Mastrich Hour *Chapter 1*
Prologue
I am Andrew Dialus of the Millius tribe. I am a fifty eight year old wolf and yesterday I retired. I just walked away from forty four years of service to god's soldiers the church of mastrich, soldiers that did nothing but god's work. At least that's what I tell myself at night. That it was god's work rather than cold blooded murder. Sometimes that's the only thing that got me through those hellish times.
You see, all fur kind knows what I'm about to tell you just some truly believe it though. God is real, the devil is real, angels are real, demons are real, heaven is real, and of course hell is real then there are all of us mortals that are simply caught in the middle of an eternal holy war for the souls of fur kind. Some of those true believers aren't content to stand by and watch this war go on without doing something about it. Those true believers formed 'The church of mastrich' which is an organization devoted to justice for all of fur kind and the greater good. At least that's what our faith leaders always told us.
I actually saw the people that we sent to re education camps for this 'greater good'. These camps looked a lot like the camps of a different era. My great grandpa called them concentration camps, places that were designed for monstrous things, though the knowledge of the concentration camp is forbidden nowadays as well as the book that the information is printed on. Anything that was against 'Mastrich will' was to be eliminated at all costs.
That's most of what us officers did. Officers of the church I mean. We made sure that everyone and everything was going according to Mastrich will. We were Mastrich's iron fist that came down upon unbelievers, vagrants, heretics, criminals, demons and those that summoned them. Demons and angels couldn't simply walk the streets of modern day terra on their own. That was against the rules of engagement good and evil set up for this war, no they had to be summoned from hell or be sent down from heaven. I hated that part about soldiering for god the most, especially since we were ill equipped, under trained, and under funded to do the things we did. Why couldn't an angel come down from heaven and help god's faithful soldiers smite evil?
But it wasn't my idea to join the church in the first place. I was drafted at the tender age of thirteen more like ripped out of my mothers arms. But I know what you're thinking, that couldn't be true. It's against the law to draft furs that aren't full adults. Most wolves don't reach full maturity until they're twenty seven but Mastrich saw that wolves and other 'tribal' creatures made ten times better soldiers than some other species.
So, he simply changed the law from 'No child that is not of mature age for his or her species may serve under the holy cross' to 'Any child half of his adult age, may be involuntarily called for military service whenever the need arises' and that was it. I'm not bitter though. I always wanted to be a soldier like my father before me I just got my chance early.
I don't remember most of my childhood though and it's not important since that's not where my story starts, my story starts at Mastrich's darkest hour, fall, 2071 A.D. Six years after the campus city warehouse incident, involving entity Chessia and entity Charm. The citizens of campus city revolted against Mastrich will. At first their objection was peaceful. Just high school and college kids demonstrating on the city streets and marching to the city center but Mastrich will demanded that his soldiers deal with the threat with extreme prejudice.
Then the heretics armed themselves, they started going after our curfew patrols, supply and power centers. A few buildings got blown up, a few people got killed but the heretics were manageable. Then they started summoning demons or entities, many, many demons, war demons in particular. These demons of war were virtually immune to almost anything we threw at them. One of them could eliminate an entire company of mastrich soldiers and armor without breaking a sweat. It was hard to imagine at first, one minute a company is reporting strange readings on their spectrometers.
Then next the com goes fuzzy or out altogether, then garbled reports from the company saying they need reinforcements badly and then finally nothing, no more com signals, no order to fall back, no more calls for artillery support or reinforcements. It was hard to believe that a hundred and eighty two men and women including three robotic combat groups including heavy walkers not to mention their aircraft could be completely wiped out in less than five minutes but when you went to the company's last known location and saw the aftermath there was no denying that that was the case and the worse part was it happened often.
7:14 A.M
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That was Sarge. Sarge was a little white fox, he was thin too thin and lithe to be a soldier, much less to be our first sergeant. I didn't like him; I didn't like foxes in general.
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"Well you never know sarge, maybe somethin'll happen today. A feral kitty could get caught up in a tree or somethin..."
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A female voice came from my left. Specialist Kuria Johnson, a lioness that served god as a computer information specialist with courses in demolitions. That was just a fancy way of saying she could hack into someone's computer and then blow the building up afterwards. She was a bright and cheery fur right out of basic. Though I never found out how she got to be anything more than a basic grunt.
