Doug: Hold the Line

Ivan (Breaker) Zeitzev stood immobile as a statue, his massive armored form blocking the small entryway to the Well of Souls. Around his massive armored feet were scattered the remains of other armor suits, shell casings, and other detritus of battle. The ornate entryway behind him had been damaged beyond repair. Cracks now ran through the alien script and pictographs, chunks of the archway itself had fallen off and now lay haphazardly in the battle zone.

Across from where Breaker held the line, a mass of possessed Athenian Armored Infantry stood. Unholy darkness streamed out of the cracks in their armor, twisting into waving masses of unnatural shapes with hungry mouths and sharp teeth. Some of their faceplates were either clear or simply torn off, and Breaker could see the insanity filled eyes slowly dripping blood. At least forty mad voices babbled words that not human could ever speak, much less understood.

Breaker had been mercilessly tearing apart anything that approached the entrance he was guarding using everything from his arm mounted machine gun to pieces of Athenian soldiers as clubs. Now there was a lull in the action. Inside his armor, Breaker heaved deep, gasping breaths, adrenaline catching up to him. There was pain too. The darkness erupting out of the tortured bodies of the Athenians was taking its toll on him. The tentacles with mouths tore straight through his armor like so much paper. Even with the subspace shields The Light had put on his armor, he could feel them sapping his will and tearing at the edges of his mind.

Trying to drive me crazy? He thought, Is too bad I am already there.

A burst of static in his radio caught his attention. “Still alive out there?” Brand’s voice was filled with the tight knowledge that his rearguard may indeed have been killed. Behind his voice was the sounds of battle inside The Well.

“I live Captain. Many have fallen trying to take the entry, but still I hold.” He hesitated, “It does not go well inside?” This would have been over much sooner if it had.

Brand ducked a wild swing from a possessed Royal Guard and then dropped him with a blast from his arm mounted chaingun. “No. It does not go well.” He glanced over to where Diana was simultaneously fighting five Warrior suits. He could see the men inside them thrash and snarl with the madness of being fully possessed by The Dark. Bubbling pitch now streamed from their eyes in rivulets as Dark manifested itself fully.

“I will hold.”Breaker’s voice was serene. “You must get The White to the Altar.”

“That all depends on the girl. Can you hold?” Brand’s suit mounted 67mm mortar completely obliterated body of a Warrior making a suicide run for Juliette. Juliette herself crouched on the ground, muttering strange words in the language of the First Ones.

“I will hold until I can no longer draw breath. Then I will hold until my eyes cannot see. And then I will hold until my arms cannot lift my weapons. Until these monsters swim over my destroyed corpse, I will hold.” Ivan Zeitzev, known to his friends as “Breaker”, declared. “I will hold, Captain Constantine Brand. I will buy you the time you need to end this.”

Brand accepted this answer with the leader’s knowledge that this kind of loyalty could not be bought or coerced. “Hold out a little bit longer Breaker. We’re going to finish this fight.”

Breaker heard the radio click off and refocused on the Athenians in front of him. Their numbers had more than doubled. Still, it was not the possessed Athenians that made Breaker fear for his promise to Brand; it was the nightmare beast they brought with them.

At least two and a half meters long, the pure black thing looked like a large reptile that had been mutated and then half melted. Oozing pustules erupted and reformed, and even through his filters Breaker could smell the stench it gave off. There were too many legs with too many claws, and a mouth with far too many teeth. He locked eyes with it, Dark brown boring into merciless evil darkness deeper than any black hole.

It snarled and emitted a scream that caused the foundations of The Well to crumble. It was then that Breaker first suspected he would die in this crusade.

Still, the armored man stood his ground against the many and snarled back, issuing his own challenge. “I AM IVAN ZEITZEV!!! I AM THE LAST CITIZEN OF KIEV! I HAVE BEEN HUNTED ACROSS THE STARS BY MONSTERS UNIMAGINABLE! I HAVE SEEN THE LOST CITY OF THE OLD ONES, AND SPOKEN WITH THE WHITE ITSELF! I HAVE FOUGHT DEMONS AND DEMI-GODS AND DEFEATED THEM ALL! MY CAPTAIN HAS ASKED ME TO HOLD THIS GROUND, AND BY ALL GODS LIGHT AND DARK I WILL!”

He drew the Corusca Sword given to him by Gabriel, Keeper of the White’s City. “Come Fell Beast. I am ready.”

“A thousand years from now what will be remembered is that few stood against many, and were willing to die to save the future."
-Anon