Difference between revisions of "Atlantis"

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''Written by Brandon Krupczak''
 
''Written by Brandon Krupczak''
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{|
 
{|
  
 
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|[[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 1]]||[[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 11]]
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 1]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 11]]
 
                    
 
                    
 
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| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 2]]                          
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 2]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 12]]                         
  
 
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| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 3]]
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 3]]||[[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 13]]
  
 
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| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 4]]
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 4]]
  
 
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| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 5]]
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 5]]
  
 
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| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 6]]
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 6]]
  
 
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| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 7]]
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 7]]
  
 
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| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 8]]
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 8]]
  
 
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| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 9]]
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 9]]
  
 
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| [[Phoenix Rising: Chapter 10]]
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| [[Atlantis Rising: Chapter 10]]
  
 
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[[Reaper's First Drop]]
 
[[Reaper's First Drop]]
  
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And here's a new, alternate account of the war, from the perspective of an elite soldier from an elite Black-Ops Spec-Ops division.
  
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[[Atlantis Rising: Perfect War]]
  
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And another little project of mine. Here, I'm writing about the video game ''Fallout 3''. The setting, premise, and some of the characters are not my creation, but basically I'm taking the game and writing my own addition.
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[[Fallout 3]]
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An additional project, using the concept and setting of the ''Fallout'' universe again. This is an idea I've wanted to explore: A Fallout game in the Carribean.
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[[Fallout: Caribbean]]
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And a Halo project, told from the perspective of a Marine Fireteam. Just regular soldiers, not Spartans or even ODSTs.
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[[Halo: Fireteam]]
  
