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Opening EWI\MR\Triton9\8232022
The Blackhawk helicopter touched down on a small clearing just south of an overpass bridge. The organization that employs my team and me had the surrounding area evacuated hours prior, due to an apparent “hazardous waste spill.” It’s almost always that. While there would, hopefully, be no civilian interference, I always get worked up about taking my first step away from the safety of the helicopter. Most of my squad carry combat rifles modified to fire .308 rounds, which will stop any person that needs to be dealt with. But we don’t deal with normal people, or even people for that matter. If my team is sent in to eliminate a threat, chances are that threat needs to be hit with something much harder. Soon enough, we’d most likely have our work cut out for us with demonic forces. That’s our specialty.
I swept my barrel across every nook and cranny I could see, as my flashlight illuminated the concrete structures. My squad mate, a young woman from Morocco named Yara Hakim, performed the same action to my right. After a few moments, she turned to me and nodded her head, signalling the all clear. I talked into my radio, telling my CO that the area was secure. A large man hopped out of the helicopter, followed by three others. They all wore the same thing as me and Yara, tan and grey uniforms with large black suits of exo-armor and a full face helmet.
”Scorpius, this is Triton-9,” the large man from the helicopter said into his radio. “We have arrived at the incident site. Proceeding down.”
A woman replied over the radio, enabling the entire squad to hear. “Affirmative, Commander Jorgensen. Supernatural forces reported one kilometer from your position. Your technician has the map of the tunnel system already, proceed with caution.”
”Copy,” Jorgensen responded in a thick Danish accent. “Over and out.”
The Blackhawk began to lift off and fly away as we made our way over to a large metal hatch close to a support pillar. We all surrounded it, as Jorgensen gave his orders.
”Kenju, Hakim, on the cover. Santos and Flaherty, be ready for descent. Leon, be ready for suppressing fire.”
Like clockwork, we all took our positions. Hakim and Kenju scanned the landing area and surrounding concrete structures for any sign of trouble. Santos, Flaherty and I aimed our barrels toward the hatch, ready to send anything that moved the wrong way back to hell. The Commander grabbed hold of the hatch with his massive armored hand and lifted it up. The sheer force he used to open it almost ripped the hatch from its fixture. Jorgensen backed away so nothing could catch him off guard without his rifle, while Flaherty, Santos and I peered down with our weapons drawn. The flashlights mounted on our rifles shone down into the tunnel, lighting up all sorts of grime and filth, but nothing that posed a threat.
Jorgensen pointed at Santos, then Flaherty, and motioned down toward the ladder that had been illuminated by our lights. Santos nodded, then slung his rifle on his back. He took hold of the first rung and swung his legs over to begin descending. Jorgensen and I aimed down at the sides of Santos, while Lieutenant Flaherty prepared to follow him. Santos reached the bottom of the ladder and spun around, taking his rifle off of his back. He aimed it down the tunnel, from which our vision was obscured. After a moment, he raised his hand and wagged his fingers, signalling he had Flaherty covered.
Flaherty began descending the ladder, and as she did, Jorgensen motioned for Hakim and Kenju. They trotted over to our position, while Jorgensen and I scanned our surroundings. I heard the lieutenant call over the radio that she had made it down, and she and Santos had the base of the ladder covered. Commander Jorgensen told Kenju and Hakim to climb down, as we covered them. Once the two of them had made it down, I began my way down. It was pretty dark, the only thing I could see were the lights from the others bouncing off the walls below. Once I heard the clanking of my large metal boots hit the concrete landing, I took hold of my rifle and prepared to cover Jorgensen as he came down.
Soon enough, everyone had formed up in the subterranean tunnel, and we began moving to the target area. Jorgensen had left Santos to protect the entrance, and as we embarked, he started to set up a couple small sentry turrets. Hakim had let her weapon rest on her back and pulled out her sidearm, a Desert Eagle. She also had her small phone-sized computer in her hand, with a diagram of the tunnel system. Our objective was to make our way to a tent city underground that had apparently been overrun by a small army of demons. Usually, demon attacks are pretty routine. While there are a shit-ton this time, from what our intelligence network had gathered, they were just simple demons.
Yara told us we had about one hundred meters to go until the entrance to the underground clearing that housed the homeless encampment. I prepared myself for the horrors that were about to come. While my team had dealt with plenty of hellspawn, the average person has no clue what to do. Even if they did, they most likely didn’t have a heavy-hitting rifle loaded with rounds blessed by priests, shamans or imams. The tricky thing about demons is their hide is thicker than an elephant’s, and even if you pierce their skin, they will probably just walk it off if a holy bullet doesn’t banish their mortal vessel back to whichever hell they came from. Long story short, they are a pain in the ass to deal with.
We approached the entrance to the large room, and a faint orange glow filled my vision. Faint screams could be heard over the crackle of flames and miscellaneous banging of metal. Hakim approached the door with Jorgensen at her back, as Flaherty, Kenju and I moved across to the other side of the makeshift door. Jorgensen tapped Hakim on her shoulder, indicating he wanted to sneak past her and get a look inside. Jorgensen poked his head through the door, and Flaherty did the same on the other side.
