by Kipjo Ewers
His question was answered by a deafening roar that came from one of the barracks.
“Sir, I got her,” Blitz answered while strafing off in the direction of the roar.
˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜
Within a barracks, Merge cornered a young ISIS terrorist trembling like a leaf as he held a machete out to defend himself. He was the last of the living after she stormed it savagely mauling everyone that got in her path.
She paced the floor staring at her mouse with her fangs reared. She released a booming roar which caused the young man to almost drop his weapon.
“Please …don’t kill me …” He choked in his Arabic tongue. “Please …I surrender … I surrender …”
“Drop your weapon; get on your knees with your hands behind your head.”
Merge’s ears propped up against the sound of Blitz’s voice, but her eyes remained trained on her kill.
Blitz used the translator on his suit to allow the boy to understand what he was saying.
“Drop your weapon now, and get down like I told you, or she will kill you.”
The young man quickly obeyed dropping the weapon and assumed the position of surrender that Blitz instructed him to take. Merge however bellowed out another roar as she prepared to pounce on him.
“Merge, he has surrendered,” Blitz said with a forceful tone. “The combatant is no longer a threat. Take him into custody. Merge!”
Without a word, she turned back to her human form looking down at the ISIS fighter with disgust, before turning to Blitz.
“You can take him into custody.”
She walked out of the bunker not giving him a second look as he turned to watch her leave wondering what was going on between the two of them, and how long he’d be able to endure this side of her he had not seen before. Questioning if it was always there.
Back outside, a recovered Heavy Element and Sister Sledge began patting down, removing weapons, and applying plastic restraints while Nitro and Cyclone marched in stragglers. The quiet descending Tornado started a scan securing the perimeter from above. The Sarge with his rifle in the safety position stood as a granite sentinel covering his team against the unexpected.
“You demons!”
The howl came from a defiant terrorist sitting on the ground with his comrades.
“You think you won! Allah is on our side, and he will strike you all down!”
Every member of the Regulator team paused and slowly looked up at the sky waiting to be struck down.
“You infidels!” He screamed. “You dare mock Allah!”
“No, they mock you,” Nitro answered while walking up to him. “They are waiting to see if Allah will answer the prayers of a murderer and rapist.”
“Don’t forget to add hypocrite,” Heavy Element chimed in as he held up a red vial of the unknown substance some of the terrorists used to gain superhuman abilities. “Considering you’re roiding your soldiers up on this shit to obtain the power of ‘demons.'”
“We do it in the name of Allah!” the terrorist howled. “We do it in the name of Islam!”
“Spoken like a true religious extremist,” Nitro scoffed. “There’s a special place in hell for people like you who twist the words of Allah for their own ends.”
“Fuck you, you traitor!” the terrorist spat in his direction,” I Agharr Salaam spit in your mother’s pussy!”
The verbal offense was enough to cause Nitro to charge up and advance with the intention of incinerating the ISIS soldier where he sat.
“What the fuck did you say about my mother you piece of shit?”
Heavy Element jumped in Nitro path placing on firm metallic hand on his chest stopping him.
“Private, remember who you are.”
Nitro reluctantly powered down and stormed off getting some needed distance to calm down, while Sister Sledge strolled over to the vocally radical terrorist.
“Unless you want me to grab you by your scrawny legs and slam you around like a rag doll until it rips off, shut up.”
“I don’t take orders from a fucking woman!” Agharr howled from his seated position. “I heard you as you fell from the sky demon! It is bad enough that you invade our lands! How dare an infidel like you yell Allah Akbar?”
“I dare because I am Muslim,” she glared back at him.
“Then you are worse than an infidel,” Agharr spat on the ground, “You too are a traitor! A traitor to Allah! A traitor to Islam! You are nothing more than a filthy traitorous …”
His foul words were choked out of him as Sister Sledge reached down wrapping her hand around his throat and effortlessly hoisted him into the air.
“You are the traitor!” She spat back in perfect Arabic. “All of you have betrayed Allah and Islam! The way of Allah is not spilling the blood of the innocent! It is not murder, rape, or subjugation! Allah is all-powerful! He is omnipotent! He is the Creator of all! He does not need you to fight wars for Him!”
She violently released him, dropping him back into the group of captured prisoners.
“That is why Allah has blessed me with this strength!” She pointed at him. “This is my jihad! I will fight the likes of you forever to restore the true honor of Islam! The difference between you and I is that I can do it forever, and I will win!”
“Sister Sledge.”
She turned at the sound of Rogers's voice, as he gave her a look requesting to keep it professional. She fired at him a dirty look still remembering the stunt he pulled before walking off.
In the midst of the roundup, Merge returned and was greeted by her twin brother who stepped in her path observing the large blood pattern on her suit and skin.
“What happened to you?”
“Mauled a couple of insurgents in their barracks,” She flatly answered while observing the blast pattern on his chest. “What happened to you?”
“Tank shell to the chest.”
“Again?”
“Where’s Oliver?”
