodding his head slowly, “All confirmed, proceed with breaching in five seconds.” he calmly spoke into his wrist cuff, grinning as the forward breaching team closed the final gap between them and the door, the man with the ram taking up one side of the door, the man with the shield right behind him, and their support troops lined up on either side of the door. Knowing that the rear breaching team was in the same position gave him little comfort in thinking about what would surely occur next.

The seconds ticked by, and at exactly the same time, two crashes rang out against the silent night air, the two doors putting up no resistance to the powerful blow of the rams, quickly caving in as the man with the ram leaped backwards, threw it down, and drew his pistol, the rest of the team following the man with the ballistics shield. It was quick, it was brutal, it was efficient, and before anybody even knew what was going on, the entire rear breaching squad lay dead, long slashes across several of their backs and fronts, and several with their throats slit. Not a single shot was fired, none of them had even had time to scream, but they were all dead, and the front breaching squad was quick to find the bodies, they were even quick enough to find one man still standing, holding his throat, his shotgun on the ground, his eyes wide with fear and shock as he dropped to his knees and finally collapsed with a slight grunt, his body completely dead.

“Sir…” the leader of the frontal, and now only, breaching squad radioed back, “We just found the rear squad… just like you thought, they beat us here… and they completely wiped out beta team…” he sent through to the man with two scimitars on his back.

“We figured as much… secure the package, we can’t let them take him away before we get to him.” the operational leader growled back. He had no intention of failing here, he had hand selected the others who were with him, they were the best of the best, and by a large margin at that. They would not fail, not here, and definitely not to that damned Phoenix Unit.

While it had been suspected, those carrying out the operation had had no idea how thoroughly they’d been being watched since nearly a mile before they had arrived. Those doing the watching had been in the trees, the houses, the bushes, even the parked cars along the road to that house. They were the elite members of Phoenix Unit, a security and special operations group who, at that time, had a technically non-existent yet still perfect, record of success.

Its members, dressed incredibly similar to those of the convoy, were seemingly everywhere, though in reality there were only six of them involved in the current operation. Their suits, while similar, were different then those of the convoy members. First off, they were more advanced, giving off next to nothing in the detectable radioactive spectrum, and had been upgraded just prior to this assignment so that their suits didn’t give off the unique energy signature that the helicopter still hovering overhead was scanning for. Second, the shimmer characteristic of the convoy’s suits had been dealt with, and now it was nearly impossible to visibly see the wearer without them wanting you to.

During all of this commotion, the three residents of the house were all sleeping perfectly. Sound canceling devices had been installed under the beds of the residents, one under the parents’ and one under their child’s, all of them activated just prior to the arrival of the convoy. Like with their suits, only the people who had designed them knew exactly how they worked, and the members of Phoenix knew that as long as they followed the directions given to them, the equipment they were given almost never failed them. The sound canceling devices worked perfectly, even as the breaching team stormed up the stairs, heading for the parent’s bedroom first.

While the convoy’s dispatcher had deployed over forty men to the operation, Phoenix Unit had sent a mere twelve to stop them. There were currently two waiting in ambush in the parent’s room, six had surrounded the hummer and it’s guards, and the final four were dealing with the blockade cars in a swift, violent manner that left a significant number of heads rolling.

“Well… Phoenix Unit… we meet again.” the guard with the duel scimitars sighed to the air, cracking his neck as he does so.

“Miss, or is it mister now? Regardless, you look male today, so Mr. Amy Froglegs… or is it Riley, I can‘t seem to remember with you… it appears as if you know we’re here already then…” the clear leader of the Phoenix squad taunted, his voice seemingly vocalizing from thin air.

“You… you bastard… how could you know… and it‘s Riley…” Riley-Amy Froglegs coldly responded, the malice clear in his voice as his scimitars seemingly appeared in his hands.

“Easily. Nanite operations leave paper trails, easily followed ones.” the same voice countered, the amusement clear in the voice. While no sound had been heard, one could feel the point-blank weapons filling the air as their owners armed themselves, the tension so thick that the air had become heavy with it.

“…I see… Then… you all… have to die…” Riley whispered, the cold, seemingly vengeance driven words leaving his mouth, and the two sides met in a flurry of blades.

The actual fighting had lasted less then a minute, but it had taken only that long for six bodies to hit the ground, one to become mortally wounded, and the final two to be left facing each other, their camouflage suits sliced open in several spots, both of them bleeding lightly. Facing each other, they both breathed heavily, both of them clearly exhausted, neither one having had to fight that intensely for that long of a moment against one other person.

“You’re… good… but, one of your men is dead, the other is going to die…” the same voice as before stating, almost as if he had won.

“That… may be true… but, you are going to die here too… Mike… and I’ll live.” Riley responded confidently, the door to the hummer opening and closing with a sharp slam, the sound of duel pistols being twirled by an expert gunslinger whistling in the otherwise quiet night as boots fell to the ground in a calm, precise motion. “This is it Mike… the boss is going to finish you off… you don’t stand a chance now.” Riley coughed out, holding his side slightly.

A click could be heard on the other side of the hummer, where the mortally wounded survivor could be heard groaning as he died from blood loss. “You’re useless…” a voice could be heard, the contempt flowing from the words. A short second later, the sound of a high caliber, silenced pistol going off could be heard, followed immediately by the sound of what could have been a melon being smashed open followed. Again, the deliberate fall of the boots began again as they mad their way around the hummer.

As the owner of the boots rounded the corner, a look of shock appeared on Mike’s face, even if it was covered up by his suit, “You… you’re the one who’s going against what the Emperor has decreed? WHY?!” he exclaimed, but he never heard the answer, for three shots rang out, alternating from the handguns, each one hitting it’s mark before he could even begin to move. The first, blowing out his left knee, the second disabled his right elbow, forcing his blade to drop to the ground, and the third blew clean through his throat, a red mist blooming from the exit wound as he dropped to the ground.

“Heh, you’re useless Mike…” Boss stated, dropping again the phrase he was most known for speaking, often to the point of constantly being mocked behind his back, even by his fanatically loyal followers. “You,” he hissed, turning to face Riley, a raging fire burning in his pale green eyes, “had better not allow them to get away with the target, understand?”

Flinching with each word directed at him, Riley nodded his head and looked up, just in time to see a fireball erupt from the room of the parents. The breaching team, figuring that Phoenix members would attempt to save everybody in the house, rather then just the topic, decided to take no chances with losing more of it’s members. The battering ram was used to force open the door, and another member of the squad threw in a large fire grenade that detonated prematurely, burning the thrower to a crisp as well as both parents and the two guards. One big fireball that choked itself to a quick death, and five dead bodies, better results then the breaching team could have hoped for if they'd gone in.

“Oh no…” Riley muttered under his breath, rushing into the house and up the stairs as rapidly as he possibly could, arriving at the door to the target’s room just as the breaching team was preparing to break open the door. “Hold it… I’m going to be the first one in, understand?” he commanded, his voice carrying authority that was absolute, a tremor passing through the squad as the rest of them backed up, leaving the one holding the ram still close to the door.

In a twist of fate, the firebomb's own shockwave had dislodged the noise dampening device in the target’s room, causing it to malfunction and lose much of it’s affect. It had lost enough of it’s affect, in fact, that the breaching team was able to clearly hear the window shatter on the other side, and also, most worrying to them, the deep thud of a steel reinforcing plate being dropped in front of the door. They were also able to hear the sudden yelp that sounded from the target as he was forced out of his bed and slung over the shoulder of one of the surviving Phoenix members.

In a fit of rage, Riley grabbed the ram and slammed it into the door three times in quick succession, the steel reinforcing plate slamming inward as the door shattered into a pile of splinters. As he entered the room, two throwing knives came straight towards him, impossibly fast, forcing him to drop to the ground, the knives impaling themselves hilt deep in two of the breaching team members that had hoped to gain some of the glory by charging in after Riley, the gurgling of blood in their throats being the last sounds either made as they collapsed to the floor.

Looking up, Riley saw a sight that struck fear into his heart. Bound, gagged, unconscious and slung over the shoulder of one member of Phoenix was Newt, the target they’d been sent to retrieve at all costs, and he was being carried out of the window at that exact moment. Leaping to his feet, he charged, weapons in hand, but he was deftly blocked by a pair of swords that sent him flying, two of the other survivors stopping him from giving pursuit as the one holding Newt leaped to the ground, racing to a car where the other survivor from the operation was, a recently acquired car for that matter, complete with a camouflage finish and a rocket launcher in the backseat. The two survivors had sent Riley sprawling to the ground, bleeding from several wounds before they jumped down to the car, getting into the backseat, one on either side of Newt. As the car squealed away, the sun roof opened and one of them emerged with the launcher, just as the helicopter began it’s dive towards the car, and he fired, a plum of smoke exploding out in front of the car as the rocket raced out and smashed into the copter, exploding and completely obliterating it to the point where only small pieces rained down onto the lawn.

"Heh, no such thing as a problem that can't be solved with the proper application of enough explosives," the rocket's firer whispered out in satisfaction.

The explosion almost covered up the sound of boots coming up the stairs. It failed to cover up the rapid firing of a pair of handguns. It wasn’t even close to concealing the enraged, malicious screaming of “YOU’RE USELESS! EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU, COMPLETELY, UTTERLY USELESS!” that filled the exterior of the room, Riley curling up into a ball as he heard the boots stop at his head.

“You’re practically useless too… but I still need somebody to get this job done, and you’re still useful as long as you can get this job done… but fail… and you’ll be considered useless. Understand?” the frigid voice whispered into Riley’s ear, Riley shaking in pure fright at having failed the Boss.

