Foster was with them suddenly. The dumbass tried to escape a few days ago. Didn't get far. They caught him twenty miles from base, dehydrated, sunburnt, and begging for water. Now, instead of the standard four-year service contract, he had an extra two years tacked on.
That was the price of trying to bail.
Dan and Rus were paired up for the mission. Gino got the privilege of dragging Foster along. The guy had been pathetically depressed since they brought him back, moping around like a kicked dog.
Gino, being Gino, tried to cheer him up.
"Look at it this way, bro," he said, grinning as he patted Foster's shoulder. "At least you get to kill some Gobbers."
Foster groaned. "I guess so." He pulled at the chainmail they'd been issued for this mission, scowling. "But why the fuck are we wearing this medieval bullshit?"
Dan sighed, checked his rifle, then flicked Foster's chainmail.
"Because they use bladed weapons, dipshit. Try using your brain for once."
Foster shot him a glare but didn't argue.
Dan ignored him and reached into his pouch, pulling out a pinch of chewing tobacco. He stuffed it into his mouth and started chewing with a satisfied grunt.
Gino wrinkled his nose. "Shit, how do you enjoy stuff like that?"
Dan shrugged. "Dunno. Just do."
Foster snorted. "Ever heard of smoking? Like a normal human being?"
Dan didn't even look at him. "Foster, shut the fuck up."
They were moving through ruins east of Sector 12, rolling in a Humvee with a mounted turret. The wreckage of an old-world town stretched around them, crumbling buildings, cracked roads, and the occasional rusted-out vehicle stripped for parts.
Dan patted Ru's shoulder. "Stop here."
He eased the Humvee to a halt.
Gino climbed up onto the turret, sweeping his aim toward the ruins ahead.
"Stay here, keep the engine hot," Dan ordered. "Foster, you're with me."
Foster glanced at him, then up at Gino, then back at Dan.
"Just the two of us?"
"Yes."
Dan stepped out of the vehicle, extending his tower shield in one hand and drawing his electric baton in the other. The baton extended with a sharp snap, crackling with energy — a spear built for stabbing and shocking.
Foster sighed, shouldered his rifle, and busted open the nearest door.
Dan moved in first, shield up, clearing the room with quick, precise sweeps. Rus slid over into the passenger seat, flipping his rifle up to cover them from the outside.
Silence.
Then Dan's voice crackled through the radio.
"Clear here. No Gobbers."
Foster walked out and sprayed a large X on the wall, a mark for the cleanup crew.
Dan crouched down, running his fingers through the dirt. He frowned.
"No tracks. No signs of movement. Nothing."
Then they heard it.
Gunfire.
East of our position.
Explosions followed a few seconds later, deep, concussive thuds, sending distant plumes of smoke into the air. Then came the roar of gunships, whizzing by overhead.
Foster whistled. "Guess the next unit found something."
Even though humanity had been backed into city-states, they didn't lose everything.
Standard operating procedure was to bomb the absolute shit out of anything that looks like a problem.
If a horde got too big, they didn't bother sending in infantry first. They firebombed, shelled, and napalmed it into nothing. If anything survived, then the boots on the ground moved in to finish the job.
Made life easier.
Most of the time.
"Clearing ruins is easy when you've got overwhelming firepower," Rus muttered.
Dan chuckled. "Yeah. Which makes you wonder—how the fuck did humanity ever lose the first time?"
Good question.
A century had passed since humanity regained its footing, and here we were retaking land, pushing the monsters back, erasing them from history.
But how did Humanity lose it in the first place?
What happened back then?
Rus never thought much about it, didn't really care cause he was starving in the gutter when he got here and was too busy sleeping during training to care.
Like every other grunt here, he just wanted to get his shit done, survive his contract, and retire inside the city as a freeloading 'veteran.'
Rus wasn't an idealist. He wasn't an optimist.
He wasn't some moral philosopher thinking about the ethics of racial cleansing.
Rus was a guy trying to make it through four years without dying.
Then–
The air changed.
Thicker. Heavy.
The sharp, distinct scent of napalm drifted in from the east was a burning chemical stench that clung to their nostrils and wouldn't let go.
"Shit," Gino muttered, still on the turret. "They're really lighting it up out there."
They loaded back into the Humvee and rolled toward their next objective, moving through the ruins in slow, deliberate sweeps.
Nothing so far.
Just empty streets and blackened husks of buildings.