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Sarge laughed a bit at the comment I tried not to but I cracked a little smile.
"Yea and we'll need all of chastity company to get it out... That'll save these rich people some tax credits..."
Most of the squad laughed a bit at that including me. At the time I didn't think we needed to be there. Why the hell was Magnus city important to demon kind in any way? It wasn't like anything was important around it, and our armor, weapons, and other things we used were made somewhere close to the capitol so it wouldn't slow mastrich as a whole down any if we lost it.
"Yea if they pay taxes sarge..."
I said scanning my surroundings. I didn't expect to see or hear anything but I heard something. Very faint, something stepping off of a ledge to our right, it was too faint a sound to be a feral just looking for food. Like whatever was jumping from point A to point B was trying hard not to be noticed.
The rest of my squad didn't notice they just kept talking like nothing was wrong. I discreetly unslung my rifle and loaded a round in the chamber. Whatever it was, it was stalking us, setting us up for an ambush. I estimated that I'd have one shot and only one shot to cap this thing if it crawled out of hiding.
The creature was cocky, arrogant, it must have thought I saw it but I didn't have any idea where it was. It leapt away from the building to my right and hoped to land on the building to my left, in a quick motion I pointed my rifle up and let off about six rounds pushing the screaming squealing monster forward and down making it hit the curb of the left building.
Then it dropped what must have been twenty feet to the ground.
"HOLY SHIT!!!"
Sarge was speechless. The whole squad was speechless. I walked up and examined my prey. It was demons spawn alright, a canine/otter mixture with bright brown, short cut fur. This one looked more male than anything else but it was both sexes mixed into one creature. I covered my nose as I got closer, they had pheromones that could either kill somebody on the spot or drive someone crazy with lust for the thing producing it.
They called the 'lust' flavor PAS, Pheromone Addiction Syndrome and 'death' PACA, Pheromone Assisted Cardiac Arrest but my hand wasn't enough to stop either. I just did it to stop the smell. I wasn't affected by either condition to me their special scent just made them stink to high hell. The thing snarled at me when I got close but it didn't come towards me. I saw I'd shot off both its knee caps among other things. It wasn't going anywhere for the duration.
"Sarge command needs to know about this..."
"Sergeant!"
That woke him up.
"Wh... Wha... What?"
The fox shook his head as if coming back to reality. That's why I didn't like foxes. They were too soft.
"Command needs to know about this. If there are demon spawn tracking us through here then the corruption has spread through the rest of the city..."
I shouldn't have had to explain that to him. He should have already been putting the call out for reinforcements. We needed to find that things mother before we were dealing with hundreds maybe thousands of these things. I leveled my rifle at the demon in front of me. It whimpered softly, as if it wanted to say 'No. Don't!' but just couldn't form the words.
I didn't give it the mercy it wanted. It would have done the same thing or worse if our positions were reversed. Kuria was just stunned, she sat down starring at the sulfuric remains of what was once a real live demon spawn. She was trembling in what must have been sheer disbelief. The otter hybrid I killed was good looking, sexy by some standards, definitely not the evil snarling thing they showed kids in boot camp nowadays. I gave the young lioness a moment to collect herself we weren't going anywhere until sarge made a call for backup.
"Yes we have confirmed demon spawn in sector 39728. Requesting support and advise immediate aerial reconnaissance of sector."
I walked over to the sitting lioness as sarge made the call. She looked up at me with wide eyes. She was scared, scared of me, scared of what she had got herself into by joining god's army.
"You know rook... If I hadn't done that, all the rest of it's family would come and get us."
I knelt down and rubbed her shoulder, the lioness muttered a bit, slowly regaining her senses. The rest of the squad clamed down and took a break figuring we were gonna be here for a while. I couldn't see any of their faces because they had tinted their breathing masks to hide their facial features.
"Yea. Basic didn't prep you for somethin like this did they?"
Kuria shook her head at my question still not able to wrap her mind around what just happened.
"S... So fast... Sooo... Fast."