  
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==Work In Progress Chapter 12==
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==Work In Progress Chapter 14==
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'''07:01 Hours, March 11, 2015 (Military Calendar), Echo Team, in the Atlantian jungle bordering Firebase Bravo'''
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'''
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"''We should just kill them. Kill them all and be done with it.''"
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Jason considered, but quickly shook his head. "They didn't kill us," he pointed out. "At the very least we owe them that."
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"Their company killed hundreds of us." Achilles spat.
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"They took hundreds prisoner," Jason reminded him. "They only killed a third of our troops. And anyways, they thought they were defending their turf-"
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"Which they stole from us in the first place!" Achilles growled. He drew his sword and angled it at Matt's throat.
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Matt sat back on his elbows and pushed the blade away. His strength was slowly returning.
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Jason raised an arm to bar Achilles from stomping on Matt's face. "Hold up," he ordered in Atlantian.
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Matt raised his chin defiantly. "Do what you want," he spat. "You'll get nothing from Echo Team." Daedalus translated this into Atlantian, and a look of amusement crossed Jason's face.
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Jason spoke, and Daedalus translated it into English, "Oh, but it's not information we want." Jason motioned, and Achilles stepped forward and kicked Matt in the face.
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Matt reeled backwards and fell to the ground, raising a small splash of mud. He raised himself back up on one elbow and spit to the side.
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Jason withdrew a dagger and crouched to Matt's level, digging the blade into his skin. Matt didn't flinch, but tried instead to regain his feet. Jason motioned again.
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This time the blow came to Matt's neck, and he coughed up blood, wiping away the mud with a hand.
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"Echo One-two, come in. This is Overlord. Echo one-two, respond!"
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The voice blared out from the speakers in Matt's helmet, a foot away in the mud. While Orca team was looking at the helmet, Matt snapped into action. He kicked out with a leg, hitting Achilles in the knee and twisting it to the side. He came up, blocked a hasty swipe from Alexander and drove his knee into the Atlantian's stomach, brought an elbow down onto the back of his head, before he was slammed in the chest by Heracles. The smart-gel cranked up several degrees as it dissipated the force of the blow.
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Jason had him in a headlock the second he hit the ground. Matt kicked out diagonally, trying to wrench his head out of the stranglehold, but Jason was too strong. Matt flopped back to the ground and tried to leverage himself out with his feet, again to no avail. He lashed out with an arm, missed, and bruised his knuckles on the hard shoulder plate of Jason's stolen armor.
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"Echo One-two, be advised, reinforcements are rolling in. ETA thirty seconds."
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Jason looked at the headset. He barked, "Check it out."
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Daedalus hurried over to the helmet and checked the GUSS.
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"No lie. There's a larger American S&D team approaching, twenty seconds out."
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"Team, scatter." Jason ordered.
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"But, we can't just leave them here!"
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"We need to get out of here. Once we make it to the river, we'll be impossible to track. This is our territory, and we know it inside out. The Americans will have a harder time getting through, especially on vehicles. But you're right; take this one-," Jason pointed to Matt, "And this one too." This time Jason motioned towards Jamie. "Leave the rest."
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"Jason, I recommend we take these..." Daedalus said.
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Jason smiled. "Get on the bikes and roll out. You've got five seconds."
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Heracles lifted Jamie bodily and set him on a bike, clipping his legs to the magnetic restraints, and delivered an extra punch for good measure. Jason dragged Matt by his collar to the bike. Heracles helped Jason secure Matt to the bike, then they set off.
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The rest of the team took the other two bikes and set off just after Jason.
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By the time the American reinforcements found Malcolm, Holly, Scar, and Carter, the Atlantians were nowhere to be seen.
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"Baseplate, this is Orca Team. We are approaching the recovery LZ, do not fire. We have commandeered American vehicles and are approaching fast from the North, five minutes out at our present velocity, over."
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"Roger, Orca." The female radio operator responded, a note of surprise coloring her voice. "We didn't expect anyone to have made it out of the prison camps; what happened, over?"
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Aaron struggled to hold onto the bike and operate the radio at the same time. "Baseplate we are currently traveling at more than 500 Stadion per hour through the jungle, a fully detailed report will be on your desk within the hour, over."
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"Roger, Orca. Baseplate out."
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Matt blinked groggily, sitting up straight. He only noticed they were on the bike after about twenty seconds, and then he jerked fully awake, his hands bound behind him and his legs clipped to the magnetic restraints.
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Matt tapped Jamie with his shoulder, which was nearly the only movement he could make.
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Jamie struggled awake. "HO-ly sh-" Jamie began, but Matt gave him a warning look.
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Heracles, manning the weapons, turned partway around to look at them. After a moment he turned back, uninterested.
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Off to the sides, the two other bikes kept pace. Aaron had just radioed something to their base. Matt secretly cheered. Assuming Ford was patrolling the nearby jungle with Predators, and the Predators had the latest electronic listening equipment, the Atlantian's radios, unshielded communications that they were, should register on the receivers and tell Ford exactly where they were.
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Jason seemed to read his mind. "Don't bother hoping Ford will find you." He said over his shoulder from the driver's seat. "We've activated the scramblers and jammers - there's no way your general knows where you are in the middle of this jungle, nor will they ever find you."
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Matt concentrated, then let the Spectrum view fall over his eyes as his vision jumped into shades of azure, and his eyes clouded over in blue. He probed Jamie's thoughts, and Jamie sent him a message, ''How are we going to get out of here?''
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''I don't know.'' Matt responded. ''But I've got an idea. I'm going to flip the bike. Once it's sideways, the magnetic clamps will automatically disengage. You keep Jason and Heracles occupied with something long enough for us to disappear into the jungle, then we head back for base.''
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''Sounds like a plan.'' Jamie said.
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''Probably won't work, but it's a plan.'' Matt agreed.
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''Ready?'' Matt asked. Then the world exploded.
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To Matt, the missile appeared to be moving in slow motion. It took an eternity for the deadly explosive to land not five feet behind and to their right, then the bike was picked up by an invisible hand and sent flying through the air, the riders being throttled while they went and flames licking at their boots. Matt tumbled off as the magnetic clamps disengaged and fell into the lower branches of a tree. The bike, minus the occupants, went sailing into another tree.
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Jamie's face collided with a branch as he fell through the air, sending him spinning in the other direction until another branch caught him in the middle. This time Jamie managed to grasp and hold onto the branch, gasping and his face bloody.
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There was quiet for a moment, obscenely, then the steady beat of rotors, accompanied by the chatter of a machine gun. Matt covered his head and face as bright red traces dug into the soft ground, six unseen .50 cal bullets for every one blazing red, mere feet from the tree they were in.
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"Come on we've got to move!" Matt shouted, grabbed Jamie, and leaped to the ground fifteen feet below. They landed awkwardly, then were both up and running away from the missiles. They never made it more than twenty feet; Matt was tagged in the chest with a quick burst of fire, and he fell to the ground. Jamie was quickly drilled in the knee and then the side. Matt looked up to see Spetsnaz troops materializing out of the jungle, and unlike at the psi training grounds, these guys were the real deal.
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Three Spetsnaz troops advanced easily to the fallen pair, pointing their rifles casually.
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A shadow solidified out of the darkness behind one of the three. The Spetsnaz trooper was dragged back into the jungle with a chilling scream, then was silent.
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The other two troopers whirled around with rifles leveled. Another shadow appeared in the form of Achilles, who kicked out one soldier's knee and gutted him with a combat knife.
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The last soldier backed into the middle of the clearing, sweeping his rifle in long arcs. Matt reached up and brought the soldier to the ground, pinned the trooper under his knee, and stuck a knife through the Russian's neck.
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But the tide of battle was quickly swept away - the helo gunship circled back and pelted the jungle with bullets and rockets. Jason staggered out of the forest and fell to his knee streaming blood from his ears and spitting it from his mouth. His eardrums had been ruptured.
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"We need to get out of here!" Matt yelled in Jason's ear. Jason nodded, but it was clear his mind was far away, still surprised by the ambush.
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Matt ran in the direction of the deeper jungle, but a wall of bullets cut him off, followed quickly by a growing wall of flames from the incendiary bullets the helo was now using. The helo quickly boxed them in with fire, stalling their escape. Before Jamie could reduce the flames to ash with PK, the first Spetsnaz team walked through the flames, their full-body armor insulating them from the heat. Matt, Jamie, Heracles, and Jason, in possession of only scattered parts of armor, could not attempt the same.
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The Spetsnaz appeared to want them alive, for they didn't fire, but instead advanced with batons extended. Matt shuddered as he watched electricity course through the instrument.
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The four of them backed into a corner of the wall of flames, instantly beginning to sweat despite the thermal conditioning.
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The first soldier swung at Matt. He ducked the baton and drove forward with his foot, but another soldier pinned it to the ground and stuck the baton in Matt's chest.
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Agony erupted through his body, and Matt's back arched involuntarily. He fell to the ground after a moment, writhing as phantom electricity sparked through him.
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Jason ducked his head, side-armed a swipe, and managed to get a punch in before he was tackled by three Spetsnaz and subdued.
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Jamie caught a baton directly to his shoulder. Grinning savagely through the pain, Jamie stretched out an arm and pressed it into a soldier's exposed face in the moment that he had, then they both collapsed, jittering.
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Heracles lasted the longest. With his greater size and reach, he knocked aside a baton, jammed his palm into the side of a soldier's head, and broke another's knee cap with a kick. After that, he was stung by a baton to his hip. Instead of falling, Heracles slammed a fist into the Russian's face, ducked, and brought one last soldier to the ground with another punch before he was taken out by five soldiers at once.
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The Russian Lieutenant surveyed his catch. "I was hoping for all of them," He told his two personal commandos. "But four will have to do for now. Get them into the chopper. Dust-off in two."
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The commando on the right nodded behind his full-face visor, the red-tinted eyes in the mask glowing. The two bent and collected the unconscious four, binding their hands and legs and tossing them into the helo.
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Matt shuddered back to consciousness just as they were loading him into the waiting helo.
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"Out of the frying pan..." He murmured to himself.
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The Russian Lieutenant made a questioning face. Matt spit at him, grinning through bloody teeth when one of the commandos hammered him in the stomach.
 
  
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"You must be a real hit at the parties." Matt informed the commando, biting back another grin as the commando's armor no doubt translated the sentence into Russian and put it into his ear. The commando's visage remained unchanged behind his mask.
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"You guys have got to check this out." Malcolm said as they boarded a cargo lift. "So the new shipments of Croc Armor have come in while you two were away, but the boys have been working overtime developing some gear strictly for the Shock Forces. I've gotten to work fitting our new armor with all our old custom stuff, but with some new toys."
  
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The helo took off, lifting Matt, Jamie, Heracles, and Jason into the air. Matt concentrated, but Holly and Scar were too far away to make out through the spectrum.  
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"What kind of toys?" Jamie asked, yawning. Upon arrival back at Firebase Bravo, he and Matt had been debriefed, taken several hot showers, and stuffed their guts with the contents of several MREs. Life was good.
  
