FicWad

-Jason took a deep breath to calm his nerves as he looked out at the massive army of demons that he had come to destroy. He had been in large battles before, but they were usually spur of the moment encounters that he hadn’t had time to think about before hand.

-He looked to his right and saw his naval fleet in the distance approaching the shore to support his troops. It was all part of Jason’s battle plan; he would engage the demons on land while his fleet bombarded their rear lines with cannon fire from the safety of the sea. It was a good plan, Jason thought.

-The tense silence was broken by uneasy murmurs which caught Jason’s attention. He looked around to see his men looking up at the sky and pointing. When Jason followed their gaze, he understood their concern. The sky was becoming dark with small particles falling like black snow.

-“Incendiary teams!” Jason barked, and his men responded quickly. All across his lines, men pointed nozzles up at the sky and spat out flames to engulfed the strange dust, but their efforts were in vain. The unknown substance floated down undeterred to rest on the ground all around them.

-Jason’s men shifted nervously as they were surrounded by the strange black pollen. Jason could see that it was blowing out from the dark castle, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything. Jason gritted his teeth with frustration; the battle hadn’t even started yet, but Jeffery already seemed to have Jason right where he wanted him.

-Without warning, a spine-chilling cry came from across the field, and the demon horde surged forward. The nightmarish beasts charged with such single-minded determination that the slower ones were trampled by their comrades. They roared and snarled at the wall of human soldiers standing before them, but Jason’s soldiers stood fast.

-“Open fire!” Jason bellowed, trying to see through the haze which the dust created. Jason guessed that that was the reason for the grey fog; decreased visibility. Jeffery knew that Jason‘s men were best at long range, so the demon king had found a way to throw off their aim, but Jason‘s soldiers didn‘t have to see what they were shooting at to be deadly.

-A deafening blare of gunfire erupted across the entire front line. The darkness was lit up as if by a million strobe lights as the muzzle flashes continuously revealed the faces the men firing into the demons. The intermittent light also revealed the demons getting closer with every flash, caught in a still-shot of motion. Many of them were torn apart by the exploding bullets, but the majority were quickly closing the gap.

-Jason watched in disbelief as wounded demons hurled themselves foreword, arms outstretched, using themselves as a meat-shield for the others that followed. Hundreds of demons fell to the ground to be trodden over by the others that threw themselves at Jason’s men.

-“Bayonets!” Jason ordered as he drew his sword. His men pressed a button on the sides of their guns, and twin serrated blades extended along the sides of the barrels. The humans stabbed, sliced, and shot the beasts, but now that the fighting was close-quarters, the demons had the advantage. They bit through the soldiers’ armor and tore their bodies apart.

-Despite the close combat, Jason’s men were still doing rather well. They killed ten demons for every soldier who fell, but that was only the first wave. A large host of demons tried to rush at Jason, but with one wave of his hand, the beasts were sent flying away, blown to pieces.

-He looked up and noticed that an entire attack wing of gargoyles were flying their way. Jason didn’t have any airborne units, but he did have a countermeasure in mind. “Snipers, incoming.” Jason said into his headset. In his rear line, several dozen soldiers raised long rifles with scopes. Loud pot-shots rang out as the sharp-shooters squeezed of their rounds, and several of the creatures dropped from the sky.

-Despite the losses, the winged demons made a strafing run, but instead of firing bullets or dropping bombs, the hideous beasts opened their mouth and expelled acidic vomit on the men below. The soldiers screamed in agony as the chunky bile dissolved their armor and bodies into swirling red and black puddles. Jason immediately recognized the danger of such an attack. His trump card was his ability to reanimate the corpses of his fallen men. But he couldn’t reanimate a puddle.

-As the gargoyles came about for another pass, Jason gritted his teeth and made a decision. He had hoped to save it for later, but he didn’t have anything else that could deal with the air raid. “Ross,” Jason yelled into his earpiece. “time to bring out the equalizers, and have them target those flying bastards!”

-A moment latter, the ground began to shake, and several large vehicles burst out of the ground ahead of Jason’s front line, cutting off the fighting demons from their comrades. The drills in front of the war machines doubled as a shield, and their roofs opened up to raise gun turrets which quickly lit the sky with tracer rounds. The bullets tore the flying monster to pieces before they could attack or escape, and their shredded corpses rained down to the ground.

-Jade did not take kindly to her subordinates being slaughtered. She had been watching the battle from one of the castle’s spires, but now she spread her bat-like wings and took flight, drawing her sword as she dove at the slow moving machines. The human vehicles rolled forward, their drills mincing any demons that tried to charge them while their guns mowed down the rest. Jade swooped at the nearest vehicle and struck the side of it with her sword. Rather than cut through the armor, the blow flipped the large tank like a chunk of tin, and it landed upside-down on the vehicle next to it, killing both of the gunners.

