The Dark Army (R)
Rated R fic approved by Psychic.
So... this is a preview to the story which I have been brainstorming since late 2006. It started out cliche, but I improved upon it drastically. I restarted the whole story at least three times in order to update it, and now I think it is worthy of being posted.
WARNING: This fic has been rated R for moments of graphic yet concentrated bloodletting, dark/controverisal elements, and occasional uses of strong language.
The Dark Army
August 2nd, 1953
Roswell area, New Mexico
Fifteen miles south of Area 51
02:44
It was a dark and cloudy night. The military waited on the cold granite that made up the ground which they stood. This was to be a silent operation. The military discovered an ancient artifact that sparked a fright in an Area 51 scientist Flint Torus, and the military was sent to set up a base on this barren plot of land in order to investigate this artifact. The artifact was large, and could hardly be moved. It very much resembled the Stonehenge, but it was considerably smaller, and according to Dr. Torus, it was riddled with an unidentifiable language inscribed all across the stone.
“What made you scared, Dr. Torus?” the commander of the investigation troop questioned. Dr. Torus continued to shiver as he saw the investigation team gear up to be as prepared as possible if this artifact could be dangerous.
“My colleagues and I, we… we went down here for some sampling of any flora in this region. We managed to find a few samples, but… they went with my colleagues.”
“What do you mean by that? Did your colleagues just leave you behind and returned to Area 51 when you all collected the samples?”
“No… no, that isn’t close to what happened. I remember seeing their faces… I remember seeing them in pain…”
“What happened? Why were they in pain?” the commander continued the questions.
“After we had successfully secured the samples to return to Area 51, we stumbled across that rock. Upon seeing it, I knew… I knew it wasn’t natural,” Dr. Torus answered. “But my colleagues were ignorant and naďve… they did not think that they would be in serious trouble upon touching that rock. Granted, I had little idea as well, but I simply had a hunch, and what happened proved that my hunch was correct.”
“What happened next?” the commander asked.
“Well, as if my implications haven’t been made clear already, they stood on the artifact, trying to read the language on it. They managed to take a picture of the text, which I am certain you have with you already, since their camera didn’t go with them,” Dr. Torus explained. “Within seconds after they took the photograph, I suddenly saw their skin just… just fly off of their body. It was then that they started screaming in pain. I turned to see if they were alright, but by that time, their muscle tissue was already being pulled from their bones… Soon, all I saw on them was a skeletal structure, which even that eventually disintegrated into nowhere.”
“Where did their remains go to?” the commander asked.
“I have not a clue, sir,” Dr. Torus replied.
“Okay…” the commander remarked. He was jotting everything Dr. Torus said onto a small piece of paper. “Continue.”
“When they completely disappeared, I quickly jumped into my automobile and took off for Area 51, because I, at first, believed that it may have been a spectral being. However, my pressure derived from that instance tells me that I wasn’t thinking straight, as clearly ghosts do not exist,” Dr. Torus iterated. “After hours of weeping, I did a small personal investigation, and I have come down to the hypothesis that everything that had happened that night was entirely connected to that artifact.”
“Well, you are the scientist here, Dr. Torus. You form the hypothesis, now you must experiment,” the commander responded.
“So you go as far as sending a couple of valuable men to test and see if my hypothesis can be confirmed to be correct?” Dr. Torus asked, not sure of the commander’s intentions on solving this.
“If it makes you feel better, think of it as a reenactment of the night your colleagues supposedly ‘died’. Only this time, the people who will go out there to test your estimation are wearing suits that will hopefully prevent the exact effect from happening again, if what you are saying in true.”
“I am only telling you what I saw. If what I saw was the truth, then that is a bonus for me,” Dr. Torus said.
The two walked over to the nearby tent. The commander stuck his head in and said something to the troops. His voice was muffled, as the tent walls were blocking his voice. He stuck his head back out and turned to Dr. Torus.
“How many men died that night?” he wondered.