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The Lieutenant drew a large, wickedly curved knife out of a sheath belted to his chest and crouched next to Matt's head. "If I were you," He said in English, "I would rest up and save my strength. When we land, you and I are going to have a good long talk. In this talk, you will give me the answers to the questions I want. If you do not, the consequences will be rather painful. I think I'll start with your fingers, and after you've had enough of that, I'll go onto your nose, and possibly your ears. After that I get creative."
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"Dude DWAI. You'll see in just a sec."
  
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"If you were me, then I would be you. And if I were you, I would find a rock somewhere and crawl under it. Because now you'll have the Atlantians storming into your base to recapture those two," Matt motioned at Jason and Heracles with his chin, "And an American strike force beating down the doors to get us two."
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The lift sank several stories into the ground, to where Ford had had a Research and Development Lab excavated and lined with a fast-drying concrete substitute while Matt and Jamie were gone.  
  
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"You'll have to do better than that." The Lieutenant said, but his air of confidence was gone. "I don't scare so easily."
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It was the classic Malcolm workshop scene, with tables and workbenches lining the walls, equipment strewn all over the place in differing states of organization. But for some reason the lights were dimmed to half-intensity, throwing the room into deep shadows.
  
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"Then keep this in mind. When I get loose, and don't doubt for a second that I will, I'll be coming for you. We'll see just how long you last when I inject your veins with boiling led."
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They got off the lift and stood for a second. Matt inhaled the stale air and examined the sets of armor that lay draped over tables, gauntlets and shoulder pauldrons dismantled.
  
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A commando answered for the Lieutenant, stepping forward and ramming his fist into Matt's chest again. Matt coughed and spat blood.  
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"I don't see anything." Jamie said after half a minute.
  
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"I'll be coming for you." Matt said, then rolled over and fell to sleep.
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"I do." Malcolm said, unable to contain a grin.
  
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Matt looked harder. "Oh. Clever."
  
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"What?" Jamie asked.
  
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Matt reached out with one hand and gently probed the flickering semi-shadow before him. It laughed, so Matt grabbed the camouflage cloak and pulled it off.
  
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The next week was a series of incrementally more painful methods of torture. From the beginning, Matt was roused in the morning with an electric shock, and stumbling to bed, exhausted. He was then allowed four hours of sleep before it began all over again. The Russians used every trick in the book, new and old, and made up quite a few of their own. One memorable morning was spent having scorpions crawl across Matt's naked body. Their stingers couldn't kill him, but they injected a neuro-toxin that had Matt screaming in agony for the better part of four hours. And that was from one sting.
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The figure laughed again. Matt could now see the armor in greater detail, but the invisibility mechanism still worked amazingly well.
  
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Electricity was a favorite. Tied to a chair, Matt got to watch Jamie, Jason, and Heracles being repeatedly shocked with 1,000 volts. The Lieutenant told him it would stop if Matt gave him seemingly random pieces of data, such as the force deployment and defense systems of the American camps, and then America's overall battle plan. Sometimes they strayed into Matt's own weapons and armor research, and sometimes to the topic of Dinosaurs. Matt's own armor had been confiscated, as well as that of the other three. When they left, they would have to destroy the data the Russians had collected from their technology.
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Scar and Holly tapped some controls on their gauntlets from inside their new armor and solidified into the visible spectrum.  
  
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Matt point-blank refused to tell them anything. To him, it was a pride issue. He didn't even consider telling them anything, because to do so would be a breaking of his pride, which was not about to happen. Therefore, he kept his mouth shut, other than repeating his name, rank, and and unit. Jamie on the other hand flat out pissed off the Russian interagators.
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Malcolm hit the lights, and the room lit up.
  
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The Russian Lieutenant, who Matt had decided to call Ivan, wanted more than just research. Occasionally they would try and wrestle the access codes to the GUSS mainframe, or the Firebase Bravo mainframe. They asked for callsigns, unit expertise. One entire afternoon was used trying to get airstrike authentication codes out of the two Americans. That day's form of torture had taken the shape of waterboarding.
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"Awesome! I want one." Jamie cackled.  
  
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"Seriously?" Matt asked as he saw the tub of water, and the sliding metal door that would fit over his head once it was in the tub. "Seriously? Talk about one of the least original tricks in the book. You've run out of ideas already? It's only been three days, and here you have us about to undergo the most cliched torture known to man. Ivan, you disappoint me."
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"Pretty sweet." Matt agreed. "How does it work?"
  
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"He's right Comrade this is pretty lame. Might I suggest branding next. Hurts like crap."
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"Unfortunately it sucks up power like a wild hog." Holly said, detaching a power cable from her back. "So the armor can't support it for much longer than a minute in combat situations unless its plugged into something."
  
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The commando Jamie had dubbed Alexi Gar-choke Throat-clear, or just Alexi for short, stepped forward and slammed Jamie's head into a wall. Despite him seeing stars for the next couple minutes, it was worth it. Ivan was becoming increasingly frustrated with their lack of progress.
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"It's none of the 'Oh, I'll take a miraculous video of whats behind me and put it in front of me and for some reason it looks like I'm invisible' crap." Malcolm explained. "That would require the entire exterior of the armor to be covered in video screens. Instead, the armor's on-board computer gets a general bearing of its surroundings and then tells its new photo-reactive armor plates to change color and shade depending on what it registers. Like we said, the computer system and the photo-plates suck power really fast, so you can only do it for about a minute on one power cell."
  
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"Hey there Alexi, didn't notice you, how's your boyfriend Yurgey" Jamie asked before getting dunked.
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"What's the cape for?"
  
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"Refreshing." He sputtered between coughs when they let him up.  
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Malcolm winced. "Cloak. Camouflage cloak. It's to break up the humanoid figure. Our eyes identify things by shape and color, so if we blur the outline of your body and minimize the difference in color you're practically invisible."
  
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"What are the Authentication codes." Ivan asked. Jamie just smiled at him. They dunked him again.
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Matt crossed to the worktables and inserted his arm into a gauntlet, then pulled a switch and a blade jumped out of the side. "Nice."
  
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"The Codes" Jamie spit out his mouthfull of water and looked like he was about to talk.
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"Yeah. Retractable gauntlet blades, your custom elbow spikes, high-density non-standard issue gel bladders, M5 fiber gloves in the gauntlets, steel knuckles, integrated sonic pulse emitter in the helmet speakers. And then some of the newer stuff, we've got optional gauntlet attachments, custom-fit for each of us. Jamie's, Scar's, and mine shoot flames. Yours, which is a much smaller attachment, can send an electric shock through the gauntlet and anything you're touching. Holly's shoots a gas grenade loaded with tear gas. Of course, the rebreather and visor in the helmet will make you impervious to gas attacks."
  