She muttered I kept rubbing her shoulder; we had all been like her before. A rookie on the battlefield scared out of their minds.
"Listen. It gets better over time alright? Now you gotta get up because we don't have time to do this right now. We gotta keep moving or else those things are gonna get us and eat us."
I was doing my best impression of a dad talking to a five year old cub. Kuria took a deep breath swallowed hard and looked at me.
"Alright." She said starting to stand up. "Alright. Sorry... It's just..."
I put my hand up as I let go of her shoulder. Kids like her didn't belong on a battlefield. They belonged in some university somewhere getting shit faced and cramming for an exam the day after. Not here being scared out of her mind by things that truly don't belong in this plain.
"It's fine. We were all rookies once right?"
I said looking to our sergeant. His fur was standing up on end and he had turned a bright red. That usually didn't mean good news. I got close enough to listen in.
#Squad Echo your request for aerial reconnaissance is noted and your request for reinforcements is denied. You're on your own and that is final. You're soldiers of god start acting like it... Command out.#
I shook my head. That was typical Mastrich for you. When you asked for help you didn't get it because it would make some officer sitting in a nice cozy building somewhere in the capitol look bad and when you did get the help you needed the demon you were chasing was already three or four miles away. If it hadn't killed you by the time your support got there.
#Squad Echo, this is doll controller Serenity. My robots are en route to your location. Stay put guys, help's comin...#
That was exactly what we needed to hear, more noise came from the com just as serenity got off the line.
#Echo this is recon flight Clarity. Please repeat location we'll begin our sensor sweep from there#
I let out a huge sigh of relief. Mastrich would say later that these acts were treasonous and heretical but they were exactly what we needed to do.
"Clarity our current location is 39728 in the north residential sector. Thank you. Thank all of you..."
Sarge was practically giggling as he said that, I was close to giggling too. Even though the fight had just begun, but now we had a fighting chance, even though command was not happy with the fact that we on our own. I remember being so happy I looked up at the sky and whispered 'thank you god for this miracle...'
#Clarity flight and serenity group, you both will resume patrol over your sectors or face charges of treason and heresy against mastrich!!!#
Sarge turned his com off and looked up at the sky just in time to see the massive gray and white arrow head shaped sensor plane go over our heads. A deep rhythmic pulse filled the air that made my body tremble a little as the lumbering aircraft passed. It was a sight to see. Not just the plane itself but the fact that the guys inside it were actually disobeying a direct order to help us.
Looking back, that to me is what made mastrich greater than anything else in the universe. Not the bullshit politics, not the bishops and cardinals arguing about what's truly right in the world, not the slogans, not the cross, but the people that served. People that would risk being hung or burned at the steak just to help people that they never met before in their lives take down a great evil.
Sarge opened his com unit again, waiting for what the recon bird would tell us.
#Echo squad, this is clarity. I'm showing a mass of body heat and E-energy above and below residential unit 4C, a block west of your current location. I also heard that Fox and Lima squads are diverting to 4C, we estimate that Serenity group will get there before you guys so you all got plenty of help.#
Sarge looked at my from over his shoulder and nodded. I smirked turning to the rest of us. Kuria had calmed down and was checking to see how much ammunition she had. Trying to figure out how many of them she could actually kill. I just shook my head. She really had no idea what she was up against otherwise she wouldn't bother.
"Rook we gotta go. If you're gonna check something then check your pack for explosives. We'll need all the charges you got."
The lioness nodded immediately starting to count how many fancy explosive charges she had by pulling them out of the pack. I couldn't help but wonder how in the hell did she get the equipment she had since most squads weren't equipped with explosive charges. Why I don't know, since we routinely encountered fortified revolutionary positions like the one we were going to take.
The girl was connected. That must have been it; she was some bishop or cardinal's little girl. Why else would they send her out with everything she needed on what seemed to be on her first real mission? I thanked god again, it seemed to be raining miracles that day...
Living unit 4C was on the divide between the north and the west sectors of the city, the north was wealthy, and the west was dirt poor. When we got there we saw the three tall armored humanoid robots that made up Serenity group. The robots were already engaging the demon spawn outside the house. The air smelled like sulfur, brimstone and spent powder. There were dozens of them pouring out from the inside. The robots were simply being overrun by the sheer mass of demon spawn even though all three robots had auto cannons with armor piercing rounds.
