45 Hellfire invasion(10): Rescue(2)

"Ah, this is a mistake," My words lumbered through the earpiece nested in my ear.

Words returned to me, jumbled over the static, but they were familiar enough for me to make them out; Jason was speaking, "Not confident at all, are you?"

As I laboured my sniper rifle over the spot I had abandoned during the last assault, letting the sand settle the bipod in, I grumbled, "Take a guess, I don't even have the mortar display."

"Shame, but we are doing this anyway," Nightwing shot over the air, his voice clear as day, probably because he was above ground, unlike our other brother. At least it helped with hiding his location better…I think. No, no, that's magic's job, right? Ah, this is stupid, relying on magic to hide our presence from demons, which you know come directly from the myths and fairy tales? Still, our resident magician, Zatanna, had already deemed it safe. Hopefully, she was right.

Though truth be told, it was far too late to complain now, not after having thrown my hat in this ring. Still, it was not like it was all bad. We had the meat shield, sorry, Super Girl, to throw at Superman. That gave me confidence, at least.

Speaking of the blonde, I shifted my gaze to the favourite blond of every DC fuck-fic, and from the side of my eyes, I could see her. She was sitting cross-legged next to me while I was on my stomach, lying on the ground and checking my equipment, watching the revolving stone rings of the ritual with stern intensity, "Well, if looks could kill."

"Mine can," She retorted, and my hands rose in mock surrender to placate her. She smiled at that, but I ignored it and moved to adjust my lens, not that it helped. All I saw when I pushed my eye into the scope were stranglers and remnants roaming on the desert sand amidst the torn limbs of their comrades. The real army had gone underground again.

The Blonde cleared her throat to draw attention, pulling me out of my scope, "We have time before the assault, so humour me," I gave her a side glance and asked, "About what?

"I don't know…just anything!"

"So, her Majesty's looking for a jester?"

"If she can distract me? Sure."

"Nervous?"

"Yeah, my first mission," She groaned, "And here I am trying to rescue Clark."

So she needed a distraction? Fine, my mind quickly drew the technique Mom used to throw at my brother to distract him, "So, you're dating someone?"

"What?" I smiled at her surprise as I resumed my scouting, but I still kept up the conversation, "I asked if you are dating someone."

Confused, she responded, "No?"

"So you want to?"

"I guess…?"

"Hmm, what's your type?"

"A kind and caring guy. But why are you asking me this?"

I didn't even turn to her as I replied, "Not very nervous any more, are you?"

She was silent for a moment, almost as if It took a moment for her to register my words, and when it did, only one sound left her lips, "Ah."

———

——

—

Clatter, its wings went, colliding in a steady chime, painting to its blind mind a picture of the world.

Clatter, its wings went, and the cold desert was silent, nothing but the bothersome howl of the Earth's winds.

It was hot here when he first stepped foot on this land, not unlike its home, not unlike when it was with its mother, but now it is cold. Chilly.

Clatter, just the shifting sand—A Critter.

It wanted to be done here, be home. Feed its mother the flesh it was promised. Feed itself and its newborn siblings.

Clatter, nothing.

Oh well, if all went well, it would be fed soon enough.

And so, back to duty it was, letting its wolfish head rest on the sand, letting its fleshy appendages clamp up against themselves.

Clatter. A rodent.

Clatter. A snake.

Clatter. The wind.

Clatter, the wind was torn. Like a violent crack, the breaking of the sound barrier rippled outwards from miles away, and then that one crack turned into a thousand.

They were under attack.

It tried to move, but its caterpillar-like body blubbered, trying to snap a move under the weight of its body but failing.

And as the artillery shells neared, it screamed in denial, but as it felt the scorch, it knew human lumps of metal neared, and then its wings clattered no more.

___

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_

Mira pulled back the charging handle of her sniper rifle and dialled another round in as she watched the quote on-quote 'scattered' artillery barrage landing shells pinpoint on any demons above ground, tearing them to pieces.

At this point, the army was just showing off with its spotters compared to anything Mira could do, well professional murder-men will always be better at being professional murder-men than a 'Hero.'

She pushed it out of her mind. Now was not the time to be asking for lessons. Not as their rather explosive provocation worked, not as the tattered dunes gave way for the demons to burst out.

One thing fell to her notice as her eyes watched over the battlefield through the brilliant magnification afforded by her sniper scope. The demons were following old doctrine. They had not adapted, not like the military had.

Precision artillery—brought to life by those very spotters risking life and limb to give the artillery the vision to do their job. Which is to say, give everything that dared to its face a prime delivery of enough tungsten to blow them to kingdom come.

The battlefield was carnage, blood, and guts turning the yellow sand red, and Kara could see all of it, the way that an explosion tore off the flesh from bone, the way the bodies separated, the sounds, the searches, the pleas–it made her feel the bile churning in her stomach, she struggled to keep it in, "Is that what Earth's wars look like?"

Mira took a second to answer, her eyes still stagnantly gazing through her scope at all the same, "This is not a war; it's a slaughter. I haven't seen one, but I would imagine them to be worse."