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"Hey anyone got any soap I haven't had a good wash like this in awhile." And again he was dunked.\
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"Thank heaven." Jamie snickered. "Finally, a piece of equipment that's been Matt-proofed."
  
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"MARCO" He yelled. When he came up he looked at Matt.
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"Somehow, I knew you would say that."
  
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"Your supposed to say Polo." Matt supressed laughter, nothing like some good old humor to lighten up tortoure. Jamie laughed while they submerged his head. When he came up he coughed a little and looked at Matt with a serious face.
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"And I did."
  
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"Note to self do not laugh while being water boarded." He smiled and was again dunked.
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"Yes you did."
  
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"Man I'm having so much fun I think I might throw up." He said then he proceeded to puke on the Russian's boots."Oops."
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"Okay."
  
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"Remember I have the Shiatsu after this, oh and Matt ordered the mud bath."  
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"Alright then."
  
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"Hey, I have a question." Ivan kept Alexi from plunging his head into the water.
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A few seconds passed in silence.
  
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"Yes, are you ready to talk." He asked. Jamie huffed for a couple of seconds trying to get air. The water dripped down from his soaked blond hair. He looked at Matt with a look of defeat in his eyes and Matt looked back pleading silently through their almost telepathic link from years of brother hood. Pleading for Jamie not to divulge any information. The look of defeat changed and Matt saw that twinkle in his eye.
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"Awkward." Scarlett stated.  
  
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"What is a Shiatsu?" He asked. Matt couldn't help but laugh at the look on Ivan's face. He grabbed the back of Jamie's head and slammed it down on the floor twice before he pushed it back in the water. The next time he came up he started singing the "Rubber Ducky" song. He continued this in between dunks for the next fifteen minutes.
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"Right. Anyway." Malcolm rolled his eyes. "Mark Two armor, really cool stuff. And it came in just in time, too."
  
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As far as they could tell, Alexi Gar-choke Throat-clear and the other commando, referred to as Yurgey-von-Banjoface, never removed their implacable masks. They wore the same, intimidating gear day-in and day-out, and they never seemed to be far away from each other. They never displayed weariness or frustration, or indeed any emotion besides an obscene pleasure in torturing the four, although they must not have gotten any more sleep than Matt.
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"Meaning?" Holly asked.
  
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Yuri had lots of questions for the Atlantian duo as well. Jason, for his part, didn't even bother repeating his name, rank, unit for Ivan, but rather went through everything in sullen silence through the day. But at night, he was a completely different man, going through possible escape routes and ambush locations in Atlantian, or so Heracles communicated. Because of their close proximity, Matt and Jamie were quickly picking up on Atlantian, and Heracles and Jason the reverse.
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"We're about to get sent out again. All of us, to go mop up that Russian detention outpost you two were at. It's a joint operation between us and the Atlantians - first official mission together, just to kinda test the waters."
  
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The first few nights, Jason kept entirely to Atlantian and made no attempt to include the two Americans. But by several days of intense physical and mental wear and tear, Jason began to address Matt and Jamie in his halting English, made somewhat easier by the American's limited array of Atlantian.  
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"So they're sending five Shockers and how many Atlantians?" Scar asked.
  
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"Could we use the same trick twice?" Jason asked one night, five or six days into the process; it was difficult to keep track, as Ivan never let them see a clock, or a window for that matter, and the torture was omnipresent from day to day, with no change in schedule. The only mark of time was the four hours they were allotted to sleep, militantly upheld to the schedule. "Could we try and dig our way through the floor, like in your base?" Jason continued in a mixture of English and Atlantian.
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"Well, a bit more than us five. And you're not gonna like it."
  
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Matt thumped the ground. "This is a special prison, built specifically for us, I think. We're on the ground level, the latrine hole is a single tube two feet in diameter all the way to the bottom, as far as I can tell through the Spectrum, and the walls are reinforced steel and concrete. No windows. Door is a solid slab of steel with no visible hinge from the inside."
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The five of them packed their new armor and weaponry into armored crates, and Malcolm lead the crew back up to the ground floor, and from there they commandeered a Humvee for the short cross-camp drive to the armory.
  
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"Well, couldn't you break it down with your Telekinesis or something?" Heracles asked reasonably.  
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Inside the semi-enclosed courtyard was a flurry of pre-mission activity. Soldiers, dressed in the head-to-toe matte black version of the newest Mk II armor, jogged from place to place, securing ammo crates, inspecting gear, loading vehicles.  
  
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"We could, but this whole room is basically a metal box, underground I would imagine, wired for sound, heat, bio and kinetic sensors, pretty much anything out of the ordinary will register immediately on Ivan's monitors. By the time Jamie and I broke the door down, we would have expended so much energy as to be unable to even walk, and even if you two carried us, which I doubt, a veritable flood of guards would be marching down the hallway. Remember, to even get out of the building, we would have to walk through the checkpoint."
+
Ford stood on a raised platform just outside the armory wall in one corner of the courtyard surveying the proceedings. He was dressed in cut-down CROC armor and an eyepiece instead of a helmet. From time to time aides dashed up to him carrying messages, then just as quickly disappeared. Carter stood at his shoulder, helmet in hands.
  
−
"But you could just smash down the w-" Heracles continued, then cut off abruptly as Matt made a subtle slashing motion across his throat. But he nodded.
+
When Ford saw the five 'Shockers,' he motioned them over. The 13's, who had been dubbed thus by the Marine Shock Forces, felt it their due to come up with a name in return. Hence, Shockers.
  
−
Jason understood. "Speak as much you can in Atlantian." He told Heracles. "If they've got this box wired for sound, they've no doubt got translation routines running on the recordings of everything we say."
+
"Guys, suit up. We're going in first to soften up the AA, and then when the main strike force arrives, we breach buildings, grab all the sensitive material we can find, then high-tail it out when the bombing starts. Clear?" Carter asked.
  
−
Matt nodded again, even though he had only caught about every third word out of the speech.  
+
"Yes sir!" The crew responded as one.
  
−
"Matt and Jamie will have to open a hole in the wall. After that, you and I are going to dig us out to the surface."
+
"Right. We'll be dropping in out of the new HALE rocket pods - High Altitude Low Entry Shock n' Awe drop pods. Just like the video games." Carter continued. "AC-130 flies by and drops us off, waits till we hit the AA, then drops down and provides support fire."
  