"Let's get in there!"
I yelled moving up towards the apartment, letting off a few bursts as I did. The demons were shocked that reinforcements were coming, most fled back to the apartment as soon as we moved up. I ran after them eager to get rid of this menace before it could really start.
"ANDREW WAIT!"
I heard sarge's voice behind me. I growled and snarled at him coming to a complete stop.
"WHAT?"
The fox took a small step back.
"We should wait for Fox and Lima to get here. We're gonna hafta to do a room to room search of this building for the demon. The bots are too big and heavy to walk up and down the stairs and the six of us can't do that alone!"
I growled at the fox again. I knew in his mind he was writing all this down for a report on my 'questionable actions' on the field of battle but at the time I didn't care.
"What do you think they're doing right now?! They are regrouping and prepping to come at us again! We need to get down to the lowest level and plant those charges on the foundation!"
I looked at Kuria. She was getting used to the acrid smell of sulfur and brimstone. It looked like she was trying not to gag as she moved up.
"Will that take down this building?"
I asked Kuria just nodded. I turned my back on the white fox and made my way towards what was left of the apartment entrance. I was young and eager to get into some combat. That whimpering little otter hybrid wasn't enough for me. I needed too see blood. I was so stupid... I ran down there without any support, eager to kill something that's something a rookie would do.
The inside of the dingy apartment complex smelled rotten. Like rotten eggs and bad meat combined. That was what demonic pheromones smelled like to me and it was like someone coated the walls with rotten eggs and bad meat. The place looked almost as bad as it smelled. There were holes in the walls graffiti posted everywhere saying things like 'fuck the system!' and 'Shout for the devil!' I just shook my head at it and kept going trying to ignore all of the things around me.
My squad was depending on me to get some of this place cleared out before they moved in. If they moved in that is. Sarge could have legally said I was in dereliction of duty and called me a heretic on the spot. If that happened then my squad would have been duty bound to shoot me on sight. I tried not to think of that as I looked for the basement stairs, following various arrows painted on the dirty walls that guided me towards B1.
The arrows took me towards a sound, a lewd squelching sound that could have only meant one thing. People were fucking around here. I sniffed the air. It was heavy with rotten meat and bad eggs. That was bad, very bad because it could have only been one of three things. Two sex crazed rebels that would sound the alarm as soon as they got done. It could have been a rebel and a demon getting it on. That would force me to kill them both to move on, or it could have been a demon and a demon getting it on and I didn't have any grenades but I did have a corner I could hide behind when I got up to the noise.
When I peeked around to see exactly what I was dealing with my heart sank a bit. I was wrong. The lewd squelching sound was coming from what looked like a fully grown demon spawn bending a feline male over a poorly made toll gate. Three canine females were on the ground all of them nude, one with her belly swollen outward like she was ready to give birth the other two looking like they had just finished screwing their master.
The collie begged. The collie whimpered and motioned towards the feline.
"I... I was next... After him... Please don't kill me."
I checked her crotch, no semen or egg smell. She was clean. I nodded being careful not to take my gun off her while kneeling down and opening a com line to my squad.
"Sergeant Bates, Sergeant Bates do you copy?"
The com was mostly nothing but static. That wasn't a good sign.
"Sergeant Bates this is Andrew. Please acknowledge. Call sigh divine mother. Repeat divine mother asking for sit rep over."
Sarge's relieved voice came over the line. It was surrounded by gunfire and demonic screams.
#Andrew! Oh thank god I thought you were just a demon fucking with us. Sit rep is as follows. We have started purge of upper floors but are meeting heavy resistance. We're thinking about falling back to the basement level how is it down there?#
I sighed deeply stifling the urge to say 'See I was right'.
"I've met with some resistance down here but it's minimal it looks like they were expecting us to sweep the upper levels first."
#Yea. We're going down there as soon as we can. Is all the resistance down there neutralized?#
I nodded even though he couldn't see.
"Affirmative, though I have two PAS addicts at the entrance to basement levels. Advise a medical team to begin treatment as soon as they..."