“Only two of my colleagues went with me,” Dr. Torus answered. After the commander stuck his head into the tent again and spoke to his men, he stepped back and watched as two investigators wearing quarantine suits stepped out. One did not have to listen closely to hear the snoring sound that was the breathing of the investigators. “I do not approve of this, sir.”
“We don’t care. If a tourist comes about and gets sucked in as well, then we may be facing a nationwide controversy story, where everyone will blame the government even if we had little to do with this. Anything we can do to stop that from happening is better than sitting back and being attacked by large waves of the news media and press,” the commander barked. Dr. Torus kept quiet for a bit after that. He seemed to have forgotten that arguing with someone in the government would be pointless.
“Ready to go, sir?” an investigator asked the commander while facing his general direction. The investigator’s voice was transmitted through a device much like a walkie-talkie.
“If you are,” the commander said. The two investigators nodded, and began walking casually toward the artifact, which was surrounded by yellow police tape and stood a good fifty feet away from the camp. They ducked under the tape, and continued toward the artifact. Dr. Torus stood as still as a statue with a frightened complexion on his face as he watched the men walk closer to their demise.
Soon enough, the men stepped onto the artifact and stood still. The commander, who was with Dr. Torus back at the camp, spoke into the walkie-talkie while eyeing the two investigators.
“Give it a few moments. According to Dr. Torus, the effect didn’t kick in until a minute or two after his colleagues were on the artifact,” the commander spoke, with one of his hands on his hip, the other holding the walkie-talkie. From afar, the commander could see the men nod and salute, which triggered the commander to place his other hand on his other hip.
After about forty-five seconds of dead silence, something strange happened. Something Dr. Torus predicted would come to be. The heavy plastics and metals that made up the quarantine suit the investigators wore were ripped off, leaving two men with jumpsuits on. After that, their skin promptly began to, as Dr. Torus described it, fly off of their body. The two men began screaming in extreme pain as their muscle tissue slowly disappeared as well. Dr. Torus turned away before the screaming stopped. After large amounts of blood and muscle tissue poured into the air around the two men, all that was left was their organ systems and skeleton. By this time, they had already stopped screaming, and soon, they simply disappeared from sight. Dr. Torus’s eyes were tearing up as he sobbed. The commander could not believe that such a thing could occur.
“Can somebody explain to me what the fuck just happened?” a forensic scientist nearby asked, walking up closer to stand next to the commander and Dr. Torus.
“The death of two innocent men,” the commander replied. “That’s what happened.”
The commander called for everyone to circle, and about ten other men followed the orders.
“All of you, I suppose, go search for the remains of our two lost lives. If you don’t find anything, then, well… I don’t know. Just follow the orders,” he commanded.
“Yes sir!” the men all said, and broke off.
“Stay off the artifact!” the commander yelled. He turned to Dr. Torus. “You were right. I never thought you were sane when you came to us with this story, but you were right.”
Dr. Torus patted the commander on the back. “Sir, I hope you know that I wish I was not right,” Dr. Torus said.
“I know.”
A large white flash emitted, and the commander subsequently covered his face. Everyone else in the area did so as well. When the light died down, the commander looked at the artifact. Sure enough, the light came from the artifact. Lying on top of the stone was a figure that sported dark hues of emerald in the crisp dark air. The commander spotted this figure, and ordered a few men to go check it out without stepping on the artifact. The men did so, and they surrounded the figure. The figure forced itself onto its feet, which revealed that the figure was alive, it was an animal, and it was bipedal. The creature sported four wings, two of which also seemed to boast the creature’s claws. The investigators pulled a magnum out of their gun holders, and pointed at the being. The being, once it opened its eyes to see the sight before it, cocked its head to the side.
“Guns? There’s no need to be violent. Just because I am not human does not mean you are entitled to treat me like shit,” the being said. The investigators’ eyes widened at how the creature spoke as if it knew the English language throughout its life, and how it recognized what guns were. “Surprised? Don’t be. If I’m here for an unexplained reason, then clearly, you humans have done something very wrong.”