“Get up. Chase them down. Now.” the Boss ordered, Riley immediately leaping out of the window after half-crawling there and running after the car, stopping at the end of the block to pull a body that had a knife up to the hilt buried into it’s eye socket out of the driver’s seat of one of the armored cars, gunning the motor in an attempt to catch up to the long gone target and those that had him in their possession.

The Boss spat on the ground as he walked back to the hummer, cursing his luck of having run out of rounds just as he’d reached the useless pile of crap that had failed him. “I’ll need to bring more reloads next time I guess…” he muttered to himself as he backed the hummer out of the driveway and sped down the street, just a minute before the entire block was engulfed in a fireball that vaporized everything there. No evidence could be allowed to be left behind.

Phoenix Unit: Part Two

-Target Movement-

“… with Courage I fight…”

A slight groan issued forth form Newt in the backseat as he slowly stirred. His lungs felt like they’d been burned, his head felt like it was about to split and to top it all off, his throat was dry. As he slowly opened his eyes, his vision clearing from the fast-acting, particularly potent, cocktail of drugs that had been rudely forced into his veins before he had even begun to realize what was happening, the blurred events of what had just happened to him came into focus. The window opening, the shimmer of the air, the sharp prick of a needle into his neck, they all slowly trickled into his mind one after another, finishing off with being carried into a car before he had completely lost conscious.

As his mind slowly cleared, he began to slowly think. He hadn't done anything to anyone, he was too young, too inexperienced in life to be of any use to anybody, three was no rational for what was happening. He lived his life day to day, like any other senior in high school, applying for college and scholarships, hell, he wasn't even on a sports team. Why was whatever was happening to him happening?

“Sir, the target is regaining consciousness.” the man to Newt’s right stated, apparently to the man in the passenger seat of the car. All of the soldiers had deactivated their suits, allowing the sleek black armor to be easily seen, even in the darkness of the vehicle.

“Understood… the future Consilium of the Celestial Crustaceousionia… trapped in a car with us… gentlemen… and lady,” the soldier in the passenger seat stated, “this is probably about as close as you will ever get to the CCC.”

“What… huh?” Newt mumbled out, slowly regaining control over his motor functions.

“Yep, the Celestial Crustaceousionia, the single empire that rivals the Golden Conglomerate of Nemonia, led by the Pravus Seth.” the driver pitched in, earning a look from the man in the passenger seat that could have only been disapproving, “Its uh, its best to just stop asking questions about how they came up with the names… every common legend says the leaders of the two were drunk beyond comprehension.”

“I have no id-” Newt started to respond before he was promptly interrupted by the sudden squeal of the car’s brakes.

“We’ve returned to base and are prepped for entry.” the driver could be heard speaking into a microphone in his helmet, at least that’s what Newt presumed he was speaking to. After a few seconds, the driver turned his head and nodded, the apparent leader motioning with his left hand for them to get out of the car.

“Where are we going? I don’t recognize this place at all.” Newt complained, most of his senses fully returned, but not so much his motor functions. “Hey, watch it!” he barked out as the soldier to his left pulled him from the vehicle and threw him over her shoulder as the group walked towards what appeared to be a small drainage gully that split a park into halves.

As they headed down into the roughly ten foot deep, six foot wide, concrete slab lined gulley and approached what appeared to be a heavily graffiti covered entrance into the sewers, Newt gasped as several more black armored individuals seemed to shimmer into appearance from all around, several above the tunnel, and at least a dozen on each side of the gulley itself, all of them appearing to be looking outwards, as if looking for an ambush of some sorts. Those new guards simply shimmered out of sight as the small group passed under the lid of the tunnel square tunnel entrance, a short distance into which a pair of concrete slabs pushed outwards and slid to the side, revealing a heavy, at least in appearance, door that appeared to be made of the same material as the soldier’s armor.

“Put me down.” Newt asked, his voice quivering slightly as he spoke, a request that was promptly ignored by the soldier carrying him.

“Let’s go, inside quick.” the leader ordered as the thick doors silently slid open, allowing the five of them entrance. Once the doors had slid shut and the concrete slabs could be heard moving back into place, the soldier lowered Newt off of her shoulder and onto the ground.

Slightly wobbly, Newt steadied himself against the confined corridor that they appeared to be in. As he turned around, looking around, he first noticed that the hallway appeared to stretch on in one direction to the point where he couldn’t even begin to see the end. “Wow… it… just keeps on going…” he whispered, prompting the soldiers with him to chuckle.

“Actually, Consilium Newt, this is just a visual trick perfected by yourself for use in military installations like this one.” the women stated, the grin behind her helmet almost audible, but her comment earned her a swift cut-it out hand gesture from her commanding officer.

“The actual corridor is located here.” the officer explained, walking several feet forward and then turning a sharp left, almost immediately disappearing from sight, exactly as if he’d activated his armor however there was no shimmer, no fading out that indicated such.

“What the… where’d he go?” Newt immediately questioned, a slight look of bewilderment splashed across his face as he squinted his eyes trying to look for the officer. Suddenly, the officer reappeared, except farther down the corridor, almost as if he’d traveled a few hundred feet in seconds. “How’d he… I’m so confused right now…” he groaned, cradling his head in his hands for a few seconds before looking at the soldier that had carried him in.

“Oh, it’s just a complex series of mirrors and some computer hocus-pocus that makes him look that far away. He’s only turned another corner, and if you were to start walking towards him… well, why don’t you try it yourself, walk straight ahead and see what happens.” she put forth, almost taunting him with her voice.

With a curious, and slightly annoyed, look on his face, he started to walk forward. After a few steps, he walked past the point where he guessed that the officer had stepped off to the side, he continued walking, the distant point appearing to become ever so slightly closer, yet after fewer then a dozen steps past that point, it suddenly seemed as if the distant point had stopped coming closer, yet when he glanced over his shoulder, he realized that the others were standing there, laughing at him to the point where they were almost doubled over, for apparently they found his situation to be incredibly hilarious. He rolled his eyes, giving up and turned to start heading back, promptly feeling the floor slide out beneath him, which caused him to fall flat on his face.

Slowly picking himself back up, he attempted yet again to walk back, and yet again, he was thrown to the ground. “You have to wait for us to deactivate the trap!” the former driver yelled out to him, “Otherwise the floor keeps sliding you back.” with that, he waved his hand in a wide arc, and suddenly Newt was propelled forward, but before he slammed into the door, which had only moments ago been yards away, he was snatched out of the air by the driver and the female soldier. Slowly setting him on the ground, they all finally stifled their laughter enough o beckon him to follow them as they walked through a series of labyrinth style hallways, in some cases they had to walk agonizing distances, and other times they were taking a turn every half-step, but after only a short time, they arrived at the entrance of an antechamber that had several low walls and thick, but non- functional, columns spread throughout it.

As the driver, female soldier, and third guard led Newt in, the officer that had left ahead of them came out from one of three archways, not including the one that they had entered from, all which were spaced and angled to prevent anybody storming in from the main entrance to fire at defenders as they hid in the archways or deployed out from them. “Well, Consilium Newt, I’m sorry for the relatively cold greeting, but I had to go and request additional troops. Our defenses are lacking slightly after our attempted defense of your home… We’re still attempting to figure out why it was that SILAR appeared to want you alive rather than dead.” he spoke, motioning with his hand for the group to follow him.

“What in the world is SILAR?” Newt cautiously asked.

“Oh, it’s an acronym for Seth's Imperial Legion of Armed Revolutionaries... They’re a group of radical soldiers that are determined to destroy the Celestial Crustaceousionia so that the Golden Conglomerate of Nemonia is completely unchallenged. Granted, our boss Pravus Seth has completely denounced them as a despicable terrorist organization.” the officer elaborated as they walked down one of the corridors, eventually reaching a massive chamber, the middle of which sat a massive pedestal. Above the pedestal, a flurry of lights moved, silently rearranging themselves in colorful, magnificent, and gently pulsing images. As the group approached it, it exploded into a flurry of activity, the Unit Phoenix symbol exploding in an awesome show of power above it. A majestic, royal red phoenix, its wings outspread to the point where they seemed to touch the walls on either side, appearing to fly up from a nest of night blue flames, and materializing in a searing white flash, the words "With Strength I serve, with Courage I fight, with Wisdom I survive" blazed in an arch over it all, the room seemingly beginning to burn.

The sheer awesome glory of the sudden blast of light caused Newt to literally fall to his knees, as if the light was draining his physical, emotional, and mental energies right out of his body. However, to be fair, that is what the hologram was designed to do. Specially created forms of radiation were emitted by the pedestal which had been found to interfere with the chemical reactions of the human body if it wasn’t shielded by specially adapted armor, exactly like what the soldiers were wearing. It was rarely lethal, but would quickly shatter the ability of a person to continue pushing forward.

Quickly realizing what was happening, the female rushed over to a nearby, and cleverly concealed, medical kit. Opening it and pulling out a flexible, thin, and very light blanket, she rushed over to Newt and wrapped him up in it, shielding him from the pedestal. “Yeah… sorry about that. We forgot that you weren’t shielded… kinda unusual around here...” she mumbled out in apology as Newt slowly regained his strength for the second time that night.

“What the hell is that?” he questioned in an irritated manner.

“It’s just a final defense mechanic that we’ve got built into all of our bases. If you aren’t wearing a specific set of armor, getting past it is next to impossible, even if the range of the radiation it emits is barely enough to coat the room.” The captain explained.