−
Heracles smiled, holding a spoon in each hand. "So, same trick as last time."
+
Ford nodded. "We'll be dropping you guys in addition to Orca Team, so you'll have some more numbers to fill out the ranks at first. Find and destroy as many AA emplacements as you can, then call it in and sit tight."
  
−
"Indeed." Jason murmured, then layed down. "It will take a few days of little or no sleep, but indeed."
+
"Right. Let's get this show on the road."
  
−
The next day was more of the same, but with something fresh at the end. Matt and Jamie were shot in the arm with a drug. Ivan informed them that the drug would temporarily block their ability to use psi. Before that, Ivan hadn't bothered, or so Matt assumed, because the entire cell was wired with every monitoring device known to man. They would have known in an instant if Matt or Jamie had used psi.  
+
"Yeah, lets go plan some more cliches on the plain ride." Scar rolled her eyes.
  
−
But this time, just for cruelty, the final stretch of hallway to their cell and the waiting beds was covered in broken glass. Their boots were removed, and Ivan personally put four steaming trays of food into their cell.  
+
"At least it made sense this time." Malcolm pointed out.
  
−
Matt looked at Ivan and mouthed some rather offensive curses. Yurgey slammed into Matt's back, sending him sprawling along the length of glass-covered hall. Matt rose with shards of razor-sharp glass embedded in the side of his face and body.  
+
"Hey!" Matt laughed.
  
−
"That's it. I've had enough of this." Matt said as Yurgey stepped forward to slam him again.  
+
The five of them split up into the locker rooms in the armory and helped eachother into their armor. It took about ten minutes to gear up in their armor, then another five while they signed out and inspected their custom weapons, each enhanced to fit the user. Matt's HK UMP-45 had been modified for higher muzzle velocity, and Matt had custom-ordered his own magazine design that held thirty-five instead of twenty-five rounds, and was fatter and wider instead of longer. Matt had also kept the SMG's distinguishing .45 ACP rounds for increased stopping power.
  
−
Matt tensed himself, then jerked to one side, left his leg extended, and heaved Yurgey into the hallway.  
+
The rest used XM8's in various configurations, with the exception that Jamie swapped his MP7 for a M1014 combat shotgun.
  
−
Alexi approached from the other side, swinging a rifle. Matt ducked the swing and let his rage fuel a punch that knocked Alexi back five feet.  
+
Now that the Mk. II armor had an integrated anti-armor missile weapon system, Matt didn't need to carry a rocket-launcher or grenade launcher, but instead strapped an MP7 to his thigh, a Magnum under his shoulder, and an electric-flanged mace across his back.  
  
−
Yurgey struggled to stand, then reached down and unbelted his pistol. Before he could raise it and take aim, Jamie grabbed a shard of glass and whipped it around, grunting with satisfaction as it stuck through Yurgey's hand. Heracles hurled another piece - this one stuck halfway through Yurgey's visor and cut the pale-white flesh beneath.  
+
"I love this new armor." Holly said once they had joined back up and were piling into a Humvee that would take them to the runway. "They updated all the joints and improved the exoskeletons, so it feels like you're floating."
  
−
Jason and Matt together went to town on Alexi, taking it into turns to smash his chest or face against the wall, cut his leg out from under him, and repeatedly pound the Russian. Once Alexi was on the ground, Matt sat on his chest and threw punch after bloody punch at Alexi's face; Matt's knuckles had burst with the constant impacts.  
+
"I wouldn't say floating, but we can actually move, yeah. Sixty pounds of armor, another forty or fifty pounds of ammo and equipment while we're fighting."
  
−
When it looked like Echo and Orca might be home free, and be able to escape before reinforcements came, a sudden electric jolt traveled all the way from Matt's toes, up his spine, and into the base of his skull.
+
They exited the Humvee and boarded the AC-130, strapping themselves in for the two-hour flight to the Russian encampment. Atlantis was a big place.
  
−
Matt was sent writhing to the ground. Looking to the limits of his vision, he saw Jason flop to the floor next to him, similarly afflicted.
+
"We should meet up with an Atlantian Zeppelin about ten miles out from the base, set up a zip line, and Orca will ride across to our bird." An operator told them over their helmet's internal comm. "We've got two hours till the drop, so make yourselves comfortable."
  
−
Ivan strode across the broken glass, his thick combat boots treading right over the shards, and rammed a fist into Matt's face.
+
Matt pulled an oxygen mask from its cradle behind his head and slotted it over his face. They would be going high enough that it would be hard to breath. His full-helmet had its own internal air scrubbers, but they could recycle air for a maximum of 20 minutes, and anyways he didn't want to use up his oxygen reserves just for the flight.
  
−
"I will teach you to stage a revolt." He picked Matt up by his collar and slammed him twice into the wall, then threw him into the corridor and broken glass again.  
+
For the next hour and a half, the crew alternated cleaning their weapons, adjusting their sights, fine-tuning fore-grips and mounted grenade launchers and high-intensity halogen flashlights, and taking cat-naps.
  
−
Matt landed, skidding through the razor shards. He did not rise.
+
Carter roused the crew fifteen minutes prior to their scheduled rendezvous with the Atlantians. Each of them went through their final pre-launch equipment checklist, making sure everything worked correctly, then checked eachother's gear.  
  
−
Jason crawled to a knee and threw a punch, but Ivan turned and caught it, then kicked out with his foot and nailed Jason in the stomach.
+
Matt felt his heart speed up as the AC-130 pulled into a steep dive. They would have to get lower if they wanted the zeppelin to be able to keep pace.
  
−
A troop of guards had now appeared, and they proceeded to pound Heracles and Jamie into submission with a flood of electric stun batons and Spetsnaz uniforms.
+
"Alright, boys and girls, time to get suited up." The operator said as the red light blinked on. The six of them slid full-face helmets on over their padded skull caps and made sure the oxygen tanks were fully charged. It would suck to black out from the G's taking away the oxygen from your brain, and end up dying because you couldn't hit a control at the right moment.