An enraged investigator, who did not like the creature’s guts, ran at the creature to punch it. Just before the blow was delivered, the creature grabbed the man by the forearm and bent his arm back, all within a timeframe of one second. The man who was stupid enough to attempt the blow was crying aloud in pain at his broken shoulder as he lied on the ground. One of the bystanders quickly called for the creature to be taken to Area 51. The creature responded by doing absolutely nothing. Its claws were tied up as it was thrown into a vehicle and driven off. The man who drove the vehicle pulled out a walkie-talkie and radioed to inform that he had a threatening creature with him.
“Are you seriously labeling me as a threat when what I did was an act of self-defense? The man was going to sock me across the face. Last time I checked, the one who attempts the first blow is the one who is considered the true threat,” the creature said. The man in the passenger seat turned around to look at the being.
“You aren’t human. Your first impression was not a good one,” the man said.
“That man’s first impression was not very good, either,” the creature pointed out.
“A first impression can tell someone a lot about someone—or something—else. It tells us if what we are facing is hostile or not,” the man replied, sounding slightly more irritated.
“Allow me to ask you this. If I was a human in that instance, would you deliver me to Area 51 to lock me up with the freaks, or would you call it a matter of self-defense and prosecute the one who attacks first? Obviously, the latter. But since I’m clearly not human, the punishment you give me for an entirely justifiable act is magnified in intensity in the negative sense. Typical for you humans,” the creature ranted.
“Typical?” the man started. “When the hell did you see a human before?”
“1842, in London. I had some business to take care of with a fellow interdimmen whom refused to return to the universe of which both he and I came from,” the creature replied. “And before that, 1736, which consisted of a trip here that was entirely accidental.”
The man and the driver began to break out in laughter.
“Ha! 1842? 1736? What kind of mental institute did you break out of?” the man wondered, chuckling.
“Ah,” the creature began. “I completely forgot you humans actually age. I apologize for the confusion.”
“What the hell do you mean by that ‘we actually age’?” the man asked, reverting back to his serious, irritated tone.
“Exactly as the phrase sounds; you humans actually age. Where I come from, nothing dies of old age.”
“Impossible. There is no such way for it to work like that. Everything dies eventually,” the man pointed out.
“I never denied that. I simply stated that where I come from, it’s impossible to die of old age. We mature, and then we never age after that. We still are capable of dying, but not from age,” the creature said.
“Hey, do they have a loony wing at Area 51? This guy would be a perfect fit!” the driver remarked, and both of the men laughed aloud. The creature sighed.
It wasn’t long until another light emitted.
“Crap, another one? Do we have to face another loony lizard-gargoyle-thing?” the passenger seat man said, which triggered both men to laugh out loud yet again.
“It is not likely that another of my species would directly follow my arrival unless it was their intention. Mostly because, well, I am the last of my species,” the creature spoke.
“The last of your kind? Oh, I’m sorry. Should we just pity you or something?” the driver asked.
“I don’t need your pity. I was simply making a point. You don’t even know how old I am, do you?”
“I don’t care,” the driver said.
Suddenly, a frightening virile scream transmitted through the walkie-talkie. The two men looked terrified as they heard loud explosions and people screaming in pain. The creature had a bored look on his face.
“May I speak into the radio communicator?” the creature asked.
“Hell no,” the passenger seat man barked.
“I only want to ask a description of the creature over there, next to the gate,” the creature said.
“Gate? What gate?” the driver asked.
“The dimensional gate. The gate I emerged from. The second light means another creature came from it, and the screaming from across the radio means it is not friendly,” the creature informed.
“How about I just call for military assistance? That should work too,” the driver said.
“We should probably turn around, just to see if everything is sorted out,” the man in the passenger seat suggested.
“From the sounds of the screams on that radio, I can tell things are not sorted out,” the creature said. “But if my hunch is correct, if we turn around, I can probably take care of the problem.”
“You?” the driver asked. “I’m going to turn around, but I want you to stay where you are. Capiche?”
The creature nodded in agreement. The driver turned the car around, and headed back toward the artifact.