“Whatever… where did you say you were taking me?” Newt questioned, the irritation wearing off as they started to walk across the chamber. He couldn't explain it, but he was staying remarkably calm for having been drugged, kidnapped, banged around, and now irradiated all without his asking or permission.

“Is ‘The Future’ an acceptable response?” the former driver responded, grinning as he typed a code into a small panel. As soon as he finished, a pair of heavy, foot thick doors slid open, revealing a bizarre contraption that resembled something between a large globe, a wardrobe, and five lightning rods. In the center was the wardrobe, topped by the globe, which had one of the lightning rods sticking straight up. Forming a sort of square around the center contraption were the four other rods, sticking straight out of the walls and all of them pointing at the center rod. The entire room was a slick, silvery grey that reflected everything in a cloudy manner, blurring it and causing the reflections to become distorted.

“No… really. Where are you taking me?” Newt questioned persistently, refusing to believe what they’d just said to him.

“Really? Do you not believe me or something?” the driver asked, “We’re going to a larger base that’s in the future, from this perspective at least, gets real complicated if we go into perspectives and the like, but anyway, we all go in the chamber, the machine is activated, and bam, before we even know what’s happened, we’re in your future, our present, and somebody’s past. Before you ask, yes, science isn’t sure it can happen in this day and age, but science gets a lot more… complicated due to future events… but-” he started to ramble on, before the female promptly punched him in the side, rolling her eyes as she did so.

“Long story short, your house wasn’t supposed to be attacked; we’re going to go and fix that with fancy stuff in the future. That simple enough for you?” she questioned, clearly simplifying things like no other, almost as if she believed him to be a blazing idiot.

“Not really… How does it wor-“ he started to ask, before a blaring klaxon started to wail throughout the base, cutting him off and causing the captain to immediately begin ordering around the other soldiers.

“Annie, get him to Central. John, Frank, you’re with me, we’ve got to buy enough time for the machine to start up.” He barked out, all four of them quickly slapping their helmets on, Annie grabbing Newt by the neck and roughly marching him into the chamber, dropping the shielding blanket outside the doors as they slid shut behind the two.

Continuing to march Newt forward until they were at the chamber door, Annie was stern and forced him to keep walking, barely stopping long enough for the automatic doors to pop outward and reveal a row of seats, onto which she promptly pushed Newt, strapping him down before he could even begin to utter a protest against it. “I’ll tell you now, the machine takes a while to charge up, and it’s a bumpy ride that makes most people queasy on their first ride or two. I’ve got to make sure the Soul Transfer system saved its files properly, I’ll be back in a before the machine is charged, don’t worry.” She spoke, almost in a reassuring manner before hopping off to the side of Newt’s view.

The captain, along with John and Frank, had sprinted the distance to the choke chamber, which was already being filled by a steady flow of similarly armored troops, their sleek battle armors and powerful weaponry glistened strangely in the dark red emergency situation lighting. Quickly moving to the front of the chamber near the entrance from the front of the base, the captain, the current ranking officer on the base, entered the security code that shut that door before turning around and preparing to quickly speak.

“Troops, as you’ve figured out, we’re under attack, most likely by SILAR. You should have all made your Soul Transfers this morning as per protocol. There isn’t much to say… you’ll live on even if you die here, so we must fight. We must fight so the future shall be preserved. Every second we buy here is a second more that there will be to make right that which must be made right.” He shouted, for his was rather awkward at speaking and hadn't had to give such a speech before, for he’d only recently been promoted and had never been one for giving speeches, matter of fact, he'd nearly failed that class in high school. “With Strength I serve, with Courage I fight, with Wisdom I survive!” he shouted out, the entire assembled group of soldiers joining in after he said Strength. Far from the most inspiring speech ever given, he thought to himself, but it would have to do.

A metallic, dull voice calmly began to speak through the base audio system. “Enemy analysis complete. They are employing flash-cloned Drone troopers and appear intend on a single flood wave of troops designed to smash the defenses. Estimated time till they enter the Labyrinth: 3 minutes. Estimated time till they reach the Choke Chamber doors: 10 minutes. Estimated time till they reach the Time Chamber doors: 16 minutes. Time till outbound time travel: 18 minutes.” The base’s super computer was cranking out situations as fast as it could with whatever information it managed to glean from its sensors, averaging the situations and their conclusions. It was going to be grim, and bloody. Outside the base doors there was total chaos. The perimeter guards were being pushed back quickly by the sheer numbers of mindless assault clones being thrown at them from mobile clone stations that had been secretly set up less than a block away. Already, in mere seconds, the guard had been halved by the suicidal attacks launched at them, many of the drones carrying no weapons, instead covered in explosives that detonated as they were mowed down by the guns of the guards, blasting entire chunks out of earth and sending massive old wood trees falling to the ground, each time causing the hail of fire to lesson as a few more guards were either ripped to pieces, crushed, or blown to bits.

In less than a minute and thirty seconds, several of the drone troops had detonated themselves against the doors of the base, denting the door. Seconds later, the assembled hoard being led by a none other then Riley, a massive cutting laser had already sliced through the front door like a hot knife through butter. Quickly the hoard flooded in, clogging the first defensive trap, and spilling over into the labyrinth, flooding through it at speeds exceeding those of a normal human’s sprint. With sheer numbers and trial and error, the hoard made it through in minutes, though they’d been slowed down by a series of pitfalls, literally speaking, that they eventually had simply filled in with their own bodies in their mad bloodlust.

Exactly on schedule they started to begin using small handheld cutters to try and slice through the choke room’s doors. On the other side, the calm nature of the soldiers of Phoenix Unit showed a natural cool-headedness, even as the inside of the door began to slowly turn to sludge as it became super-heated. When a small hole appeared in it, one of a pair of snipers in the back opened fire, sending an explosive round of plasma through the gap, the explosion forcing the small hole open slightly farther, and jeopardizing the integrity of the door to within a point of completely buckling. Through, it was certainly worth hearing the screams of surprise and anger as several of the drones were effectively vaporized.

One of the hoard members that had been killed by the round was wearing an explosive pack. The point of the plasma round had been to damage the packs so they couldn’t detonate, but one had managed to be nearly undamaged. With a roar, the pack detonated, blasting the doors inwards and unleashing a slightly delayed storming by the hoard of bloodthirsty clone soldiers, barely capable of rational thought and requiring extensive oversight from either better cloned soldiers or actual officers.

The first wave that was clearly detectable was unarmored and explosive laden. However, a short distance behind them came the crack troops, armed with low grade armor and quick firing weapons, through they were poorly manufactured, they made up for this with sheer weight of numbers. As the present members of Phoenix Unit opened fire, their weapons shredded through the first wave resulting in a wave of explosive detonating, some high grade, some low grade, a few concussive, and a couple more of varying smoke and chaff designs, obscuring the entrance to the choke chamber, giving the crack clone troops a few precious seconds to organize and begin firing as they advanced through the door.

“Chaff detected. Switching to non-explosive.” one of the snipers whispered through the communication system, unusually calm in the heat of the attack, even as red hot bullets streamed towards the entrenched unit, prompting a vicious series of counter barrages, including the lobbing of one of the few grenades that had been hastily grabbed. After the grenade sailed through the air, a fireball temporally clearing the smoke and chaff and giving a glimpse of the plasma firing Gatling gun that had nearly started firing on the members, several of them leapt up, sprinting towards the gap, knowing that the weapon had to be destroyed or they were finished.

As they approached, several of the crack clones rolled out from the sides of the doorway, their weapons firing hot plasma coated rounds. They were short range due to the low heat capacity of the barrels, but deadly, even against the armor that the troopers were wearing. The rounds ripped into the armor, the first few being dissipated, but with the rate of fire and the close range, the four Phoenix members were gunned down before they could even begin to move. With a triumphant squeal, one of the crack clones slapped a single piece of machinery onto the Gatling gun and put itself into the firing chair of the weapon. The chambers began to spin, and upon reaching optimal rotating speed, started to unleash a hail of plasma rounds through the still slowly clearing smoke and chaff.

The sudden hail of fire caught several of the troopers by surprise. Within thirty seconds, seven more of the base’s remaining garrison was killed. Only a handful of troopers were still alive, one of the snipers among the dead, as the hail of fire continued to chip away at the room. They had lost too many troopers in the short front-line battle outside the base, but the losses there had given the troopers inside a precious few extra minutes to ready the defenses and more importantly had allowed for the warning.

“Update: 5 minutes till outbound travel is completed. Estimated time until the enemy reaches travel room doors: 4 minutes.” The computer announced, a pause issuing while the com system was still activated, “It was good to serve here with you… I’m going to… activate the self-destruct. We'll take the bastards out with us.” The computer’s voice echoed out, still as emotionless as ever, barely audible over the roar of the Gatling gun firing non-stop at them still. For a few moments, the surviving sniper was sure that he’d heard some sort of emotion coming from the super-computer, but it hadn’t been designed for emotions, least, not as far as he’d heard, unlike how it had been designed to be a bit vindictative against enemies. A bizarre last thought to have as a half-dozen plasma rounds tore through his armor before he could roll out of the way. With both snipers dead, the remaining troops hunkered down and watched the plasma flying over head. A few seconds later, the lights cut off as the super- computer attempted to give an edge to the troopers. With the lights out, the plasma flying overhead colored the air as it flew by. Slowly it was turning from red to green to purple and after about a minute of the constant firing in an attempt to demolish the low walls and columns in the room, it reached a burning white.