-Jason blinked in surprise as he stared at the carnage of his two tunneling tanks bursting into flames. One of the crew managed to escape engulfed in flickering fire. The burning man made it several steps before he finally collapsed and died as Jade flew overhead, laughing gleefully.

-Jason knew that the horn-headed Hellen was immensely strong, but he hadn’t realized that Jade was so powerful. If she could dispatch his tanks so easily, he was going to have to find a way to take her out of the fight.

-“Ross,” Derek yelled into his earpiece. His second in command had been busy holding the left flank. “Take out that flying bitch!”

-His lieutenant obeyed without a moments hesitation. He raised his rifle at the only winged creature in the area, took careful aim, and fired a single shot.

-Jade had been circling the burning tanks, admiring her handiwork when a bullet ripped through the muscle of her right wing. She screamed out in pain as she spiraled down to the ground. Somehow, she managed to right herself and land on her feet, but she wouldn’t be taking to the air again anytime soon; the bullet and shredded the muscle and the bone. It would heal, but not fast enough.

-She moved just in time as another bullet buzzed by her face so closely that it cut her cheek. Jade turned to face the human who had dared steal the sky form her, and she saw Jason’s right hand man, Ross.

-Ross fired several more shots at Jade, but the demon-general was done playing around. She swatted the bullets away with her sword as though they were flies and marched towards Ross, closing the gap between them. When she was close enough, Jade lunged at Ross and swung her blade at his chest, but Ross managed to block the blade with his rifle. The two of them tried to push each other back for a moment; Jade was strong, but Ross wasn’t a normal human.

-The struggle ended when Jade’s blade cut right through Ross’ weapon, and he was thrown down on his back. She stood over the man with a proud smirk on her face. “If you’re supposed to be Jason’s masterpiece,” Jade mocked. “I’m not impressed.” Jade brought her blade down to finish Ross off, but the human pulled out a machete from his back and deflected her sword off to the side, taking a shallow swipe at her in the process.

-Jade backed off and looked down at the blood tricking down her side. It wasn’t a bad wound, but it did make her very angry. “I was going to finish you off,” she said with barely contained rage. “but I think I’ll play with you for awhile.” she attacked him again, and the two of them exchanged several blows back and forth, but Ross was at a disadvantage. Jade’s sword had nearly twice the reach of his machete, and Jade marked his armor several times with her blade as the man tried to stay out of range.

-Ross tried to call for backup, but his men had their hands full holding back the endless horde of demons that came at them like black, screaming waves. Ross knew that the only thing keeping him alive was his armor, and even that was being chipped away. Jade was faster, more agile and very skilled with a sword, but she also had one other advantage that Ross hadn’t even considered, until it was too late.

-Just as Ross made a stab at Jade, she flapped her good wing in front of her, blocking Ross’ view. His machete sliced through the thin black membrane of her wing like it was butter, but Jade had already lost the ability to fly. She spread her wing out with Ross’ machete caught in its leather confines, and she thrust her sword right into the human soldier’s right shoulder.

-Jade smiled as she looked Ross in the eye and pushed her blade into him deeper, up to the hilt. The man gritted his teeth, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of crying out. Jade twisted the blade before she withdrew it, and Ross dropped to one knee with his left hand covering his wound.

-“What are you waiting for?” Ross asked.

-“And put you out of your misery? I think I‘ll keep you as a pet,” Jade explained. “to torture, and rape, and abuse. You’re going to be my personal play thing for a long, long time, and only when I have become bored with you, will I allow you to die.”

-Jade snapped her fingers, and a white portal appeared. She grabbed a hold of Ross’ armor and flung him into the vortex before entering it herself; without her wings, she wouldn’t be much use in the fight.

-Jason was concentrating on directing his forces when a bright flash of light caught his attention. He looked in its direction to see Ross kneeling in front of Jade, and a white portal beside the two of them. Before he could do anything, Jade threw his lieutenant into the vortex and followed after him.

-“Well,” Jason said to himself with a hint of despair. “that‘s not good.”

-He looked in Kikki’s direction and saw her happily killing dozens of demons, crushing their skulls with her staff. With Jade out of the picture, the remaining tanks pushed forward unimpeded, and the naval fleet was almost in position to bombard the demons.

-Jason breathed I sigh of relief; loosing Ross hadn’t been part of the plan, but he seemed to be wining the battle regardless. His men, bolstered by the armored support, pushed forward. Their weapons blew apart the charging demons, and their bayonets finished off the wounded monsters on the ground. All seemed to be going well, until the naval fleet came in range of the battlefield.