Latest revision as of 00:37, 27 November 2010

Book One: Atlantis Rising


Written by Brandon Krupczak


Atlantis Rising: Chapter 1 Atlantis Rising: Chapter 11
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 2 Atlantis Rising: Chapter 12
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 3 Atlantis Rising: Chapter 13
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 4
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 5
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 6
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 7
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 8
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 9
Atlantis Rising: Chapter 10

Hello people reading this! You may have accidentally stumbled upon a book that is under way currently. The book is basically about World War Three, in a world where there are eight continents. The eighth is Atlantis, which surfaces in December of 2012. Maybe the Mayan calendar wasn't counting down to this day, but counting up to the day when Atlantis would rise above the oceans once more, supposedly.

Below is a random chapter from the book that I display here on the front page. The link above brings you to the page that the chapter is actually housed at. If you scroll down to the very bottom, you'll find my work in progress section, where I write the next section/chapter of the book. Because I start writing completely fresh chapters, the work in progress section might end in a fragment of thought, or there might not be anything displayed there.

Please also note that none of my writing here is completed and I go back numerous times to a piece to improve it. The chapter below will be changed multiple times and improved upon, so if you read it now you might wanna check back every now and again to see if I changed anything.

Also, please note that any writing I do here is written to entertain, and therefore the story has to fit in with itself, so please excuse any religious or opinionated writing I have here and do not take it into offense. Please don't copy my work. It's not nice.


Also check out my friend Jamie Knox's writing here:

Reaper's First Drop

And here's a new, alternate account of the war, from the perspective of an elite soldier from an elite Black-Ops Spec-Ops division.

Atlantis Rising: Perfect War

And another little project of mine. Here, I'm writing about the video game Fallout 3. The setting, premise, and some of the characters are not my creation, but basically I'm taking the game and writing my own addition.

Fallout 3

An additional project, using the concept and setting of the Fallout universe again. This is an idea I've wanted to explore: A Fallout game in the Carribean.

Fallout: Caribbean

And a Halo project, told from the perspective of a Marine Fireteam. Just regular soldiers, not Spartans or even ODSTs.

Halo: Fireteam


[edit] Atlantis Teaser

"Soldiers, you will be deployed via fast-rope. You will rappel down to the ground and await the indicator in your HUD before beginning. As soon as you see the signal, you may begin. Good luck, recruits. Up first: Echo Squad! Squad Leader, make sure your squad's gear checks out."

The DS gestured to Matt, and all of them went and gave one another triple buddy checks.

"Ready when you are, Frost!" Holly yelled over their Team comm.

"Roger that, Aura." Matt yelled back. Each of them had callsigns. His was Frost. Jamie's was Scorch. Scar was Flare. Malcolm was Spark. Holly was Aura. "Alright. Squad, move out! Go, go, go!" Matt barked.

Scar attached her rappel harness to the line and jumped out the side, one hand on the rope above her, and the other below and slightly behind her butt, the "brake" hand that controlled how fast the line went. Malcolm followed, then Jamie, then Holly. Matt was the last one out, as befitting his status of Squad Leader.

Scar landed, disengaged her harness, and let it drop to the forest floor. A crew would come later and get it.

Soon the entire squad was on the ground, and Matt quickly led the squad under cover of the trees. As soon as the V-22 Osprey was out of sight, they doubled back and went after the bird. They kept the lines from the rappel - there was always a use for thirty feet of tough nylon.

The countdown timer in Matt's HUD read D + 15:07 when Matt raised his fist, the sign to halt. With slow, exaggerated sign language, he indicated for the team to spread out and climb the trees. Jamie went with Matt in one tree. Scar went by herself, and Malcolm and Holly shared a third.

"Frost, requesting permission to re-format to a sniper?" Scar whispered over the Teamcomm.

"Roger that, Flare. Permission granted. Scorch, outfit yours with the AR. Aura, you're our grenadier. Get the XM320 on there." The XM320 was a single-shot 40mm grenade launcher that could be attached to their carbines. Matt put one on his. Malcolm preferred a straight-up assault rifle.

Beside Matt, almost completely invisible in the heavy jungle shadow, Jamie lay prone along two branches, with his AR balanced on a third branch with a clear line-of-sight to the ground.

Matt slid down from the tree. "Spark, get down here and help me create a barricade. We need to push any incoming squads into one firing lane. Scorch, Flare, give me a dot." In response, Malcolm slid from his tree, and both Scar and Jamie highlighted the firing lane that they had access to with red laser-dots. Matt took armfuls of brambles and thin, thorned vines and dumped them to the left and right of the lane, in between the trees, to create a natural-looking wall that would influence the squads to find an easier way through. Right through their lane of fire.

Matt strung triplines further out into the jungle with the Nylon cables, attaching them to frag grenades.

Matt's countdown ended. "Alright people, we can now shoot at and be shot. Let's wrap this up." Malcolm laid the last armful of brambles in place, and then they both scampered up into their separate trees. There were five other squads in this particular mission, all within a square mile. It wouldn't be long before they had some hits.

Five minutes passed, and no one came. The squad was getting impatient. "Spark," Matt whispered. "Be the rabbit. I need you to go along the lane and see if you can draw some fire, then sprint back here. We'll cover your approach. I'd do it myself but I'm not fast enough."

"Roger that, lead." Malcolm said, grinning. "I've always been one for the suicidal frontal charge." He slid down his tree, landing in the brush below. Before he had even gone two minutes, the sound of gunfire erupted through the forest. "Frost, I've got multiple targets here. They've got me pinned, I could use some assistance!"

Matt looked to Holly. She nodded, slid down, and circled around to the right to counter-flank the guys surrounding Malcolm. "Spark, help is on the way. How long can you hold?"

"I've got good cover, I'm inside a shallow cave-thing in the ground. I can hold out a while."

"Roger that. Keep your head down, but keep the attention centered on you. And watch out, they'll try to advance. Watch your flanks."

"You got it, Frost." Malcolm said, and tossed a grenade out the opening of the cave. It exploded, and Malcolm heard someone groan. "Yeah, bring it!" He shouted.

Holly took up a firing position, sighted through her scope, and tagged a soldier in the back of his head. He dropped like a load of rocks, asleep by the time he hit the ground. Return fire peppered the rock she had been hiding behind, and two soldiers broke off to get her. But Holly wasn't there anymore.

A soldier fell as rounds tore into his inner thigh. He dropped to the ground, not out yet but with a crippled leg. He hobbled behind a piece of cover as Holly filled the air with bullets around the second soldier. A grenade rolled to a stop next to her, and at this she turned and fled back the way she had come, then darted back, and got the attention of the two remaining soldiers pinning Malcolm.