Knowing the weapon couldn’t keep up the fire much longer with how hot the plasma was getting, the commander radioed out to his remaining men. “As soon as it stops firing, throw any explosives you have and get moving down the peripheral hallways.” He ordered, looking straight up from his position on his back, nursing a wound on his left arm from where one of the shots had sliced through him earlier.

A sudden hiss could be heard, along with several screeches, as the Gatling gun’s cooling system failed and began hissing out steam in several directions, scalding a couple of the clones and causing the weapon’s cylinder’s to stop spinning. In near perfect unison, three grenades arched towards the doorway, one landing in the severely burned gunner’s lap, while the other two rolled in opposite directions. The three detonated within fractions of a second of each other, destroying the Gatling gun and killing the dozen or so clones huddled around it and the doorway. In less then a half- minute however, they’d been replaced by additional troops, who simply began spilling into the room, their weapon blasting in random directions as the members of Phoenix Unit who could move followed the commander’s orders, fleeing into the two adjacent hallways and taking up secondary positions where they were able to blast the clones as they ran by the doorways.

The commander and two others who had been injured and were unable to move were sitting nearby each other. All three of their backs were against the same length of fortified wall, and with a single nod of his head, the commander effectively said what needed to be said. They would die here, behind the barricade, but they'd buy every second they could, they'd ensure that the destruction of the base wasn't permanent, that their mission wouldn't be compromised. Two of them rolled up and over to a kneeling position, opening fire on the swarm approaching, while the third scooted closer to the exact middle began to shoot at any clones that managed to get past the other two, dropping five before a small hail of grenades and a massive rush overwhelmed the three in a hail of plasma and shrapnel.

Hardly missing a beat, the clones stormed on past the burned and mangled bodies. Hurling explosives down the two halls, they began attacking the few remaining troops, pinning them down as they blew open the doors into the statue room, causing it to activate and stop the swarm in its tracks.

“One minute till outbound travel complete. Calculations show that enemy forces will not be able to stop outbound travel. Self-destruct activating in one minute, thirty seconds.” The supercomputer boomed out, a sense of emotion appearing in its voice, almost like it was gloating over the unintelligent clones that were attacking.

While the battle raged, Annie had quickly performed her tasks and finally rejoined Newt in the cabinet by the second to last warning. “A good five minutes to spare, close enough.” She spoke, her voice lacking the confidence that Newt had quickly grown to expect during the short amount of time he’d been effectively kidnapped by her. As the doors sealed themselves shut, he could hear her muttering to herself in some strange language that seemed to be part English, part Spanish, and part Mandarin Chinese. At the one minute mark he began to finally feel the exponentially growing levels of energy that were gathering in the chamber.

To an outside observer, little would be happening until the final few seconds, at which point massive bolts of dark energy, normally completely nonreactive, were forced into an interactive state, allowing for the harnessing of a massive amount of energy that, when manipulated precisely, allowed for the controlled movement of objects through space and time. The strangely colored bolts, ranging from red to blue and all the colors in- between, lashed out at the central rod, causing a massive swirl of energy to become visible and fill the room in a vortex like manner, the cabinet structure disappearing in parts, fading away with each fraction of a second that passed until nothing remained.

At what could be called the same time, the process was happening in reverse in another area. In this case, several hundred miles away and 300-some years later, a swirling vortex of interactive dark energy was swirling and the same cabinet was becoming visible. As the process completed and the entire chamber powered down, the cabinet chamber unsealed and opened, allowing Annie to get up and pull Newt out, who was in a slight state of shock.

As she expected, the main doors to the travel chamber opened while her back was turned. “About time you got here, I just about had to-” she started to complain, before a muffled cough-like sound was heard and she gasped, feeling a sharp pain in her lower back. Twice more the muffled cough was heard, and twice more Annie gasped, falling to her knees, a look of shock on her face as she did so.

What Annie couldn’t see while her back was turned, was what kind of uniform the two at the doorway were wearing. It wasn’t anything issued by the Golden Conglomerate’s military forces. The patches on their uniforms were of an S, on its side with two eyes. They were the uniforms of SILAR forces. The Nemonian Palace, the home of Pravus Seth, the unquestioned ruler of the GCN, had been overrun.

“My comrades died… to ensure your passage here… don’t… fight them… but… don’t… die…” she gasped out with her final breaths, her death occurring exactly thirty seconds after they arrived, the exact amount of time that it had been until the base they had just left had detonated, wiping out everything in a radius of three miles from the center of that base in a massive blast. The timing was impeccable. An entire company of Phoenix Unit wiped out, just to save one person, one person who was captured by the very people they had sought to protect him against.

“You’re coming with us, now.” One of them ordered, both of them heading for Newt, whose eyes were wide as he saw the thick blue blood that was coming out of Annie’s back from the wounds. Not only had he never seen such a color of blood, but it was just so much, so fast.

As Newt looked up, seeing the two guards coming towards him, their weapons leveled at him, the entire world seemed to slow down. Everything went silent as a slight ringing filled his ears. He felt himself becoming dizzy, and began to slip out of the chair he was in, until he felt a warm, wet sprinkle on his face, causing him to snap out of his haze and look up.

One of the men who had been coming towards him was falling forwards, thick red blood spilling out of the front of his chest, while the other was in mid-spin when a bullet blasted his elbow, causing him to drop his gun. In quick succession, two more rounds drilled him. First one hit his right knee, causing him to buckle and fall towards the ground, and a fraction of a second later, the second bullet blasted through his throat, again sprinkling Newt with a thin red mist.

Looking past the two dead SILAR members, Newt saw a strange sight. Standing in the doorway was a lone figure that held two pistols, a slight haze drifting upwards from their muzzles. The figure began to approach him, and Newt began to panic.

Phoenix Unit: Part 3

-Confrontation-

“… with wisdom I survive.”

"Heh, useless idiots. Don't know how to fight to save their lives, or at least how to cover their own asses... Can't believe they got this far through... Pravus Seth must be informed..." the figure spoke softly, with a gentle tone as he walked across the room, holstering his pistols and sighing at the loss of life that was occurring all across the Palace.

While it was easy to believe that the entire palace was being overrun, in fact, it was a small strike team of SILAR members that had blasted their way into the Palace in a daring night raid, knowing that Newt as a young man was going to be in the Palace. Charlie shook his head. The complexities of this recently developed time travel were incredibly frustrating, to the point of him desperately wishing things were far simpler like they once were.

He stood over the body of the fallen Phoenix Unit member, sighing a long sigh of despair. The machines that had forewarned them of the impeding pod's arrival, they had also noted that a full Soul Transfer case was being brought. Her whole company had been destroyed that meant. It was, admittedly, the company most prone to massive sacrifices, but they'd lost way too many people way too often through the corruption that was too common place from the Soul Transfer cases that were removed too hastily, delicate things as they are.

"Well... the CCC here himself... even if you don't know it yet... tragic... we hoped this would never have had to happen... my clan will weep... but not today... there is much to do... let's get going," he stated, staring at the still panicking Newt, who had yet to realize that bullets had stopped being fired a long while ago.

"Please... please... don't kill me! Please!" Newt cried out, his previous calm having been totally shattered now that he'd been directly in the line of fire. "I... I'm... I don't know! Fuck you SILAR!"

This got the figure's eyebrows to raise slightly, "You know about SILAR then?" he mumbled, looking at the Phoenix Unit soldier, finally noticing her patch and toeing her over to read her nameplate that had materialized visually now. "Annie... I see... how much damage have you and your comrades done in your mission to protect this all..." he mumbled, reaching down and grabbing Newt's collar rather roughly and pulling him to his feet, "We have to go now, there's still more of them around the Palace, and they're all heading in this direction, and I can't protect you against too many of them."

Newt was still in shock, and brutally so. He didn't handle blood terribly well, and the the recent point of the blood spraying over him wasn't going down so well with him mentally. The roughness of the figure, who he still had no name for, wasn't helping in the least, at least not with his breakdown, through he did welcome the roughness to a point, as it broke him out of his current state of shock.

"Let me go... now..." Newt spoke, his composure back, at least enough for him to make the statement, with only the slightest of voice quivers.

"Heh, no," the figure responded, bluntly, increasingly coldly as Newt began to struggle more. "Stop it, or else. I'll keep you safe from death, but we're pretty good at healing serious wounds, and I'm the one who's keeping you safe now, remember that," he growled out, an entirely empty threat, but it kept Newt from keeping up his struggle.

"Where... are you going to take me... and who are you?" Newt questioned, standing of his own power at this point as the other watched the door.

"Where? To a safe room. As for who I am... all in good time," the figure responded, heading towards the door and motioning for Newt to follow him.

The walls of the corridors they passed through were distinctly different from the metallic gray of the room they were leaving. They were a cool black, peaceful in the deepness they seemed to give while reflecting just the right amount of light from the artfully hidden lights that were spaced throughout the hall's lengths. The floor was tiled with various elaborate designs, different halls having distinctly different designs that seemed to flow into each other. From what seemed like a modern, block layout to a flowing vine design, small figures interlacing each other, vague animals that resembled birds, lizards, and even cattle almost frolicking, it was as varied as anything that Newt had ever seen before.

As they headed down corridor after corridor, they heard sporadic gunfire echoing down from various other halls, and even the occasional scream as somebody was hit. The sounds of battle were steadily dying through, and it was clear that with the fewer shots they were hearing, the more relaxed Newt's escort became.

"We're almost there. Just a little ways more. We should be about to encounter somebody if the area isn't compromised..." the escort stated slowly as he peeked his head around a corner and snapped it back just as quickly. "Well, should have been expecting that..."