"No? We fight to keep a monster from the Earth, and you say it's not a war?" She flinched. No way.

"It isn't. I doubt the army thinks so, either. The only reason we are being so careful is because of Superman. The military would have burnt this place to ash by now otherwise."

"Only because of him?"

"Yep. And seriously, if you are battered by this, I don't know what a real war would do to you either."

All of this said, not by a veteran but by a girl barely 5 years her junior, never mind her appearance, was this standard of human children? No, she had been with them, seen many grow up around her. They play, they get afraid, they are not…this, not things that would look at this death and not even care.

Wait! Was she calling her teammate a thing? What was wrong with her?

Kara felt her gut bleed, this was a kid, yet her body still involuntarily retreated a step; God damn her for this.

A dry lump gashed her throat, only to be stopped when Mira glanced at her and smiled at her, "I am not a psychopath, just used to it."

It was almost as if she knew what was on her mind, but Kara didn't want to acknowledge it, so she argued back, lying, "Not what I was thinking. And being used to it is not a good thing either, you know?"

Mira shrugged it off, "Life's a bitch; as they say, you just gotta say 'fuck you' to her face and move on."

Kara's words felt forced even to her, "Right," but soon the radio came to her rescue when her coms rang up; Damien was on the air, "Superman's coming. Kara, you are up," it was her chance to escape, and immediately she was gone, leaving behind a breath she didn't even know she was holding.

Mira lost her smile as soon as she was gone; a curse escaped her lips, "Ah fuck."

Still, it was not time for that; Kara noticed something, she was slipping, not respecting the 'B-grade' heroes' intelligence. Idiotic.

No, now was not the time. She clicked her scope away; their part was almost done, a distraction. Get Superman. And then take Raven back, the poor MacGuffin that she was.

Though Mira did wonder why Batman was unaware of this, and most of all, why did he not do this? Well, he or anyone other Hero, for that matter.

Regardless now that she was out of sight, Mira pulled back her gloves and closed her eyes. The dark of the night became even thicker. She felt her senses drain as even the heat from her body faded. All that was left was the void—a hollow nothing.

What did she want? She wanted another [Forager]. Feel it, and it will come. Let your instincts do the work. And as if responding to her call, her body mass clumped inwards. Like fodder for the beast, it merged and slowly, like clay taking shape on its own, it formed out of her flesh, folding, bending and morphing till it took the shape Mira wanted.

A worm-like thing with a hundred small eyes and deep void wells for ears, it had thousands of tendrils moving all around its round body. It looked disgusting. Even Mira had to give it that, but that did not matter, for as soon as the critter opened its eyes and blitzed off her into the sand and then deeper inside.

It was going in after Jason and his team.

———

——

—

[P.O.V-Mira]

Its eyes saw many things; its ears heard many, too—a lot of which were useless, but my [Forager] was doing its job well, following the underground team.

Jason pulled his palm into a fist over his shoulder, and his team came to a stop behind him.

He flinched for a moment before he turned back to his team and nodded.

I didn't follow the conversation; I couldn't, not even with my [Forager]. They were probably in a psychic link centred on the Martian.

At least they couldn't outrun my [Forager] in there. Another thing, it was not human-made, too short and narrow for that, and not natural either. The soil had been shoved aside and pressed into the walls, it was probably a demon-made tunnel, and with each step, it just kept growing darker. The loose soil, the sense of suffocation and being forced to move on their arms and knees did not help them at all. But despite that, they kept moving.

After a while, they stopped; Jason turned to the Martian, who, in response, went invisible and started to fly through them and deeper into the cave. Right, she could do that.

"Never going to get used to that," The beetle in blue added, and while Jason looked like he wanted to agree, he kept his lips closed.

And then, as he was turning to continue, he froze before he started pushing faster, quickly picking up the place and leading his team. He soon led them to the mouth of the tunnel, and the sight laid out in front of him—we made him pause.

Inside a cavity walled in by soil and gravel, a naked red mass of flesh, withered and trashed. It was monolithic. If I threw a human in there, it would be like dumping a bucket into a lake and morphing out of that was what we had been fighting, demons.

The flesh from that thing was building up in clumps and, like spores, those clumps popped off from the main amoeboid thing only to start digging through the walls of the cave for a way up. They were probably why the walls had more holes than the American healthcare system.

What in the nine hells was that? A demon factory? Is that what I was looking at? A cache of flesh? A sweatshop to make more demons?

And where did that flesh even come from—oh right, what's the abundant source of meat on this planet? Humans.

But even then, that's too big; a thousand humans had to have been made into a paste for that—no way the National Guard didn't notice.

Unless the demons fucked with the army too, and why wouldn't they? But the men supporting us were redeployed from elsewhere, so they probably weren't infected. They came today from their bases miles out, for fuck's sake.

No, the commanders, then? Fuck, at least they can't order the men to fire at us. Then that effectively makes them moles? Yeah, that's probably it. Spies. So, do I not trust them? No, I can't risk it…but then again, this could all just be my paranoia taking.