At the momentary distraction, Malcolm bolted out of the hole, sprinted from rock to tree, from tree to bush, from bush to ground, and drew the soldiers down through the firing lane, followed a second later by Holly. Jamie adjusted his grip on the AR as the two squadmates ran down the path. 30 seconds later, the first soldier popped into view. Jamie waited until the last soldier appeared, then nailed the one closest to any viable cover.

The steady thrum of the AR set Matt's head pounding, and he opened fire on the last one in the line. Then Scar fired, and a round slugged the first soldier in the chest.

Jamie's target fell from hits to the leg, side, and shoulder. He wasn't quite gone, but almost. Jamie finished him off with another quick, sustained burst.

Matt's soldier dropped to the ground, out for the count with five rounds in his chest and more in his left arm.

Scar's target took the heavy caliber bullet in the chest and sat down with the force, hard, landing on his butt and jarring his head. Before he could recover, Scar punched another round into his chest. He spun halfway around and ate dirt.

Four down. The last soldier turned to flee, but Holly popped out of the shadows and nailed him with a grenade from her XM320, which cast training rounds into a wide arc everywhere, painting the nearby forest a vivid crimson.

"Alright!" Jamie crowed.

Matt disengaged his spent clip and slapped a new one in. "Let's hope the other squads come running for the noise. One down, three to go, gentlemen."


The next squad was slightly smarter. Instead of running pel-mel into the contested area, they sent one scout on ahead through the firing lane, and the rest hung back and encircled the target area. Too bad for them, Matt's squad had moved from the one killing field and into another close-by clearing, where they could easily spot the would-be flanking attack.

"Open fire!" Matt yelled, and the two soldiers in sight twisted around, trying to find the source of the noise. One was slugged by a heavy cal. sniper shot, and the other fell to the combined fire from Jamie's AR and Matt's carbine.

Holly and Malcolm, still on the ground, rose out of a cover of leaves and dead brush and moved around behind the three soldiers left that came running. Standing up, they nailed two with one salvo of fire.

The last one hit the dirt and rolled under a log. Holly and Malcolm pursued.

"Negative! Disengage!" Jamie yelled, and opened fire into the brush to their left.

Holly hit dirt. Malcolm followed half a second later with three rounds stitched across his back. He wasn't out yet, but his entire suit was getting quickly more rigid.

He turned onto his back and fired in the general direction of where the shots had come from. Holly sidled around to him and took out a fake med-pack, wiping clean the Training Rounds and administering an electric shock through the armor. Malcolm's suit unstraightened a little, and Malcolm crawled back into better cover.

Jamie was still firing bursts from his AR at the last squad. Matt held his fire; there was no clear target in view, and to give away his position would be stupid. Scar attached a flash suppressor to her rifle, and started shelling the squad's general position.

"Watch flankers." Matt advised, seeing shadows moving behind her. Scar turned and nailed one soldier who had tried to flank her, and Matt caught another with a grenade.

Matt slid to the ground as Jamie covered him, landed, and ran in a half-crouch to Holly. He saw a rifle barrel poke out of a bush, saw a blast coming their way, and tackled Holly to the ground. The burst nailed him in the calf and he rolled up into a crouch.

Matt rolled off and came up firing. Jamie suppressed the soldier that had just shot at them while Matt took him out, Holly and Malcolm covering his flank.

Then Scar took multiple sustained bursts from the last soldier from the other squad, and toppled from the tree. She was out cold. Fury ignited in Matt. Toppling her from the tree was not necessary, and she could have injured herself. He and Holly outflanked the soldier and drilled him to the ground with long automatic fire.

They split and threw themselves behind rocks, Matt reloading as he went. There were two left on the other team and three left on his; Malcolm had been drilled again in his helmet.

Jamie's AR barked again and again. With his suppressive fire, Matt darted from cover to cover and distracted the two soldiers long enough for Holly to creep around and take the first one out. The last soldier sprayed fire everywhere, panicking, and continued even as Matt, Jamie, and Holly's combined fire drilled him into the ground.

The DS broke through their comm. lines, "Cease fire. Echo team, you have won the mission. We will collect you shortly. Hold position."

"Roger that." Matt responded. "Alright, lady and gentleman. We won!"

The survivors of Echo Team gazed around at all the unconscious forms before them. They may as well have been dead. It was only now that Matt got the first hint of what a war could really be like. He would have to do better, make sure none of his crew got hurt, ever. This was one simple mission, and two of his own had gone. What would have happened had they been live rounds? Scar and Malcolm, dead, blink of an eye, without ever seeing their attackers. What was this going to come to?


This was war.


[edit] Work In Progress Chapter 14


"You guys have got to check this out." Malcolm said as they boarded a cargo lift. "So the new shipments of Croc Armor have come in while you two were away, but the boys have been working overtime developing some gear strictly for the Shock Forces. I've gotten to work fitting our new armor with all our old custom stuff, but with some new toys."

"What kind of toys?" Jamie asked, yawning. Upon arrival back at Firebase Bravo, he and Matt had been debriefed, taken several hot showers, and stuffed their guts with the contents of several MREs. Life was good.

"Dude DWAI. You'll see in just a sec."

The lift sank several stories into the ground, to where Ford had had a Research and Development Lab excavated and lined with a fast-drying concrete substitute while Matt and Jamie were gone.

It was the classic Malcolm workshop scene, with tables and workbenches lining the walls, equipment strewn all over the place in differing states of organization. But for some reason the lights were dimmed to half-intensity, throwing the room into deep shadows.

They got off the lift and stood for a second. Matt inhaled the stale air and examined the sets of armor that lay draped over tables, gauntlets and shoulder pauldrons dismantled.

"I don't see anything." Jamie said after half a minute.

"I do." Malcolm said, unable to contain a grin.

Matt looked harder. "Oh. Clever."

"What?" Jamie asked.

Matt reached out with one hand and gently probed the flickering semi-shadow before him. It laughed, so Matt grabbed the camouflage cloak and pulled it off.

The figure laughed again. Matt could now see the armor in greater detail, but the invisibility mechanism still worked amazingly well.

Scar and Holly tapped some controls on their gauntlets from inside their new armor and solidified into the visible spectrum.

Malcolm hit the lights, and the room lit up.

"Awesome! I want one." Jamie cackled.

"Pretty sweet." Matt agreed. "How does it work?"

"Unfortunately it sucks up power like a wild hog." Holly said, detaching a power cable from her back. "So the armor can't support it for much longer than a minute in combat situations unless its plugged into something."