Newt grimaced, he wasn't the most avid reader, but he did read occasionally, and in every single adventure book he read, there was always that one last group of enemies in front of the final door that always required that one big dramatic shoot out. "Uhh... they captured the door to the room?"

"What? No! Stupid kid... just there's a big bloody mess of the idiots who tried to storm the fortification. I don't like getting my boots dirty and there's no way to not do so now," the escort figure responded, looking at Newt like he was an absolute idiot.

"Oh... sorry...?"

"Idiot... lets go. They're expecting us," he said as he stepped out from around the corner and into the corridor.

Newt followed suit, and, he noted, compared to the scene they'd left behind in the... time travel room, as he decided to call it now, this wasn't near as bad. Nearly no blood, just a few specks were on the walls here and there. Mostly it seemed like there was a lot charcoal underfoot and covering the walls on the lower half. It crunched as they walked down the hall way, and it had a distinctly unpleasant smell, like burned meat, and it irritated his nose as they kept walking. "What is this stuff? Some kind of dispersant or something?" he asked, his curiosity getting the best of him.

"Where do you get that idea? I told you, there was a mess of the people that tried to storm the barricades... this is whats left of them after they got hit by a few spurts of plasma fire... followed up by probably an overkill amount of napalm."

Newt stopped, clearly in shock, once more. Then, as if his body had simply had enough with his stopping and stopping, he continued walking, which caused his escort to grin. "Heh, finally he's toughening up..."

After a short distance further, the burned material stopped covering the hallway, and out of seemingly nothingness, a dead end seemed to materialize, blocking the hallway completely. The dead end was distinctly different from the walls. The soothing black of the walls was non-existent, instead, a cold blue sheen defined the sudden barrier, but more striking even then that, were the obvious pair of gunports spaced on either side of a particular panel in its middle, and when added with what clearly some kind of powerful weapon, a barrel extending eight inches from above said panel, Newt suddenly felt hot, and started to sweat, in fact, the general air was starting to form heat distortions even near to where he was.

"Its uh... getting kind of hot..." he commented, pulling at his loose collar.

"Yeah, that'd be the plasma cannon gearing up..." his escort responded, a mix between casual and worried in his voice. "Gatherer 3 reporting back, open up the safe room. I have the package," he spoke into his wrist, eying what Newt had determined had to be a door.

"Checking clearance... granted. Welcome back Gatherer 3. Opening door now," an ambiguous voice stated from hidden speakers. Without any further warning, a panel in the ceiling opened up and four figures dropped down, surrounding Newt and his escort. They were silent and methodical in their full body white suits, which, Newt noted, looked similar to the Phoenix Unit ones, yet, were notably more more subtle in their edges and smoother in general appearance, not too mention weren't actively camouflaging, as they moved to both secure the passage from which Newt had come up from, the small, sub-machine gun looking weapons they held humming lightly.

"Clear," three of the white suited figures stated at once, looking down the hallway their weapons shouldered.

"Identity confirmed. Six going up," the fourth one stated as he slapped a wristband on Newt and the Gatherer. In the blink of any, all six were suddenly in a distinctly different location from where they'd started. It was a bright white, and there were no distinct walls, or landmarks, or, well, anything. It was totally empty, devoid, and seemed to stretch on and on.

"Wha-" Newt started to ask before being cut off by the Gatherer.

"No. Don't ask about anything from this point out. We can't and won't tell you what things are or why let alone how they work, the timeline is too fragile as is, especially right now. And now, I won't elaborate, so give up on asking. We're under orders from our master," The Gatherer stated, his voice notably stricter and more tense in its tone.

"Follow us," one of the four figures in white ordered, Newt noticing now that the voice wasn't human in nature. It had a distinctly computer synthesized tone to it, and the 's' in us was hissed out, like an irritated snake.

"Obey their orders. This is their domain. This is the safe room, very few people are ever allowed in here. Its utterly impenetrable if you aren't wanted here... in this situation... he must also be here... amazing..." the Gatherer clearly had started to go off on a tangent, and while he was muttering to himself further and further, Newt had started to follow the four figures.

"Who... or what... are you?" he asked as he followed them, the Gatherer not far behind as he muttered to himself.

"We are the Guardians of the Palace Guard. None are better then we," one of them responded, the strange voice making Newt's skin breakout in goosebumps.

"And where am I following you to?" he asked further.

None of them responded, at least for a very long moment. "We are taking you to the Pravus," was the response, and only after a long while.

"Seth... the one who the fanatics claim to serve... and the one who has made such efforts to keep me alive... why?" he questioned further still, prying deeper an deeper into the mystery he was beginning to finally see.

"No more questions," was the unexpectedly quick response. It had a particular bite to it, icy in nature, the previously emotionless voice coming after him and feeling like it was physically biting him.

They walked along in silence, and, in a casual glance over his shoulder, Newt noticed that the Gather had disappeared into the strange white. "Whe-" he started.

"No. No more questions," the response came, cutting him off with a hint of irritation in the increasingly biting tone of the synthesized voice.

With no more warning then a light breeze suddenly occurring and a slight shimmering of the air around him, Newt found himself, with the four Guardians ahead of him still, in a dark corridor that looked just like the ones that he'd seen in the Palace earlier. The floor design was different however, it was distinct, with clear shapes in it that he felt were familiar, almost homely.

They kept walking, and the floor designs changed further, and he slowly became unsettled by them, as they seemed to lose any sense of coherence or competency, as if they went from order to infinite chaos. At the same point he noticed the floor changing, he took note of the walls, which were changing to a crimson, from the pitch black they had been before. The hairs on his neck stood up as they approached a doorway, a pair of double-doors, made of rosewood, a striking phoenix positioned in the center of each, one of ebony, pitch black in nature, and the other of pure white boxwood, and for some unexplainable reason, Newt felt a subtle fear grip his heart as the four Guardians flanked the doors and opened them, standing at attention as Newt passed through, unable to control his own feet anymore.

Within the room there were two figures, sitting in comfortable chairs with their backs turned as they chatted. All Newt could see were the tops of their heads. One, a dull red, the other a dark brunette. A joke must have just been said, for both were chuckling as Newt entered and began to approach. As he got about a third of the way towards them, a bell rang, and the two stopped talking.

"Ah... its that time..." the brunette whispered darkly.

"Aye... it feels like it was so long ago when this happened..." the red-head responded.

"Wonder what's going through his mind..."

"Hah! I can tell you what's going through his mind, remember?"

"True, true... so, care to tell me?"

"Well, he's thinking who the hell are we, what are we doing, why is he here, are we going to kill him, and that this would be a good time for a dramatic chorus to be chanting in Latin. I agree even to this day about the last one," the red head finished speaking.

"Well, we should start answering those questions then... heh..."

"Yeah, that'd be nice of us."

"All right Newt. First, no, we aren't going to kill you. Blood is next to impossible to get out of the engravings. Second, you're here for your own protection and so we can make sure history progresses as it is supposed to."

"Also, no, chanting Latin choruses are expensive to hire for a marginally random event. But... you know who we are, at least can guess. I hope..."

"I'm sure Phoenix Unit screwed up somehow and told you who you are, or, at least will be."

"Everybody still thinks we're enemies..."

"I know Pravus... that's the way it has to be for now."

"Wait... Pravus... Pravus Seth? But your enemy is... or rival... is..." Newt jumped in, irritated slightly at the way they were treating him, like he was some kind of child.

"What am I publicly? The Consilium of the Celestial Crustaceousionia... way too big a mouthful... really, really wish I'd been the one to win the naming coin-flip... such a ridiculously long name..." the red-haired figure responded.

"Yes... good job... because my title is oh so fitting... asshole..." Pravus Seth countered to the Consilium.

"Hey! You're the one who picked the name of my territory, I only figured it just that you get drilled on your title. Fair is fair," the Consilium responded, the hint of a mischievous grin in his voice.

The level of friendliness between these two people, who in the short amount of time that Newt had known about this time had led him to believe they would be bitter enemies, was astounding, unnerving even for Newt, or perhaps more accurately, especially for him.

"Anyhow... we need to tell him," Seth stated casually.

"Right. We should tell him... or me, or however the hell that works," the Consilium casually responded.

"What?!" Newt immediately burst out in shock, wondering what the implications of the "me" were.

"Yeah... Newt. Meet Newt. Or, future Newt, Newt 2.0, or Thunder-Chocolate-King, as he also responds to," Seth noted rather casually, standing up as he did so to casually stare at the younger Newt's reaction.

"Yep... Thunder-Chocolate-King... was drunk when I got that one..." the older Newt sighed as he too stood up and made eye contact with the younger Newt.

The young Newt's reaction could only be described as blatant horror and shock, his mouth dropping open slightly and a slight gurgling sound emitting forth as he tried to ask a dozen different questions all at once.

"Three... two... one..." the older Newt counted down, wincing slightly as the younger version hit the ground hard, passing out from the simple overload that was hitting his system. Well, the current that had been passed though the floor probably didn't help either. "Hmm... we're kind of assholes to me... him... whatever."

"Yeah. We need to advance to the final stage of this though."

"Sadly so. Call in Phoenix Unit."

Phoenix Unit: Part 4 The Final Stage "There is no victory without a defeat."

Newt stirred slightly as he began to regain consciousnesses, opening his eyes slowly, adjusting to the dimly lit room he was in. Trying to get up, he felt restraints bite into his wrists and ankles, compress his chest, and lesson his ability to even lift his head.

"Subject stirring. We're ready to move now," a disjointed voice spoke out of the shadows. Newt looked wildly around, noting the shift of a white clad figure out the door. One of those Guardians was leaving the room, and as he did so, multiple figures, shimmering as their suits activated entered in his place.