The driver parked the car, and got out with the man who was in the passenger seat. What they saw outside was disastrous. The military had come as requested by someone else, apparently, as two tanks surrounded a giant creature that had a silver armor and a red vinyl on its helmet. The monster sported a gigantic cannon on its right arm, with a scythe-like structure on its left. The overall posture of the monster was humanoid, and it moved slowly as it fired explosive beams of fire, burning waves of military soldiers to the ground. It continuously roared a deep, loud screech as it trudged about. Tanks fired at the monster with their grenades, with no effect other than a small flinch from the monster.
The creature who was tied up in the car heard the booming roars and immediately seemed to know what the humans were up against. In an act of valiance, the creature cut the rope that bound his wrists together, and exited the vehicle. It was capable of achieving this before, but the creature had separate intentions. The creature, whom was secure within the knowledge that he was unarmed, flew with his four wings to the closest military group and swiped a carbine from a rifleman. It landed safely about sixty feet from the silver, armored monster, and lured it to himself.
“Oi!” the winged creature called, whistling shortly after. The silver monster, enraged, turned to stare at the now-rifle-equipped creature, who shifted itself into hip-fire aim. The armored monster began to charge its cannon. But to its dismay, a loud cliunk! was sounded off, and one split second later, a large trail of blood flew out of the back of the armored creature’s head. The enormous silver being fell to its knees, and then onto its face. The rifle-equipped creature walked up to the corpse, and kicked it with rage. A few seconds later, a group of military soldiers surrounded the rifle-equipped creature with a large plethora of weapons spread across the lot of them.
“Freeze! Drop the weapon!” a military lieutenant called.
“All right,” the creature responded, and dropped the carbine. He raised his hands in the air. An unarmed bodybuilder wearing military uniform pushed the surrounding circle apart and bent down to pick the carbine up. The man looked into the black eyes of the winged creature.
“If you ever steal my weapon again, I will fuck you hard,” the man said in a deep, serious voice. The winged creature simply nodded in response. “Take him away to Area 51.”
A smaller group that was once a part of the larger group grabbed the creature by the wrists, and held on tight.
“You’re gonna love your new home,” one of the soldiers taunted. The creature replied by spitting on the respective soldier. The creature was to be hauled to Area 51 and kept there like all of the other military secrets that could not be leaked to the public. And it would remain there for a very long time.
August 4th, 1953
Area 51
18:06
The winged creature was held in the prison for the freaks in Area 51 for about sixty hours, and just by the end of that time period, it is meant to be interrogated by the army for information they believe it left out. The creature was pushed into the interrogation room, where a forensic investigator followed behind him. Military soldiers armed with rifles were guarding the doors in case the winged creature had any malicious intentions.
“This is about how I broke that man’s shoulder, which may I reiterate that it was an act of self-defense, is it not?” the creature asked.
“Forget that little instance. The man’s fine. He’ll need a cast for his arm, but he won’t die. This is about everything else that went on two nights ago,” the scientist said. “Okay, I’m going to ask you a series of questions, and you are going to answer them as honestly as possible in order to avoid bigger trouble. Keep in mind that we are recording everything you say.”
“Fair enough,” the creature responded.
“Okay, first question…” the scientist started. “Do you have a name?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“Drakath,” the creature replied. “My name is Drakath.”
“Where were you, and what were you doing, on the night of August 2nd, 1953, at 02:42 hours?” the scientist asked.
“Aside from being whisked away against my will and killing a gargantuan Omegawarrior, I was merely reading a book in Rahtouri,” Drakath said.
“Omegawarrior? Care to elaborate on that?” the scientist wondered. Drakath sighed.