"It's none of the 'Oh, I'll take a miraculous video of whats behind me and put it in front of me and for some reason it looks like I'm invisible' crap." Malcolm explained. "That would require the entire exterior of the armor to be covered in video screens. Instead, the armor's on-board computer gets a general bearing of its surroundings and then tells its new photo-reactive armor plates to change color and shade depending on what it registers. Like we said, the computer system and the photo-plates suck power really fast, so you can only do it for about a minute on one power cell."

"What's the cape for?"

Malcolm winced. "Cloak. Camouflage cloak. It's to break up the humanoid figure. Our eyes identify things by shape and color, so if we blur the outline of your body and minimize the difference in color you're practically invisible."

Matt crossed to the worktables and inserted his arm into a gauntlet, then pulled a switch and a blade jumped out of the side. "Nice."

"Yeah. Retractable gauntlet blades, your custom elbow spikes, high-density non-standard issue gel bladders, M5 fiber gloves in the gauntlets, steel knuckles, integrated sonic pulse emitter in the helmet speakers. And then some of the newer stuff, we've got optional gauntlet attachments, custom-fit for each of us. Jamie's, Scar's, and mine shoot flames. Yours, which is a much smaller attachment, can send an electric shock through the gauntlet and anything you're touching. Holly's shoots a gas grenade loaded with tear gas. Of course, the rebreather and visor in the helmet will make you impervious to gas attacks."

"Thank heaven." Jamie snickered. "Finally, a piece of equipment that's been Matt-proofed."

"Somehow, I knew you would say that."

"And I did."

"Yes you did."

"Okay."

"Alright then."

A few seconds passed in silence.

"Awkward." Scarlett stated.

"Right. Anyway." Malcolm rolled his eyes. "Mark Two armor, really cool stuff. And it came in just in time, too."

"Meaning?" Holly asked.

"We're about to get sent out again. All of us, to go mop up that Russian detention outpost you two were at. It's a joint operation between us and the Atlantians - first official mission together, just to kinda test the waters."

"So they're sending five Shockers and how many Atlantians?" Scar asked.

"Well, a bit more than us five. And you're not gonna like it."

The five of them packed their new armor and weaponry into armored crates, and Malcolm lead the crew back up to the ground floor, and from there they commandeered a Humvee for the short cross-camp drive to the armory.

Inside the semi-enclosed courtyard was a flurry of pre-mission activity. Soldiers, dressed in the head-to-toe matte black version of the newest Mk II armor, jogged from place to place, securing ammo crates, inspecting gear, loading vehicles.

Ford stood on a raised platform just outside the armory wall in one corner of the courtyard surveying the proceedings. He was dressed in cut-down CROC armor and an eyepiece instead of a helmet. From time to time aides dashed up to him carrying messages, then just as quickly disappeared. Carter stood at his shoulder, helmet in hands.

When Ford saw the five 'Shockers,' he motioned them over. The 13's, who had been dubbed thus by the Marine Shock Forces, felt it their due to come up with a name in return. Hence, Shockers.

"Guys, suit up. We're going in first to soften up the AA, and then when the main strike force arrives, we breach buildings, grab all the sensitive material we can find, then high-tail it out when the bombing starts. Clear?" Carter asked.

"Yes sir!" The crew responded as one.

"Right. We'll be dropping in out of the new HALE rocket pods - High Altitude Low Entry Shock n' Awe drop pods. Just like the video games." Carter continued. "AC-130 flies by and drops us off, waits till we hit the AA, then drops down and provides support fire."

Ford nodded. "We'll be dropping you guys in addition to Orca Team, so you'll have some more numbers to fill out the ranks at first. Find and destroy as many AA emplacements as you can, then call it in and sit tight."

"Right. Let's get this show on the road."

"Yeah, lets go plan some more cliches on the plain ride." Scar rolled her eyes.

"At least it made sense this time." Malcolm pointed out.

"Hey!" Matt laughed.

The five of them split up into the locker rooms in the armory and helped eachother into their armor. It took about ten minutes to gear up in their armor, then another five while they signed out and inspected their custom weapons, each enhanced to fit the user. Matt's HK UMP-45 had been modified for higher muzzle velocity, and Matt had custom-ordered his own magazine design that held thirty-five instead of twenty-five rounds, and was fatter and wider instead of longer. Matt had also kept the SMG's distinguishing .45 ACP rounds for increased stopping power.

The rest used XM8's in various configurations, with the exception that Jamie swapped his MP7 for a M1014 combat shotgun.

Now that the Mk. II armor had an integrated anti-armor missile weapon system, Matt didn't need to carry a rocket-launcher or grenade launcher, but instead strapped an MP7 to his thigh, a Magnum under his shoulder, and an electric-flanged mace across his back.

"I love this new armor." Holly said once they had joined back up and were piling into a Humvee that would take them to the runway. "They updated all the joints and improved the exoskeletons, so it feels like you're floating."

"I wouldn't say floating, but we can actually move, yeah. Sixty pounds of armor, another forty or fifty pounds of ammo and equipment while we're fighting."

They exited the Humvee and boarded the AC-130, strapping themselves in for the two-hour flight to the Russian encampment. Atlantis was a big place.

"We should meet up with an Atlantian Zeppelin about ten miles out from the base, set up a zip line, and Orca will ride across to our bird." An operator told them over their helmet's internal comm. "We've got two hours till the drop, so make yourselves comfortable."

Matt pulled an oxygen mask from its cradle behind his head and slotted it over his face. They would be going high enough that it would be hard to breath. His full-helmet had its own internal air scrubbers, but they could recycle air for a maximum of 20 minutes, and anyways he didn't want to use up his oxygen reserves just for the flight.

For the next hour and a half, the crew alternated cleaning their weapons, adjusting their sights, fine-tuning fore-grips and mounted grenade launchers and high-intensity halogen flashlights, and taking cat-naps.

Carter roused the crew fifteen minutes prior to their scheduled rendezvous with the Atlantians. Each of them went through their final pre-launch equipment checklist, making sure everything worked correctly, then checked eachother's gear.

Matt felt his heart speed up as the AC-130 pulled into a steep dive. They would have to get lower if they wanted the zeppelin to be able to keep pace.

"Alright, boys and girls, time to get suited up." The operator said as the red light blinked on. The six of them slid full-face helmets on over their padded skull caps and made sure the oxygen tanks were fully charged. It would suck to black out from the G's taking away the oxygen from your brain, and end up dying because you couldn't hit a control at the right moment.

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