Newt recognized the suits, they were members of Phoenix Unit, probably the only people who had been straight up honest, if but a bit blunt, with him. He was actually a bit relieved.

"Phoenix Unit...?" he spoke, his voice cracking with how parched his throat was, as he was just now realizing.

"Yes sir. We're Alpha Team. You're about to be in for one hell of a ride, and I'm sorry that you're involved in it. We'll protect you though, and give our lives to ensure such. Thirsty?" the apparent squad leader spoke, offering a tube and putting at the corner of Newt's mouth.

Hesitantly at first, Newt sucked on the tube, water, or at least some cool liquid, flowing into his mouth and quenching his thirst as he did so, the flow stopping as soon as he stopped sucking. "What was-" he paused, "Probably can't tell me..."

"Eh, just some enriched dihydrogen monoxide. Nothing special," the team leader responded, storing the tube from the suit belt where he had pulled it from.

Newt nodded, or at least tried to, but with the restraints he couldn't. "Could you uh, loosen these a bit or something?" he requested.

The team leader looked at Newt, his visor concealing his sorrowful gaze, "I'm afraid I can't. We have orders to not release or loosen the restraints. We have to follow our orders to the letter," he responded casually, his voice emotionless.

"I see... then... what's going to happen?" Newt questioned, his gut sinking for an unexplainable reason.

The leader let out an audible sigh, pausing for a moment in careful thought, before removing his helmet and setting it down beside Newt. "You're going to be used as bait to get SILAR to commit its forces to an attempt to destroy you. We've leaked information that you're going to transported to a facility for mind-wiping and return to your own time, and that you'll be comparatively lightly guarded. They know that once we get you back, they'll have lost their chance. We have agents within their organization that have put in motion the plans necessary to get them to attack with most of their forces," his eyes, Newt noticed, were an unearthly green, and they appeared to have a deep depth that drew one in, before sending you spiraling down into a pit that couldn't be escaped without assistance.

"We're expecting, at minimal, probably 80% of their total capability to be deployed against us. It... won't be pretty. A lot of people on both sides are going to die, and we won't be able to use the kill-sats in orbit even. It's going to be a bloody ground and air fight," the man responded, staring down at the ground now, clearly in thought. "But, SILAR will be effectively destroyed. That's what matters. Though... the number of soul transfers that will have to occur..." he shuddered.

Newt had heard that before, but didn't know what the hell it was, "What the hell is a soul-transfer?" he questioned, a curiosity in his voice.

The team leader sighed, and put his helmet back on, before responding. "It's the monstrous thing that we members of Phoenix Unit agree to and allow to happen just so we can ensure the continuation of the world order that has been created," he paused here, clearly thinking, "It can best be summed up as... our minds, what makes us us, is preserved daily by a series of computer systems. It hurts to have done, as it analyzes our neural pathways and ends up creating a distinct sense of perceived pain. But, that's not the monstrous part... that part, well... when we die, a clone based on our genetic structure is grown. Not immediately, it takes years, and in the meantime, in order to preserve force strength and experience, a prisoner sentenced to death is taken out of prison, and their pathways are forcefully altered to match the ones of ours on record. They are literally forced into becoming us."

"Doesn't that mean th-" Newt started to respond.

"Yeah, it does. But we don't. That'd be the equivalent to our highest draft level, and would only be used if absolutely need, and only in the event of a full blown invasion by a truly hostile force of immense size and power. It has a nasty side-effect... the altered brains only have a life-span of a couple years. They've only recently figured out how to grow the clone brains so they can be altered and modified so they don't die so easily... not too mention, its not a perfect process... you lose a little bit of yourself... I don't even remember the face of my wife anymore... my childhood... long gone... I've been in this so long... so many bodies..."

"I... I... I don't even know what to say," Newt sputtered out.

"I know. But its a necessary evil I've determined. I've died and effectively been re-incarnated a hundred times. I know that if a man who had any doubt about if he'd make it out and be able to continue on with his life had been sent on those missions, they would have failed. I did what I needed to without a thought, and I haven't failed once. Besides, the old way of waging war where families lost their loved ones in such huge numbers... I'm a rarity, I had a family before joining up. Most of the people in this unit are chosen because they don't have families, they were picked up because they were vagrants, criminals, but intelligent and loyal. It's... different from the rest of the military. When you hear about how Phoenix Unit is unique, we truly are. It's... different," he stopped there as red light filled the room.

"Time to go sir," one of the other team members in the room stated. The leader nodded, giving a swift tap to his helmet.

"Newt, we'll be voice silent and only operating on internal messaging with each other. If one of us is talking openly, it'll be only to you. Pay attention, and stay down," he ordered, apparently forgetting that Newt was completely incapable of movement as was. Newt only tried to shake his head slightly in amazement at the sudden lack of insight by his guardian as the table he was on silently started to move as the Phoenix members moved into the hallway.

The way they moved was as slick as greased ice. No hesitation between them as they flowed down the hall, their weapons already ready even at this point early on. Silent down the red-lit halls, Newt sensed that with each hallway they passed, additional people joined them, most falling in behind the moving table that he was strapped to, but more then a few ahead of them, as he was seeing additional figures moving ahead of him then the ones he had originally counted.

As he was moved forward, he began to feel a cool breeze wash over his face. He was going to get a good look at the sky for the first time in what had felt like eternity. The fresh air was sweet, moist, and tasted just the faintest bit salty as he breathed it in and out. Just a few moments after he had begun to smell the fresh air, they were outside, and instead of a relatively plain ceiling, he was gazing at a star-littered inky black sky. If there were any exterior lights, they had been turned off, and as he moved the small amount he could to try and catch a glimpse of the building he'd been in for so long, but, alas, as hard as he tried, he couldn't see any of it, it was as if the entire thing, which he instinctively knew had to be huge, had disappeared entirely.

Without any forewarning, Newt was suddenly stood straight up, table and all, held to it by just the straps. Two figures, both in pure white combat suits that starkly contrasted with the night sky, the woods that Newt saw were behind them, and the combat suits of the Phoenix members around him. But, perhaps the thing that he felt the most, was the strange emotional charge of the air, as if the Phoenix Unit members and these two figures didn't get along.

Silently, one of them nodded and they both moved as one, opening the doors to what in Newt's opinion had to be the most impressive tank he'd ever seen. Granted, he was terribly wrong as it wasn't a tank at all, but an armored transport with a couple heavy weapons strapped on for extra capability, but he was close enough with his guess.

As he was moved forward, the table holding him sliding back down to a normal position, he took another look at the forest. The trees were huge, even at this distance. They didn't just stand tall, but even from the distance he was at he could tell they were massive all around. He ached to ask about them, but he held his tongue, thinking twice, sensing the tension would break badly if he spoke.

As the table entered the transport, it settled down into a clearly specially designed slot. He shivered suddenly, not because it was cold, but because a strange darkness had seized his heart, and it only squeezed tighter as he looked around and saw the white combat suits of the Guardians, but he also saw the silvery handles of blades who's hilts were visible almost everywhere on their bodies. They were armed to the teeth, all of them with some kind of assault rifle, but also with a score of throwing knives and each had a sword on his back. They numbered thirteen that Newt could see, their masked faces and mirrored visors removing any hint of individuality that might have existed. They reminded him of the stormtroopers from the Star Wars movies he'd watched when he was younger, except instead of hard plastic looking armor, they had a loose fitting armor, with more cloth showing and were clearly more heavily armed.

They didn't speak, they all just stared at him, even as he felt the dull hum of the transport they were in as it started up, and the rumble as it began to move down the road, to a destination of which he had no idea where, even though it seemed like everybody else did. The rumble continued, unchanging for what seemed like forever, the only change being when he heard the sound of a dull hum that was lower then anything else, and at that moment, he saw the Guardians had all shifted position, their guns now pulsing slightly with a small orb attached to the top of the barrel, which after a time, they all removed in sync.

Slowly he began to drift off to a natural sleep. He had no idea how long he'd been asleep when he was jolted awake by a sudden shaking and a dull thud against the armor. Trying to jolt up the restraints dug into his body keeping him pinned down. Realizing that he still couldn't move, he looked around at what he could see and realized that only three of the original thirteen Guardians that had been in the vehicle were still there, and they all had their weapons facing the entrance to the transport.

Once again, the transport shuddered as another thud issued forth. "What's going on?" Newt questioned, starting to panic ever so slightly.

"We're under attack. An ambush, as was expected," one of them quickly responded, the point of his barrel never wavering.

"Oh... so, how are we going to escape?"

"By killing all of them."

Newt didn't say anything for a moment, listening to the sounds of battle that were getting louder, even through the thick armor of the transport.

What Newt didn't know about, and for the better, was the entire circumstances surrounding the ambush. It had started off ugly. The convoy and its air support had been moving smoothly and speedily, and they were fully expecting the ambush to happen at some point, causing tension to be high. What they weren't expecting was the fierce nature of the opening volley.

From multiple camouflaged positions in the woods on the east side of the road, heavy rockets had roared out, taking out two of the transports that were more lightly armored then the one Newt was in, killing almost everybody inside. Meanwhile, a slew of missiles had overwhelmed the defenses of several of the hovercraft overhead. Two exploded into fireballs, while one careened sharply down into the field on the west side of the road. Within just a few seconds, a fourth of the convoy's infantry had been wiped out with the loss of the two transports and one of the hovercraft. With two transport hovercraft landing in the field and dropping their troops while the other transports formed a defensive circle, their troops pouring out and taking up positions by the road, pouring fire into the woods.