”Oh shit,” Jorgensen muttered. That couldn’t mean anything good. “Well, it’s demons alright.”
”Yeah,” Flaherty replied. Her head scanned the room from side to side, before abruptly snapping back to where she was looking a few moments ago. “Is that what I think it is?!”
I could almost always understand Flaherty well enough, but when she was angry, her Irish accent would become flustered and a little incoherent. She backed up, shaking her head in the process. I looked over at Kenju, and we both took a look for ourselves, trying to see what all the fuss was about. After a moment of looking around, my eyes found what Lieutenant Flaherty was so upset about. Close to the back wall of the clearing, sitting atop a pile of garbage, was the demon Telacor. For a bit of context, Telacor was a nuisance and a half. He was something like the Forrest Gump of demons, if there was some demonic incursion to our realm, chances are this mother fucker was there for it.
Just then, before we could strategize, a small demon came toward the entrance, dragging a homeless man by his legs. The demon cackled to itself, apparently proud of the flaying work it had performed on the man earlier. It dropped the man’s legs and brushed its hand off before turning to see Jorgensen. The wretch barely gasped before Jorgensen grabbed the damn thing by its throat and squeezed. The demon’s eyes bulged out of its skull as our commander punched it in the face, sending it flying back into the rubble behind us. I lined up a shot, but the little bastard was too quick. It scampered off into the room, screaming its head off.
Every demon in the room looked over to see the five of us standing there. Their leader, that shit-for-brains Telacor pointed at us and hissed some foul incantation. All of his minions stopped torturing the people that remained alive and started barreling toward us.
”Open fire!” Jorgensen hollered. “Take out as many as you can.”
We began firing at any demon that came near. Most of them went down after a few bullets, but some were more resistant. Kenju blasted the bigger ones with his marksman rifle as the rest of us fired on the nearest demon. I almost shot a woman who came running out of the room. She had what looked like nails sticking out of her skin, covering her body.
”Ma’am, get down!” Flaherty shouted. “Make your way over here!”
The woman half crawled, half scuttled over toward Flaherty, who in turn pushed the homeless woman behind her. The lady ducked into a corner away from the chaos and covered her ears as the ringing of an absurd amount of bullets flying through the air made my ears begin to hurt, even through the armored helmet. I turned my head to face our flank, as a booming sound had begun to bear down on us from the dark hall. I swung my light, and consequently my rifle, down in the direction of the noise to see another horde of the hellish beasts barreling down on the six of us.
”Commander!” I shouted. “We have incoming bogeys!”
The team leader whipped his head over to where I had alerted him. He swore into his mic, and motioned for us to begin pulling back.
”Retreat to the entrance!” Jorgensen shouted over his radio. “Santos! Do you copy?”
”Yes, boss,” Santos answered. “Are you guys clear?”
”Does it sound like we’re clear?! What’s your status?”
”I’m set, Commander. Not a sound from anything other than some rats.”
”Okay, we are wrapping up here, call in for exfil!”
Santos confirmed the order, as we kept firing on the hordes bearing down on us. We were cleaning the beasts up nicely, but they kept coming. A massive pile of ash was accumulating from where the demon’s violently exploded as their souls were sent back to Hell. Jorgenson switched between shooting the wretched beasts and pummeling them with his fists, while the rest of us rapidly fired holy bullets into any demon that dared near our position. We ran back to rendezvous with Santos, taking turns laying covering fire and retreating.
Soon enough, we had reached Santos. I heard him call out and he told us to get behind the sentry turrets as he activated them. The turrets rapidly fired into the oncoming crowd of devils, as the rest of us caught our breath. Before the demons could halt their attack, they were being torn into left and right, ash filling up the tunnel from the preposterous amounts of hellspawn being sent back to the netherworld. By the time the turrets were drained of their ammunition, only a few demons that had not turned tail and ran poked their heads out from the ruined tunnels. Among them was that dumb bastard Telacor.
”My master will not be pleased,” the demon hissed at us, pointing his fat fingers at each of us. His words slurred like he hadn’t held an actual conversation in years. “Your souls will be harvested for the pleasures of those I serve.”
”Perhaps,” Flaherty retorted. “But not today.”
She aimed her rifle at Telacor, attempting to finish him off. He could take quite a beating, more so than his minions, but in the open and with a hailstorm of holy rounds, he would go down like the rest. Just as Flaherty fixed her sights on the trifling demon before us, a portal opened behind it. He performed a short, mock bow before leaping through the rift. It closed as we fired into it, having no effect. The remaining few demons looked at each other, then toward us. We picked them off with ease.
After that, everything went on as normal. A Blackhawk came to pick us up, along with the surviving homeless woman, who somehow was still clinging to life. We were debriefed by command on the mission, thanked for our valiant effort, and sent on our way. This operation was fairly routine for our squad. While we don’t do this every day, Triton-9 has done it enough where some missions seem more lackluster than others. Of course, I have more tales from my service in the Extranormal Warfare Initiative, and I’m sure I’ll have them posted in the coming days. Until then, stay safe. This is Agent Thomas Leon, signing off.