As soon as I said that the feline came out of his stupor, the cat saw his master in a pile of ash and lunged at me. I blew his head off. He didn't turn to ash when he fell down.
"Scratch that. I have one PAS addict here, canine, female, I still advise treatment."
The sarge yelled something indistinct and the sounds of boots hitting wood mixed in with the sounds of the battle now.
#Right moving to your position Andrew, we'll be there as soon as we can. Bates out.#
I growled at the collie below me pointing my weapon at her head. She whimpered and tried to crawl against the wall behind her.
"Stay put. If I see you move an inch I'll kill you just like I killed him..."
I pointed towards the feline corpse on the ground and jumped over the gate going down to the lower levels. The lower levels were worse than the first floor. The walls were starting to turn crimson and take the shape of a living breathing organism rather than just a cold slab of concrete. We called them 'flesh walls' because every time we got into a shoot out around them they'd bleed and moan just like a real flesh and blood fur did.
I heard voices in my head, whispered lies about mastrich, my family, the demon that we were fighting, just about everything in my life. They didn't distract me from my goal. I had to reach the building's lowest level or help my squad reach it. There was something familiar about the voice though, it was something about its tone. It was like I had just heard it but I couldn't think of where I heard it. The demons didn't bother me much while I went downstairs. It seemed I had caught them with their pants down.
A few demons here and there but they ran when they heard me coming. I didn't know what to think of it. I was just a lonely mortal trying to get go down a long set of stairs. To them I was a perfect target but they were running away. I just though they were setting up a big ambush at the bottom of the stairs and thought nothing more of it. I soon heard a voice come from six floors up.
"ANDREW? ANDREW!?"
It was Kuria and the sounds of gunfire were coming from above too. The demons weren't giving up the fight for this place it seemed.
"Yea!?"
The lioness threw the pack of explosives down to me. I caught it and shook a little bit. What was the crazy bitch thinking? Those things could have went off.
"I can't come down there and set them myself so you're gonna have to do it! Just look for a little switch that says trigger and put the little wire things into the gel compounds! That's it!"
I nodded, my heart coming back into my chest.
"Alright! When I give the word evacuate the building!"
I yelled up running down to the lowest level of the basement now. I had the explosives, the way was clear and my squad was holding on upstairs. Everything depended on me reaching the support columns on the lowest level. I've been with a few techs that have blown up buildings before so I knew what they looked like.
Yea I was the perfect man for the job, and the perfect pawn for what the demon truly had planned. The lowest level of the basement was clear. Nothing was there. I mean nothing. No desks, no janitor equipment, nothing. Nothing that would interrupt what I was about to do.
"Sergeant Bates. What's your status?"
I asked half hoping for him not to answer. The com fizzed and crackled a bit but the fox's voice came through alright.
#We won! The demon horde is destroyed! We lost mark and Linda but we got em all.#
Mark and Linda were two of the masked furs we were with. They seemed like good people too. I'd send letters to their families if mastrich didn't bother.
"Alright then I advise evacuation of the building I'm setting the charges now."
There were three main supports holding this building up, I was putting the light blue putty substance on one and connecting it to the trigger. By the time I finished with number three Sarge radioed in again with.
#Though you were wrong about the addict. We had a male mink subject. Not a female canine. He's back on his way to base for interrogation and treatment right now though.#
I stopped in place. What the hell was this some kind of joke?
"Wait what? Repeat that sarge. I don't understand."
The fox cleared his throat, sounding a bit angrier this time.
#I mean we didn't pick up a Collie. We picked up a mink. It was dark. You could have confused her with something else Andrew. It happens.#
I swallowed hard and realized what had happened. They figured we were gonna attack the upper levels first and do a room to room search of the complex so the demon was having fun on the lower level with some of it's spawn to pass the time. When I came by it imitated something I wouldn't be so eager to shoot so it could just change into a form it liked and get picked up as a PAS victim.
I ran towards the exit, the trigger activated by itself and detonated the explosives. Kuria was right, the charges were enough to bringing the walls of the basement down around me, I knew what the demon wanted and the demon knew I figured out its scheme so I had to go. The thing is I don't die that easily...