The heavily armored tanks that had come with the convoy had been engaged by equally heavy loaded tanks that emerged from the woods and around a bend in the road. The only reason the infantry weren't getting crushed by the greater numbered hostile tanks was because the combat hovercraft had taken out several of them before having to engage their own counterparts in a vicious old-school style dogfight, being far too close to each for effective use of missiles or rockets by either side.

All along nearly a mile worth of road, SILAR soldiers, mercenaries, and even a wave of flash grown clones had begun an attack. While Phoenix Unit's forces knew they had a second convoy coming up near them with more forces, they were still a good half-hour away at the soonest.

If one could have been listening to the communications flowing between the various Phoenix teams, they'd have heard every detail of the battle.

"Comm boy, situation," the team leader that had been talking to Newt before the convoy had left the palace spoke.

"Fire Detection sensors are indicating hundreds of them in there. Most are located twenty meters or less past the treeline. Fighter reinforcements are ten minutes out and are making full scramble speed. Line is holding. Guardians have secured the package and the tree. More boots will arrive in... eighteen minutes. Satellites show the entire forest is crawling with them, at least a good six minutes before a kill-sat is able to line up a shot," a younger trooper responded from within one of the transports.

"Roger that. Time to hold the line Phoenix!" he ordered into the general unit communication system.

"Sir yes sir," several dutifully responded as they gathered their teams and moved up from the defensive circle to the main combat positions.

"Comms, missile support anytime soon?"

"Just what we brought sir. Danger close situation. No enemy artillery positions spotted by the latest satellite."

"Good. Where's the most dangerous concentration of hostiles?"

"There's a group of flashies pushing through with vech support. Squad Three got hit hard and isn't going to hold them long. Squads one, two, and six were wiped out in the transport hits. We still have some rockets we can fire off at the flashies."

"Two rockets, fire them one two at the vehicles," the commander ordered, grinning as he heard the screams, even from where he was, as the flash cloned cannon fodder was shredded by their own vehicles exploding.

"Hits confirmed. Squad three sends its thanks."

"Good. Next."

"Squads seven and eight ar-" the comm master was cut off as the vehicle he was in exploded into a fireball, the commander cursing as he dove to the ground, barely avoiding a chunk of shrapnel that would have ripped him in half.

"Shit," he whispered as he stood up, checking his rifle and looking around. The circle of transports had taken a direct hit, the comm vehicle and another transport being wiped out entirely by one of SILARs tanks, which was promptly obliterated by a pair of Phoenix tanks who returned to battle with the remaining SILAR counter-parts.

The commander suddenly had a terrible sinking feeling in his gut, and as he looked around, he learned why, and terribly quickly. Glimpsing the battle line, his elite troops were beginning to crumble under the ruthless hellfire blazing down upon them from the woods and their flanks were taking hits that were starting to roll them up. The reinforcements weren't going to arrive in time. This fact dawned on him and his face became down- trodden behind his visor. His head slumped. He'd never failed in any mission he'd been assigned to, ever. Over fifty years in service, and he'd never failed, his troops had always accomplished the mission under his leadership, but here, everything was falling apart. Everything.

And now, they were going to fail. Phoenix Unit would lose a battle for the first time in a century. It was his fault. He sighed, and then a fire filled his eyes. Not on his watch, not as long as he drew breath in this body. He'd ensure that what had to happen for the betterment of the entire human race would happen, no matter what, even if it would doom entire peoples.

"Where the hell are the Guardians..." he muttered to himself, activating his suit's camo and stepping out from camo, his rifle at shoulder height as he used the reticule that appeared on his helmet's visor to target the heat emission points across in the woods. He pressed the trigger down gently, as he'd done a million times before, the rifle absorbing its own recoil as the round screamed towards its target. He squeezed again, and again, and again, picking a new target each time, not even flinching as the SILAR members began to open fire on his general area, the bullets beginning to fill the air around him as he picked off the bastards who were killing his men.

It was as if his single action had, without a word being spoken, awaken something primal in his men. Their suits had automatically picked up on his movement, and they were all able to see what he was doing, saying, and seeing. They sensed the amount of fire slackening from SILAR's positions firing on most of them, as they switched their fire to target the Phoenix commander's position in his act of sacrifice.

His men felt the impact of the first shot that found him, his armor absorbing the shot to his arm like it was nothing. But more shots began to find their mark. They chipped away at his armor's ability to absorb the damage, but what did him in was when the camo failed. He was left standing there, his rifle firing almost non-stop as he acquired a new target and downed it with blazing speed, becoming a non-sniper version of one shot, one kill, but, with his camo down, he was fully exposed, and even in the dark the SILAR shooters located him and began pouring fire into him.

The rest of Phoenix Unit felt their blood boil as they watched their commander gunned down. His right leg armor failed first, and a few shots got through, shattering his leg, dropping him to his knees, where he continued to fire. One shot, one kill... the blue blood that began to ooze out through the armor made the soldiers grimace. They knew what they had sacrificed, and worse yet, what their commander had just sacrificed when he stepped out of cover into the hail of bullets. They all knew what the blue blood meant. He'd sacrificed his final body, the body that had been re-grown for him, in an effort to accomplish the mission, to buy the precious time they needed. He didn't have another chance to look forward to. The enormity of the sacrifice, one that a Phoenix rarely had to make, shocked them all, but inspired them beyond all reason.

Their commander, who they had trusted totally, had given up his last life, his last chance, to help ensure that a single person survived. A single person he had no loyalty to. A single person he'd only met once. Because it was his duty, his solemn and sacred oath. This was the real reason Phoenix Unit existed, for the sole purpose of ensuring a single person's survival. Everything else had been training, weeding out the weak, the undetermined, honing the minds of those who survived.

As one, Phoenix Unit's remaining men rose, even as their commander fell, bullets piercing his chest again and again. The last sight he saw before his eyes closed one final time, was the sight of a hundred soldiers rising up from their cover and opening fire in near perfect unison... just like they'd been trained to. He grinned as his eyes closed shut. "Heh, those SILAR idiots didn't bring their plasma spitters... they... have lose now..."

It was the truth. SILAR had lost horrendous numbers of its most expensive and rare weapons that tore through even Phoenix armor like it was paper, through they'd inflicted a similar causalities to Phoenix Unit during the attack on the base that had taken Newt in, and on their assault of the palace. The limited plasma weapon stocks had been drained for both sides, forcing them into the more drawn out battle that was occurring now.

As his last breath left his body in a sigh, the last sound the commander heard wasn't that of bullets flying, or screams of battle, but sharpened steel sliding across sharpened steel and the sound of a revolver being cocked. The last word he heard was two syllables. "Useless."

Even as Phoenix Unit's soldiers began to thoroughly gun down SILAR's, they were going farther and farther away from their goal, with every SILAR member that died, they became a step farther away from protecting Newt, as they would tragically learn later.

At the transport with Newt in it, the ten Guardians that had exited the vehicle after the battle had started all had their blades drawn and were staring down SILAR's counter to them. Fourteen stood arrayed against them, thirteen with various blades drawn themselves, and one with a pair of revolvers drawn.

"Froglegs. You and your Hunters had better eliminate them," Boss ordered, his voice heavy and low, like a growl as he stared at the Guardians. They were the only thing in his way still. He was within a hair's breadth of accomplishing what he'd devoted so much of his life to doing. Just the Guardians stood in his way now.

The air was thick, heavy with tension and reeked of burning fires and the occasional scream from the battlefield a distance away. A thick cloud of smoke from a shot down hovercraft rolled across the space between the two sides. When it passed, the only person visible was Boss, standing there, grinning as he listened to the sharp screech of steel against steel. The Guardians were evenly matched in skill by his Hunters, but the Hunters had them outnumbered. He knew the fight was over before it even began.

The first scream he heard actually came from one of his Hunters. Looking at its source, he saw an arm that had been cleanly lopped off, its camo failing not just on the arm but the entire body as a blade emerged from the center of his chest, glistening with the sheen of his blood. He gasped for air slightly as the blade withdrew from his chest and he collapsed to the ground.

The lull was short lived. Boss grunted, "Useless idiot," and rapidly fired his revolvers off at where the blade had been, grinning as he saw blood fly into the air at the same time as a yell of pain that quickly whimpered into nothing filled the air.

The rest of the short, but infinitely intense battle between the Hunters and the Guardians took but a minute. They had more or less killed each other off in one to one ratios, but anytime a Hunter fell, Boss had gunned down the Guardian responsible. All ten Guardians were dead, either slashed to pieces or gunned down by Boss. Comparatively, six Hunters were dead, limbs missing and holes in most of their chests from the Guardians.

"Useless... get the charges ready. Froglegs, you'll lead the breach team. Have five charge sets ready. This thing is thick skinned," Boss snapped orders out readily. He refused to allow this chance to slip through his fingers.

As the first charge was planted on the door and the area around it cleared, he watched, knowing it wouldn't succeed on the first, or even second try. He'd blown through these doors before. Four charges was the minimal it took. He took his time reloading his revolvers as the first charge went off, burning off a significant amount of armor, but he knew it was nothing compared to what was still on there.

The second charge detonated, rocking the transport slightly as even more was burned off. He stared calmly at the door they were burning through. So close...

Newt began to panic more as the the transport rocked for a third time, for the thud was significantly louder. "Why aren't we moving?!" he yelled out, his voice weeping with fear.

"This is how it's meant to happen," one of the Guardians responded calmly, like a man who has accepted what is about to occur.