But…but. Ah, fuck this. I need to concentrate on the situation at hand.

Okay, what was I looking at? Jason? Right, Jason, and with just one glance at his face, I could tell he had gone through some shit in his head, but he also knew there were way too many budding demons here. Too many for us to handle.

Miss Martian reappeared by their side and passed a whisper, "We need to do something," to which he responded with a nod.

We were neck-deep in shit.

It was a good thing I had sent it to follow Jason; it gave me information, and information gave me options.

Options, options, what option? Fuck. My mind was drawing a blank.

What the hell do I do?

Just the sight of that massive blob of flesh—heavy munitions were required, and Jason didn't have that. And just by looking up, I could see the beams of death and destruction carving their mark into the Sky as all of our heavy hitters moved to beat down Superman. They were out. We required something else.

Shifting my hands off my sniper rifle, I dug into my chest, pulling my phone out of it and flicking it open; my messenger had the text I wanted to send ready, and all I did was send it.

Putting my phone back, I took a deep breath.

Nightwing was to sneak in from a different vector. That might have worked when we assumed that the demons had a moderately large army. I could bet they were hiding everywhere and playing us for fools.

He and his entire team would be bogged down in a slug match. And the artillery could hardly help them, not unless they wanted his team to make out with the shells that you know bad this itty-bitty property to explode.

Damn it. Imperfect information and shitty assumptions had led to this, a situation that was one wrong move from going titis up.

But at the end of the day, it was hardly my issue—not any more, not after sending that text.

Yeah, I might have helped plan this, yeah, I might also have helped organise this with the army, but—This was my problem, wasn't it?

I needed to help them win. Besides, if I didn't, it would fail one of my goals: accumulating merit. Heck, this was probably going to count as a demerit.

With all these thoughts in my mind, I let my heavy weapons rest on the sand as I stood up on the sand mound. It gave me a good vantage point to assess my situation.

Damien and the Brutes were bashing against Superman.

Jason was underground.

And Nightwing was never going to get out once his fight started.

And so, all the pieces were stuck, pinned in place.

Fuck, how do we defeat them—no, that is stupid. What's our objective?

Kill the demons? No.

Rescue Superman? No.

Stop Trigon. That's the job.

And to stop Trigon—my eyes snapped to the girl floating unconscious in between the ritual site.

Can't kill her, no, that would be the end of my career.

Only one thing I can do, save her.

Shaking away my thoughts, I focused on the job.

The ritual was in a straight line from me, and the demon density was being kept in the single digits thanks to the artillery fire. What all that meant was: I had a direct path to Raven.

A sandy path being pounded by artillery but a path nonetheless.

Well, risk begets reward—the greater the former, the greater the latter.

Still, let's cut down on that risk.

I called my [Forager] to the surface, turned around, and walked up to the two jets that had flown us here. One was the Javelin, the other? The Batwing that Jason had 'borrowed.'

I pressed my fingers on the earpiece, and it did what it was meant to, opening my voice channel, "Oracle, do me a favour."

"Yeah?" Her voice rang back, "Break the bike from the Batwing."

"What?"

Right, I needed to give a decent enough excuse to do this, didn't I?

"The demons have a hive underground. There are many more, too many for us to win."

"What are you talking about?"

"By my count, we have killed about a hundred or so of these things, and they just don't stop coming."

"So?"

"I am going to get Raven."

"How? Riding through the deserts?"

"Why would you do that? Insane."

"Because, Barbara, we are losing. Again."

Instantly she blew a gasket, "So fucking what, Mira!? You want to throw your life at risk because of that!?"

'So?' What do you mean, woman? We are stuck; we are losing; how is this acceptable? Losing to these Godforsaken abominations again and again, is this okay with you?

Pathetic.

"Heroes teach children to persevere through hardship and fight hard with a smile. Be kind, be humane, yet despite all the death, where is the anger in you all?"

She was silent for a second, and I took advantage of it to press on and lied, "These things, they kill us, tear down our bodies and mangle them for their use. I hate them. I hate them all."

I don't feel anything for these deaths, but shouldn't you?

And the truth is that you feel angry, don't you? Deep down, inside your hearts, inside layers of posturing and restraint, you feel angry, don't you?

My lips curled into a smile; she was biting the bait, "I want to end this Demonic nonsense. I want to save Raven. This plan is already in the gutter."

I looked up into the sky; they had reached a deadlock, Superman was not losing, and they were not winning; he avoided as many fights as he could, letting lasers travel by him.

"Smart," I spoke, "Superman takes only takes the fights he can win and has the speed to deny fights he can't."

I heard her sigh over the air, and her voice came back, "Fine. I will coordinate with the arm—" I cut her off, "Go directly to the battery commanders. The higher-ups might have been infected."

"Paranoid," She scoffed.

"It will keep us alive. And by the way…"

"Yes?"

"The Justice League, I gave them a call. Ten minutes and they will be here."

"YOU WHAT!?"