Chapter 6-172: A Portal to Damnation

“They’ve set the town on fire!” Corporal Katherine Newton reported, seeing the rising flames and smoke that hadn’t been there moments before. The speed at which it was done made it plain it was premeditated and in position.

“Ignore the town, what we want is under the vortex.” Sama doubted anything was left alive in the town. “I imagine the entire town was a blood sacrifice for what they are doing.”

All the young women went silent, realizing they were up against something totally ruthless and uncaring of what it did to non-combatants. Their expressions hardened as they recalled stories of similar events they’d heard of as children... and more of them related to them as they went through Basic.

There were some foul, vile, and ruthlessly evil forces in their world, and someone had to fight them.

This time, that someone was them...

“The Rules of Engagement are to shoot everything that is not us. The enemy is Demonic. With both Ogres and Minotaurs, we are talking both Fey and Hag involvement. They will have sussed out every living thing in the city, and it is going to either be dead or under their complete mental domination. No matter what it looks like, you shoot it, kill it, and move on.”

They remembered vids of happy dogs blowing up like bombs, children pulling strings of grenades, American soldiers turned into glassy-eyed puppets shredding their friends and brothers-in-arms, suicide-detonating bombs and mines in the face of attackers, and the like.

Some of the examples came from video games, perhaps not surprisingly. It was the best way to expose people to some of the horrors that things like this did early. It wasn’t the same as seeing it in real life, of course, but at least they had some exposure.

“Expect illusions, possible shape-changers, demonfire, possibly undead, who knows. Prepare to shoot it all.

“Identification call-signs will be fruits, then vegetables.” Sama ignored the eyebrows being sent her way. “Response will have a letter lower than challenge. Don’t challenge with zucchini.” Smirks broke out behind her. “All right, my team will breach on the west, Team Two on the east. Meet on the south side of the vortex. Good luck.”

The replies were subdued as the two groups split wide. There were only two vehicles left in the convoy, and the blockade of stacked cars hurled into place at the edge of town assured them all that neither of the APC’s were going to make it very far.

That said, they still floored it as their summoners ordered, juking back and forth slightly to foil any grenades being sent out their way, while the real attacks were coming in from the sides.

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The magic swirling past her Null was like a thick and foul current, turgid with negative emotions and sin drawn down from the Hatecloud writhing above. Sama could sense the touch of Hag and Fey magic, and just shook her head.

What are these idiots planning?

The vortex was smack on the borderline, drawing energy from the artificial division in the land, the conflict of law vs natural order, and the Chaos unleashed when such things happened. Did the idiots really think they could suborn the natural order?

She wasn’t in any danger from the creatures that were here, of course, but she wasn’t about to tell the Karma-hungry Powered all fired up with vengeance in their smoke masks and ready to kill everything here that.

They all knew she was a badass, and if anything came into melee range of her directly, Tremble was out and singing softly, letting everyone know exactly where she was, including the enemy, and that she was still alive. They charged her, and she cut them down. They shot at her, and she shot back, and so did the young women behind her.

And, of course, she was Warlording them.

“Squad Four move your ass across that yard and give Three some cover fire! Two, drop that ogre! Warlocks coming in from two o’clock, get your damn guns in position! Espana, grenade under that truck, NOW!” CRUMP! Aie!... “Finish them! Squad One, RPG on the barricade right in front of that Bullhorn!” POOM! “Three, finish them!” Sergeant Gertrude led her platoon into the breach in a spray of cover fire.

Reports were singing out left and right as guns barked back and forth. The balefire that tended to accompany the enemy made them easy to pick out, if ferociously dangerous, and two or three hits was enough to kill the Threes following her without much trouble.

Reserves accompanying the rounds shooting back were fully capable of returning the favor, too, and the enemy didn’t have many solutions for Minor TK dropping a grenade in on their positions and popping the pin there.

The Fireball going off was an unwelcome addition, as were the screams accompanying it. The formerly invisible Witch was promptly filled full of holes, but the enemy was charging the wounded squad, aiming to kill them directly before they could be healed and recovered.

Sama covered a hundred yards in five seconds, and the attackers couldn’t help but whirl around when they heard the ominous two-tones coming for them. Trailing red and black Jotun-killing Banefire, she drove into the gleeful group of ogres ready to rape the women who had taken cover behind the brick wall, who were now scattered and dying in the garden beyond.

The ogres’ deep bellows of agony as she cut them down were quickly drowned out by Tremble’s condemning notes, and their stench was thankfully overwritten by the smoke around and kept away by her Vajra regardless.