With the fourth thud, Newt was able to actually see the interior of the door, or at least what he could see from between his feet, turn red in the center before cooling back down. "That's not... not just artillery... hitting us... they're... they're at the door..." he sputtered out in shock. It wasn't possible, from all that he'd heard of Phoenix Unit, no way SILAR could have beat them. Right?

He didn't have very long to indulge in his denial, as the next charge resulted in the door melting the rest of the way through. The Guardians waited a full second, which to Newt seemed like an eternity, before unleashing all hell through the hole.

With each shot the Guardians fired off through the hole, Newt's perception of time slowed. A little bit at first, but eventually he swore he could see each round as it streaked overhead. It took a moment, but he realized that there were screams. Lots of them. But most surprising to him in his state, was the sound of explosions that were breaking through into his perception even as he unwillingly entered a sort of tunnel visioning with all his senses.

Outside the transport, the chaos was evident. The rounds the Guardians had shot were explosive, detonating after a programmed distance outside the transport, showering the Hunters with a storm of hot shrapnel that pierced their armor and cauterized the wounds as they passed through them. In just the few seconds it had taken the Guardians to empty their clips, most of the Hunters who had survived the blade battle were down, dead or very close to it. Only Boss and two of the Hunters were left alive and unscathed, and they were ready for the Guardians that the knew were about to launch a final, desperate attack.

As the first two leaped out, their swords drawn, the Hunters were ready right there, their own weapons drawn, a vicious battle ensuring as Boss and the third Guardian squared off. Blade verses revolver. Boss breathed slowly, his revolvers pointed directly at the Guardian. At the same exact instant, they both moved. The Guardian dove forward, his blade moving in a smooth arc. Boss fired, emptying his revolvers rapidly. The Guardian reacted calmly, his blade moving with an imperceptible speed, knocking the bullets out of the air as they came near him. All but two. He dodged the first one, but the second one he was too slow to see it and move. It borrowed itself through his thin neck protection, its armored hollow point disintegrating his entire neck, only his armor containing the gruesome mess that was created. His Hunters had killed their own counterparts, barely.

Boss grinned as he and his Hunters advanced into the transport, staring at Newt who could only stare back. "Get the restraints off," Boss ordered, continuing to stare at Newt, no emotion in his eyes, no hint of a grin now that he was staring Newt in the face himself. "A lot of people are dead because of you," he spoke softly, disturbingly calmly as the Hunters removed the restraints one by one.

"A lot more are dead because of you," Newt countered coldly, "Matter of fact, all of the people I know of being dead supposedly because of me, are all because of you."

"True. But I wouldn't be here, and they wouldn't have died, if you had never been born, or at least had never split from Seth's Empire," the disturbingly emotionless response clawed at Newt's heart, making him shiver.

"I don't know anything about that."

"I know. But you will one day. You'll see the lives of millions wiped out because of your choice. Entire families destroyed... entire cities wiped out. A fully colonized and thriving planet was obliterated to the last person because of you... because of your direct orders. 1,228,645,841 people died on that planet they determined," he responded, emphasizing each digit, "You're a monster. We'll show you what you become, and then, then you'll realize why we're going to kill you. You'll beg for us to. You'll grovel at our feet for us to end your life before you become the monster you are. And then we will."

"We're done here," one of the Hunters stated, cutting the last of the restraints rather then continuing to deal with the tedious untying process.

"Stand him up, and let's go. He's got a lot to learn about himself," Boss stated calmly, about facing once they had stood Newt up. "I'm going to enjoy educating you."

As they walked out, Boss in the lead and the two Hunters holding Newt up as they frogmarched him out, easily overpowering his resistance. As the Hunters cleared the transport and the small group began to head towards the open area of the field away from the circled transports, Boss and the two Hunters fell to the ground, their chest armor obliterated through and through, a clear and distinct hole with the sound of three distinct cracks coming nearly a full three seconds afterward, hitting Newt like a wave.

As he was released by the Hunters, who for a full five seconds writhed on the ground trying to stop the bleeding before laying still utterly, he gasped, surprised that for the first time in nearly a full day he was able to move of his own accord. As he looked around, watching the Hunters cease their struggle shortly after the sound of the rifles that had fired had washed over the position, he got up, stumbling slightly, and walked towards Boss.

"You... have to remember... no matter what they do..." Boss gasped out into the air, "It starts with... a letter... acceptance... the architect's school... you can't... can't..." he gurgled out as Newt looked and listened with a rapt attention, not so much of respect, but of still lingering shock. Alas, Boss was unable to continue on. A few more gurgles were all that Newt heard before he stopped moving totally. Newt just stood there for a minute, completely unsure as to what he should do.

His indecision was solved for him in a short moment however, for a dozen hovercraft roared in overhead, six of them immediately having dozens of troops fast rope out of them, forming two circles, one facing in and tightening up, weapons drawn and focused on the three bodies and Newt, and the other on a knee, weapons aimed out. The only familiar feature saw was the small Phoenix patch that each one had on their suits. He breathed a sight of relief when he saw them.

"Don't move! Remain where you are!" somebody shouted at Newt, who had no intention of moving as it was.

As the inner circle closed in, a pair of the soldiers in it sprinted forward, grabbed Newt, and before could protest, had him in-between the two circles and away from the bodies. They threw Newt to the ground and effectively covered him with their own bodies, while at the same time the soldiers still in the inner circle opened fire with their weapons, riddling the bodies with bullets, each of the three dozen soldiers emptying their clip before the rounds stopped flying. All that was left was unrecognizable masses. The destruction was absolute of the bodies, as if they feared, or more likely hated them.

"How di-" Newt started to question.

"Sniper positions in the cliffs fifteen klicks away," one of the two responded, as if he had expected the question. He sounded somehow... familiar to Newt. But, with the firing done, they pulled Newt up to his feet and waved up at one of the hovercraft. Newt felt a tingling feeling, saw a bright flash, and a warm feeling wash over his body, and when he was able to reopen his eyes, he was sitting in a padded chair, watching the countryside flash by from overhead.

"Well Newt... this has probably been interesting for you..." a voice spoke from a chair beside him. As he turned to look, he saw it was Seth. "What'd he tell you?"

Newt swallowed, not sure if he should actually respond. "That... I cause the deaths of billions..." he finally spoke, uncertainly, after a totally quiet minute.

"I see... it's true." Seth responded. As Newt looked into his eyes, he saw for the first time the depths that were hidden behind the silvery gray irises. It was dark within them, with terrible shadows skirting across the pupils even as he stared. He shuddered involuntarily for a moment.

"Why though?" he questioned, his voice suddenly weaker then it had ever been before in his life, barely a whisper.

"Because you realized, as I had before, why such acts would be required to stabilize humanity, prepare it for travel into space, and allow to actually prosper there. It's... complicated to go into details." Seth responded, "But trust me, people didn't agree with us. But a lot did, enough to make it happen as we planned." he sighed there, "But a lot of people died needlessly... a lot had to die, but more were determined to stick to the status quo then we had expected... that colony... they were brainwashed... so rest easy."

"That's not reassuring at all." Newt whispered in response, amazed at how blood-soaked his hands would become.

"Not to you, not yet. You have a lot to learn... a lot you have yet to experience. There's key things in your life that haven't happened yet. But they will, and then you'll understand better... it's tragic, but, one day... one day you'll see why." Seth stated calmly, his face unchanging, not even his eyes showing a single hint of remorse at the death he knew he had caused.

As Newt was about to ask another question, Seth raised a hand to prevent him from speaking, "No, no more questions. You won't remember the answers anyway. In a short while, the only thing you'll remember from the last time you went to sleep is a strange dream. That's all." he spoke casually, slowly, deliberately.

"You should sleep." Seth spoke, his voice deep, rich, resonating within Newt who's feet and hands started to go numb and limp, "Just, drop off into sleep. It's better that way. Trust me, you have nothing to fear." he continued to speak, and Newt's eyelids grew heavy as his arms and legs stopped feeling, stopped working.

"Just, take a nice, long sleep." Seth spoke one last time, Newt fully dropping off into a strange sleep.

As Newt woke up, he shivered, the morning sun was warm on his face, even as a chill morning wind came in through his open window. As he stared at his ceiling, his arms behind his head, he tried desperately to hang onto a quickly fading dream. Something about a Phoenix that fought a Hunter and ate grass... he shook his head as he gave up on remembering the dream, closing the window and heading down to breakfast. He had to hear back today if he was accepted to the Architect's school or not.

While SILAR was mostly destroyed, their leadership and resources obliterated in their final coordinated attack to kill Newt, they still had the resources for final attempt on his life, which ended up being foiled by Phoenix Unit once again. The timeline ended up as it was meant to be, and the reign of Seth and Newt, seemingly opposed to each other in all things, existed as it was meant to, for as long as it was meant to, and not a day longer, though, the fall of Empires is a tale for another day.

Ninva · Mar 11, 2012

Consider posting the story in fragments, and if people express interest, then feed them more. I don't have the time to read this block of text. I'm sorry. But I don't think it's too late to revise this, post each chapter each week. This will strike interest, and more people will have the patience to read your chapters.

When I the first few sentences, I found a lot of cliches such as "full glory" and "ghostly glow." These don't appeal to me, and they shouldn't appeal to most people. Then I see phrases like: "While SILAR was mostly destroyed. . ." The adverb "mostly" makes the scene vague, and that's where you can add more detail. Try to paint portraits with your words and avoid writing cliches.

Story Phoenix Unit

highdarklord

100% Certified Cunning

Ninva

Ignorant

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