“Bringing in a lone survivor,” she pointed back with her thumb, “Is this everyone?”
“Maxine’s doing a thermal scan from the Tornado as we speak, so far she took out two snipers. The pat down is almost complete, and I need to take a tally of this red shit, you should go report to the Sarge.”
She nodded as he walked away; she turned to see Oliver walking with the young insurgent from the barracks in restraints setting him down with the rest of the terrorists they captured. Distracted by her thoughts, she barely noticed Cyclone walking up to her.
“Thanks for having my back today … I …”
“You ever get distracted in a combat situation again,” Merge addressed her with a thick bass tone and zero eye contact. “You will be done. Do you hear me rook?”
Before Cyclone could acknowledge, she walked off to report into the Sarge. Cyclone sighed while shaking her head as Nitro walked up behind her.
“Don’t take it personally, her bark is worse than her bite.”
Cyclone turned to him giving him a dull sardonic look.
“Yeah that’s was a lie,” he slightly lowered his head. “Both her bark and bite are horrible.”
The Sarge stood calmly spewing smoke from his nose and mouth as his cigar remained fixed within it while his eyes stayed locked on the prisoners his team and him captured with a dull gaze. They moved slightly as Merge walked up to him to report in.
“Reporting in sir,” she responded with a stiff salute.
“You alright?” He asked with a gruff.
“Yes, sir.”
He acknowledged her with a head nod and additional smoke.
“Take over babysitting duty; I want to check out this red shit Heavy Element is rounding up. Don’t eat anyone.”
“Yes, sir.”
As he walked off, Merge transformed into her were-version of a timber wolf. Her savage growl had several of the captured insurgents yelp where they sat.
The Sarge strolled
up to Heavy Element down on one knee tallying up the number of pouches each housing red vials used to boost the ISIS insurgents.
“Every last one of these sons of bitches had a pouch on them, Sarge,” Heavy Element said while extending a pouch to him. “Considering the numbers and how fast this stuff apparently works, this should have been a lot harder.”
The Sarge took the black pouch opening it up examining the contents inside. He began to slowly scan the dead, and the living huddled together.
“Less than half their number boosted.”
“Yep.”
“There’s more of this shit lying around here.”
“Yep.”
“Run a sweep of the entire camp,” he ordered. “And don’t forget to use the Doozers.”
“You’re never going to let me live that down,” Heavy Element shook his head.
“You’re just lucky your sorry ass was in metal form, and all you suffered was smoke inhalation.”
“You do realize you just let …”
The Sarge narrowed his eyes at Heavy Element pulling rank as he blew thick white Cuban smoke from his nostrils and mouth. He took the hint straightening up a bit.
“Yes sir,” he cleared his throat before activating his comlink. “Maxine, we’re going to need some Doozers to do some ground sweeps.”
“Sending them down,” she acknowledged.
“And contact Lieutenant Colonel Stantz so he can send in his team and the transports.” The Sarge interjected.
“Affirmative.”
˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜
As suspected, the sweep of the base unveiled more crates of the unknown red serum. On Roger’s orders, the carts were loaded onto the Tornado before members of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines showed up to retrieve the prisoners they captured. The prisoners were then split into two different transport vehicles. Those that boosted were taken into custody by the Regulators and transported via a prison shuttle commanded by Replicators backed by two black hulking Quad Doozers taking them to the newly constructed Purgatory where they were to be held until their powers went dormant. After a quick verbal debriefing where the Sarge left out the finding of the red booster serum the ISIS soldiers used during the battle, the team departed returning stateside to the Ranch.
The flight back was mostly silent with thick molasses tension within the cabin as individual members chose to sit far away from one another while others sat in the middle of the ship making no subtle movements as they prayed for the hypersonic craft to fly faster and land so that they could get off. The only one unaffected was Adrian who leaned back in his chair with his headphones on cracking up as he watched the latest Foamy the Squirrel episode on YouTube.
He took a minute to look up from his screen and see a frustrated Aashif with his head down running his hand through his partially dyed fire orange and black hair. With a huff, he put the video on pause, removed his headset and sat up leaning forward into his junior teammate’s space.
“Aashif, you alright?”
Aashif lifted his head from his thoughts answering him with a nod.
“You know, I remember I got into this huge fight at school because this punk said something about my mother,” Adrian jumped into his story. “Busted his nose, closed his eye, I got suspended for two weeks. When I got home, my mother almost killed me, which was a shock because it was usually my dad who was trying to murder me when I screwed up. When she calmed down, she told me she was hurt because I of all people who she gave birth to and raised should know what type of lady she is in the streets, the type of wife she is to my father, and the type of mother she is to my sister and me. She said my fists are only to be thrown at people who try to physically hurt my family, not for punks who throw out lies with their mouth and don’t know jack about her.”
Adrian gave Aashif’s leg a sharp brotherly smack as he looked him dead in the eyes.
“Your mom was a proud soldier who served her country, a hero, and no insult from some insurgent bitch whose now off to a black site changes that. You got that?”