“The Omnicoteph Omegawarrior, the highest class and breed of soldier under the wing of Ahkkarhad, who leads the Omnicoteph organization of slavery and destruction. Omegawarriors are extremely rare to come by considering the illegal funding Ahkkarhad has to sift through in order to simply breed one, let alone supply it with its near-perfect armor. It is presumably an enslaved gargantuan hominid wearing a silver-like suit of armor that which has a large fuel tank on its back, supplying the monster with its flare cannon’s juice. Its right arm holds the aforementioned flare cannon, which fires a quickly-vaporizing beam of concentrated flame that reaches a total temperature of well over 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The range of the beam is large, and is capable of wiping entire armies out in one shot, hence why the Omegawarriors are so damn valuable. That is what your military faced two nights ago, and that is the monster which I killed with a stolen carbine,” Drakath explained. “The left arm sports a multi-bladed scythe, and to top that off, the armor is entirely indestructible, thus making mindless barrages of bullets useless. The only way to kill an Omegawarrior is to successfully shove something with a considerably large net force through the very small breathing hole in the center of the helmet that which Ahkkarhad supplies to the Omegawarriors so that they do not die of a lack of nitrogen, an element which the Omegawarrior is very much dependent on.”
“So… slow and steady wins the race?” the scientist asked.
“In this case, yes,” Drakath responded.
“Okay… what is the Omnicoteph?”
“An organization led by a steam-powered cyborg named Ahkkarhad. They are the most technologically advanced organization in all of Rahtouri, but they are also the most despised. Ahkkarhad recruits new warriors through brute force carried out with his Swatters, which are the most common Omnicoteph warrior out there. But the Omnicoteph mean little to you humans. The whole Omegawarrior encounter that took hold two nights ago was a modest fluke,” Drakath said.
“What are you, how were you familiar with firearms, and how are you so fluent with the English language?”
“Answering the first question, I am what they call a ‘crulic gargoyle’, crulic meaning ‘the first’.”
“And by the first, you mean the first gargoyles, or what?” the scientist questioned.
“No, go further back than that. ‘The first’ as in, the first chordates,” Drakath said. The scientist’s eyes widened. “Anyhow, I am familiar with firearms because you can say that I am the father of guns.”
The scientists all around began laughing.
“You are not even familiar with my background, my age, or my profile, yet you laugh when I claim something you would immediately write off as ‘ridiculous’? I would think that a benefit to not being human would be that, in certain senses and perspectives, it is far easier to believe the creature. Was I wrong?” Drakath asked.
“Eh… look. A couple of men told me you claim to have been around since 1736, perhaps before, and that where you come from nobody can decease from old age. If that’s the case, just how old are you?” the scientist demanded.
“Oh, so age is now a factor in this equation? Is it not you humans who enforce the law that states that it is illegal to discriminate others based on age? Never mind, do not answer that. If you truly must know how old I am, I suggest you carbon date me,” Drakath said.
Behind the screen where the men were recording, a man who was smoking a cigarette spoke to another man. “Carbon dating?” he wondered. “Wasn’t that only developed a couple of years ago?”
“It’s a method to determine how old fossils are. The method is in its infancy, yes, and we don’t exactly have a general grasp on how it works as of yet. I’m not even sure if it is possible to carbon date someone who is alive,” the other man said.
“All right, this is the question everyone here is asking: What the hell happened with the artifact? Why did it act up?” the scientist wondered.
“I’m not sure. As I said, I was innocently thrown out of what I was doing and found myself lying on the cold stone of the Shikron Gate. I am certain that was the same case as with the Omegawarrior,” Drakath said. “Did you, perhaps, try to insert one of your people into Rahtouri?”
“If this Shikron Gate you speak of is the thing we refer to as the artifact, then yes, we sent two men to test a hypothesis formed by our local biologist, Dr. Flint Torus.”
“That would explain it, then,” Drakath stated. “You see, humans, if they attempt to enter Rahtouri, which is a universe different from this one, will die rather than be teleported into the universe. It is likely a flaw in the code of physics and how they differentiate between this universe and Rahtouri. But anyhow, after a gruesomely violent death, however many humans you send into the gate will die and be replaced with however many numbers of monsters from Rahtouri, a definite flaw in the interloping codes and scripts of physics that detail each universe and separate them from each other. Rahtouri tries to give you your men back through replacing them with random creatures from it, unknowingly unaware that humans are toxically discriminate monsters that treat anything out of the ordinary like shit. It is unaware of that because codes and scripts are clearly not sentient, so the flaw will remain for good. I was the first replacement, and the Omegawarrior was the second replacement.”