-Before the large cannons could fire a shot, dozens of large tentacles sprang up from the sea and ensnared the battleships. The suckered-tendrils squeezed the metal hulls until they buckled, and the human ships were dragged underneath the water as the men aboard them fled for their lives. Jason watched as over half of his battle ships were destroyed without effort, but his attention soon returned to his front lines.

-A slab of rock large enough to fit an apartment building on lifted from the ground with several men still on it. The slab and the men were tossed through the air, landing on top of one of the tanks and crushing nearly a dozen more soldiers in the process. When the dust cleared, Jason saw a giant that looked like a mix between a human and a dinosaur. The thing had a head like a T-Rex, but the basic body design of a man with a long tail. On its back sat Hellen. She held her halberd over her head and pointed it straight at Jason in a challenge before driving her heels into her mount’s shoulders to spur it on.

-With one back-hand swing of its arm, the giant sent a tank spinning through the air. One of the remaining tanks pointed its main cannon at the beast and fired. The shell impacted the giant in its right shoulder and knocked it off balance, but the monster regained its footing and lifted the vehicle off the ground before crushing it in his clawed hands.

-Hellen laughed with vicious joy as she watched the carnage from atop her pet’s back. The human soldiers fired up at the creature, but its thick hide repelled everything that was thrown at it. Even the tanks only left smoldering blotches that failed to draw blood from the beast‘s body. The monster made short work of Jason’s remaining armored vehicles, and then it turned its attention on the small humans scattering around its feet.

-As his soldiers were thrown through the air and stepped on, Jason made a quick scan of the battlefield to find that over a third of his forces had been lost. Even without Hellen’s hideous pet wreaking havoc, the tide of battle had turned against the humans. Jason decided that it was time to pull out his trump card, but before he did he would have to eliminate the threat of Hellen and her giant.

-He spurred Serf on, and the lumbering beast bound towards its much larger counterpart. Hellen’s monstrosity turned to face the charging threat. The four-legged Serf leapt up at the towering biped, but Hellen’s creature reached out and grabbed Serf in one hand. Serf sank his pointy teeth into the beast’s forearm even as the monster tightened its grip, crushing the life out of Jason’s pet.

-Jason launched himself from Serf’s back, drawing his sword and slicing the monster’s right eye as he ascended to the top of its head. It opened it’s large mouth to roar in pain, and Jason almost dropped down to where Hellen was waiting with her halberd ready. She ran up the back of her mount’s neck at Jason, screaming with rage. She made a wide swing at Jason which he easily jumped over. He came down bringing his blade to meet the demon woman. Hellen raised the shaft of her weapon in time to block the blow, and the two found themselves stuck in a power struggle.

-For a moment Jason held his own against Hellen, but she would not be outdone by a mere human. She snarled at Jason, her face only inches from his own. Jason anticipated Hellen’s outburst, in fact he had counted on it. He jumped back just as Hellen pushed forward, and the horned-woman fell forward. As Jason landed, he angled the tip of his sword downward and drove it into the back of the creature’s neck which he and Hellen stood on, severing the beast’s brainstem.

-As the behemoth’s bulky body dropped limply to the ground, Hellen roared and charged at Jason. She stabbed at Jason’s face with the blade of her halberd, but Jason dodged it and grabbed a hold of Hellen’s right horn with his left hand. Using the general’s own momentum against her, Jason pulled and flung Hellen forward. As she passed by him, Jason struck her across the back with his blade, but he failed to penetrate her thick vest.

-Hellen fell off of her creature’s back and landed face down on the ground below. Before the enraged woman could come back at him, Jason dropped down onto serf’s back and returned to his men who were still fighting off the attacking demon army. Serf snapped up a nearby demon in its jaws, and Jason decapitated another before the two of them retook their position in the lines. Jason raised his sword over his head, rallying his men to him as he closed his eyes to concentrate.

-Jason reached out with his power once again, commanding all of his fallen men to rise and rejoin the fight. He even reached out to the slain demons and imposed his will upon them. As before, a white light emanated from Jason and cut through the grey haze of the particles that were billowing out of the castle in the distance. Jason opened his eyes, and for a moment he felt reassured as his fallen comrades stood once more, but his relief was short lived.

-The reanimated soldiers began screaming in agony, dropping back to the ground with convulsions. Jason and his living soldiers watched in horror as their comrades’ flesh seemed to disintegrate right before their eyes until there was nothing left of any of them other than bones. Even the demons that Jason had tried to resurrect had been reduced to dust in the wind, and the remaining horde of horrors closed in on the hopelessly outnumbered humans. All Jason had done, was clear that battlefield of the dead.