“Thanks,” Aashif nodded with a smirk.
He changed the subjected glancing at the tension coming from opposite sides of the ship.
“So, what do we do about this?” Aashif whispered.
“Well I can transform into the properties of metal,” Adrian shrugged. “As for you, I’d strongly advise not making any sudden movements until this bird lands, then find your way to the exit as quickly as possible.”
Both Teuila who was listening to the conversation and Aashif cut him a sardonic dirty look as he leaned back in his seat with a bright grin repositioning his headset back over his ears to listen to the rest of the video on his phone.
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Finally arriving at the Ranch the roof of massive hanger slid open. Maxine performed a VTOL landing inside of it. The platform locks engaged securing the Tornado as the roof closed, while the floor underneath the ship disengaged making a slanted downward descent into the newly reconstructed Regulator base.
Waiting at the bottom was Erica Champion who went by the call sign Lady Tech accompanied by Maxine’s younger android sisters Jennifer and Angie and two human-sized Quad Doozers.
She stuck her hands in her white lab coat, dressed in simple jeans, a black Wu-Tang t-shirt, and Converse sneakers. As the floor came to a stop locking into place next to the second Tornado, Erica strolled closer to the opening side hatch.
Teuila and Aashif were the first to exit the ship with faces of relief.
“Welcome …back?” She greeted them with a face of confusion.
Both wore mirrored visages as if they were too scared to speak.
“What happened?” Erica asked with narrowed eyes.
“Not a thing,” Teuila answered shaking her head.
“Not a damn thing,” Aashif firmly reiterated shaking his own head.
Erica fluttered her eyes with irritated disgust as Rosann followed by Sister Shareef exited the ship next. She eyes first locked onto the thick dried up blood on Rosann’s leotard body suit, bare legs, and one side of her face.
“Uh …welcome back.”
Rosann greeted her with a half smirk, while Sister Shareef walked up to her with a pleasant smile giving her a pat on the shoulder.
“Maxine reported that the mission was a success.”
“It was,” Shareef nodded.
“So why does everyone look like we’re in an episode of the Walking Dead?”
Shareef’s pleasant expression changed to one of displeasure as more boots came down the ship’s boarding steps. Adrian was the first to come down with a big yawn and stretch followed by Oliver, who made zero eye contact with Rosann as he walked up to Erica throwing a fake smile on. She then realized what was actually going on.
“I stand corrected,” Erica muttered to herself. “We’re in an episode of Friends.”
A marble face Rogers was second to last to exit the ship followed by Maxine. Sister Shareef rolled her eyes not even looking in his direction and walked away to keep the distance between the two of them. Erica sighed and then mentally willed herself out of the personal affairs of her teammates as Rogers approached her.
“Any problems with the M2?”
“A slight kick back,” Rogers answered shaking his head, “But nothing too serious, far better than the M1.”
“So, what’s this new booster you uncovered that you decided to secretly rush back here?”
Rogers handed her one of the pouches they removed from an ISIS insurgent. She opened it up taking out the vial of red liquid looking it over.
“We uncovered twelve additional crates of this stuff,” Rogers frowned. “It apparently works the second it is injected into the body, every insurgent had a pouch like this on their person, but for some reason not all of them boosted.”
“I’ll run some tests.”
Erica’s face formed a scowl as she leaned in giving Rogers a whiff.
“Why do you smell like blood and burnt meat?” She asked while coiling back.
“Because he’s a dumbass.”
Both of them turned to the sound of Sister Shareef’s voice as she glared at him from where she stood.
“You don’t need to know the gory details child.”
“Fine with me,” Erica shrugged while wafting the scent away.
She uncomfortably stood in the middle of the two as Sister Shareef continued to look at Rogers with dagger eyes.
“Something you want to say to me?” Rogers asked with a gruff.
Sister Shareef sucked her teeth before answering.
“Nope …I’m off to the showers and will be in my room afterward …and I don’t wish to be disturbed.”
As she sauntered off, Lady Tech took over giving him a disapproving glare.
“What did you do?”
Rogers looked down at her with a dull expression she knew all too well.
“The day you furnish a birth certificate that says I came from your womb, I might tell you.”
He then spun on his heel walking away.
“You make me think about getting my tubes tied!” She shot back.
“Rosann and Oliver, a word,” Rogers waved them over with a hand gesture.
Both of them glanced at one another before walking over to Rogers standing before him.
“What did I say about keeping your personal shit out of my missions?” he whispered.
Oliver embarrassingly looked away, while Rosann shamefully lowered her head.
“Normally I deliver, one warning, but you two have enough salt in you that I can extend you this one-time courtesy and deliver one …final ...warning. Break up, stay together, I don’t give a damn. Figure it out on your own time, and keep it the hell out of my missions. Is that understood?”
“Yes sir,” they both acknowledged.
“There won't be a strike three. That’s all, go get cleaned up and some food in you.”
Rosann turned marching off with a scowl on her face, as Oliver sucked in and exhaled all of the air into his lungs in frustration following behind at a safe distance.