“All right…” the scientist said. “Now, about how you know English so well.”
“You practically answered that yourself with your question of my age. Not only was I around humans for so long, but English has been the central language in Rahtouri for hundreds of millions of years before first of the ancestor of the ancestor of the ancestor of the human race was even born,” Drakath explained.
“But… how is that possible? We never interact with your world,” the scientist responded.
“Oh, but you do, and you have. As we speak, you are interacting with our world simply through speaking to me. Have you ever thought of that? How can you prove that you did not meet a Galrant who is undercover in the disguise of a human? How can you prove that the Necroarbiter is not watching your every move and telling the other worlds through its words of wisdom? I am certain that you cannot come up with a plausible answer to any of those barring the first one,” Drakath challenged.
“Is this ‘Necroarbiter’ thing you speak of some sort of God to your kind?” the scientist asked.
“Not to my kind, no,” Drakath answered. “I simply see it as an omnipresent spirit who watches everything… the Dreikenauns, on the other hand, revere the beast as their true God, in a religion that very closely resembles Christianity, with the exception that there is no devil. There is only God.”
“Dreikenauns? Shit, man. You just keep on mentioning crap I’ve never even heard of. Could you please try to make what you’re talking about a little less… esoteric?” the scientist asked. Drakath shifted his position in his seat.
“No,” Drakath started. “Because this is the kind of information that you either know or you don’t.”
“Well, you could explain it to us, if possible,” the scientist noted. Drakath sighed.
“Many things from the other world are not meant to be seen by the naked eye in this world. Not yet. You will learn of the Dreikenauns when the time comes,” Drakath responded.
“What the hell are you talking about, ‘when the time comes’? What kind of significance does a certain time have?” the scientist retorted. Drakath leaned forward, closer to the scientist’s face.
“Your species plays a large role in this entire scheme, believe it or not,” Drakath hissed. “And it is only a matter of time before this world comes to a tragic end.” Drakath stood up. “I am done here. I shall say no more on that matter.”
“You may be done here, but we aren’t. So just sit your ass right back down and answer our questions,” the scientist demanded. Drakath reached out, and gripped the scientist by his lab coat. He dragged the scientist across the metal table, inspiring a startled and scared look on the scientist’s face, and held the scientist’s face to his. Drakath gained an angered complexion as he glared into the frightened scientist’s eyes. He then heard clicking sounds in succession, and noticed the military men pointing their rifles at Drakath. Drakath looked around him, then back at the scientist.
“Listen to me. I am done here. I refuse to elaborate on my words further until time progresses. If you choose to interrogate me further, I will twist your spine whilst secure within the knowledge that I would have my brain subsequently splattered across the floor and walls behind me from a tiny lead pellet fired from a concentrated rifle. I am done now, but you will need me in time. And if you force me to kill you, thus killing me, then you lose your final chance of survival. Make your choice,” Drakath growled. Shivering in fear, the scientist called for the doors to be opened in a quivering voice. The doors leading into the interrogation room opened, and a few military personnel grabbed Drakath by the wrists, and escorted him out. The scientist left through the other exit, which led into the room full of scientists who were listening to the interrogation from the other side.
“Why the hell did you let the creature go? You’re always supposed to force answers out of the interrogated, and you never allow them to win over you,” one of the over watching scientists said.
“I know,” the interrogator said. “But… this creature is not any human. When I looked into his eyes, I knew he meant every word he said. And, frankly… I wish to keep my life.”
The other scientist wiped his face with his hands in disappointment. “Drakath said that this world would come to a tragic end in time… I wonder when that is?”
“Hopefully not in this lifetime,” the interrogator said in hope.
“I predict it to be the year 2000,” one of the other scientists estimated.
“Perhaps… but there is no way to know for sure.”
Author's Notes
Drakath:
What you may think is his tail is not. He does not have a tail.
Omnicoteph Omegawarrior:
Rawr. I am blurry.
*braces for criticism*
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