Squad Four had Corporal Annabelle in it, who was a Healer. They came up into position, and gawked at the massive bodies in several parts scattered the road, Sama calmly catching a Warlock fifty yards away in the face with a bolt from her hand crossbow Fall, waiting for them to arrive.

Corporal Annabelle ignored everything else, quickly Stabilizing all of them with a Cantrip, and then starting her use of Healing Reserve. It wouldn’t restore their Soak, meaning they’d still be extremely vulnerable, not much tougher than any other human, but they’d at least still be able to fight.

The main road into town had been a disaster for the cultists, as the two APC’s had rammed into the barricade at full speed, to the utter astonishment of the defenders; avoided the RPG’s meant to take them out, and in doing so scattered the oversized ogres and their kin around.

A lot of gunfire had come together on the APC’s, but none were quite as effective as when the Phantom Servants pulled the cords on the claymores set onto the doors, and sent a whole lot of ball bearings in every direction while blowing the cabins apart, which really discomfited the creatures converging on them.

The extra one that went off when those still living pulled open the back of the second APC just added spice to the mix.

Healing was the edge her forces had, as well as the Casters and the like sensing Evil to suss out ambushes, dropping grenades precisely where they desired, and now looking for the invisible ambushers. The Robins were leapfrogging through the town, firing down street after street and taking out their targets, while Shinessey was swooping through the smoke and flames above, calling out positions of enemies while invisible.

“DEMON, DEM-“ The scream and roar of a gun on full auto cut off at the same moment as a crimson bolt of lightning descended from the sky, and Sama was already in motion for Squad Six.

It was two hundred yards, ten seconds away, weaving past a couple opportunistic cultist shooters, both of whom learned what Fall meant, and Sama slid around the side of a brick building that looked like the local post office, and didn’t even stop as she did.

The thing there was slick and black, unnaturally muscled, and completely unclothed, a sexless inky killing thing with a malformed head, large sunken eyes, and a gaping, smiling maw with double rows of shark’s teeth, a tongue of green-black diseased hue flickering about like a snake. The upper body of Corporal Trissia was being held up by the spine in its right hand, her expression of defiance and fear frozen forever on her face as it halted as it was about to bite off her right breast for a quick snack.

“Tremble!” Sama very distinctly heard this vile personification of Unseelie evil... squeak the Name.

“WE COME!” Sama screamed back at it, as Tremble lit up with gold around her silver edge, Fey-skedelic and Anathemic fury boiled around the edge of her Blade as two of Fall’s bolts punched into the thing, and Sama drove for it.

The four young women of the squad were dead, ozone hanging in the air. Two of them had been blown apart by a hatebolt Called down from above, and the other two hadn’t had any time to recover before this monstrosity of a grimm had hit them.

No, it wasn’t a demon, but many demons would have liked to be as wicked as this thing was.

Words came snarling up and rang out from the depths of her Curse, and by the look on its face as she tore into it, and it tried to do the same to her in a mad panic, it Knew This Song.

BOO-YEAH!, she grinned in exultation at this connection to the other Ranthas out there.

“From the shadows crawled the grimm,

Full of vigor, full of vim.

Venom, hate, fat on sin,

Mocking claws, a coward’s grin!

They struck from the rear,

Hunting pain and fear…

And were gutted, shattered, jaws split wide,

Fed to the Land, and cast aside!

Every day, a grimm to slay,

Until they dared not come to play!

TREMBLE, SHE COMES!”

The thing had DR 15/Holy Silver, which basically meant the slaughtered squad had no chance of doing any significant damage, even with their GR’s on full auto at point-blank range.

Sama’s Ki-Strike bypassed silver, and Tremble was already Twilight-edged, or mithral/adamant. Too, her Sword was Blessed, and her Soulsword up added another layer of Good upon it.

Double penetration turned ‘Overcome Resistance’ into ‘Exploit Vulnerability’. Red sun radiation became kryptonite.

Anathema!

It wanted to avoid all this, but she was moving too fast, too furious, and the Song was intimidating it to all ends, the memory driven into the fey unconscious by repeated slaughter over and over in Nightmare...

Until they dared not come to play!

When the vivic fire lit up, the shredded three-meter monstrosity, reaved through four times by that Sword, its jaw split, tongue severed, and missing half an arm, could only stare as the unwhite fire blazed up, and came down on a spirit made flesh, to Feed it to the Land.