But the fact that there were no Goblins here?
That bothered Rus more than finding them.
After an hour, they reached the next checkpoint, an old gas station, partially collapsed, long stripped of anything useful.
They checked inside.
No bodies. No tracks. No signs of Goblins.
Which was wrong.
Dan frowned. "They were supposed to be here."
Foster kicked over a piece of burnt rubble. "Think they ran?"
"Gobbers don't just run." Gino slid down from the turret, spitting on the ground. "They fight, they ambush, they dig in. They don't just disappear."
And yet, here we were.
The ruins were empty.
The napalm runs had been thorough, sure, but there should still be something.
Scorch marks. Charred corpses. Primitive weapons left behind.
Something.
But there was nothing.
Just the ruins.
And the creeping, nagging feeling that they weren't alone.
Dan shifted uneasily. "I don't like this."
Neither did he.
Rus took another look around, scanning the rooftops, the alleyways, the broken streets.
Still nothing.
But heI felt it.
That familiar itch at the back of his neck.
Like they were being watched.
Like something was waiting.
Then, from somewhere in the distance—
Clicking sounds.
Low. Guttural. Inhuman.
Rus's grip on his rifle tightened.
Gino heard it too. He slowly reached for his radio.
"Command, this is Reclamation Team Bravo. We've got… something. No bodies, no tracks, but we're not alone out here. Requesting confirmation on any new enemy sightings."
Static.
Then—
"Standby."
Which was the last thing he wanted to hear.
Because standby meant they didn't know either.
And if Command didn't know what was out here?
That meant they were fucked.
The clicking noises came again.
Soft. Distant. But moving.
Gino and Rus exchanged a look. Dan had already raised his rifle, eyes scanning the wreckage. Foster shifted nervously, his fingers tightening around the grip of his gun.
They weren't alone.
And whatever was out there knew they were here.
They had cleared Goblin nests before. It was messy, brutal work, but it was predictable. Gobs were dumb, animalistic. They either fought or ran.
But this?
This was different.
No bodies. No signs of panic or retreat. No discarded weapons, no scorch-marked corpses, nothing.
Just an empty battlefield.
And the clicking noises.
They weren't random. They weren't echoes of the wind playing tricks on us.
They had a pattern.
A rhythm.
Like… communication.
Dan heard it too. "That ain't Goblin behavior."
Foster swallowed. "So what the fuck is it, then?"
Silence.
They didn't know.
And that was a problem.
Gino's radio crackled to life.
"Reclamation Team Bravo, confirm your last report. You're saying there are no bodies?"
"Affirmative," Gino said, voice tense. "No bodies, no remains. The entire warband we were tracking is just… gone."
A pause.
Then HQ came back.
"...Standby for further orders."
Dan muttered a curse under his breath.
Standby.
Meaning they had no idea either.
Which meant they were officially off script.
Then, suddenly, movement.
A shadow flickered through the ruins, darting between buildings too fast.
Dan caught it first. "Contact, left side—two o'clock!"
They swung their rifles toward the movement, eyes scanning the darkness.
Nothing.
Foster cursed under his breath. "I don't like this, man."
Neither did he.
The clicking sounds had stopped.
Which was somehow worse.
Then, just as Gino turned back to his radio—
Something moved.
Not a Goblin.
Something taller.
Something faster.
Something smart.
From the shadows of a collapsed building, a pair of black, glistening eyes locked onto me.
Rus barely had time to register the shape—lanky limbs, elongated fingers, pale, stretched skin—before it lunged.
Straight at him.
Instinct took over.
Rus fired.
The gun roared in his hands, the muzzle flash illuminating the dimness for half a second—just enough to see the thing's mouth.
Teeth.
Jagged, uneven, too many of them.
The bullets hit—but it didn't stop.
It twisted mid-air, avoiding the worst of the burst, landing low on all fours.
A hiss, guttural and wet.
Then more movement in the ruins around them.
They weren't dealing with one.
They were surrounded.
Dan reacted fast, raising his shield and stepping in front of Foster just as another figure burst from the rubble.
Gino swung the turret around, opening fire in a thunderous burst of rounds ripping through stone and metal.
But these things were fast.
They didn't charge head-on like Goblins. They moved sideways, weaving between cover, staying low.
They were hunting them.
Gino yelled into the radio.
"CONTACT! MULTIPLE HOSTILES—THESE AREN'T GOBS! REQUEST IMMEDIATE SUPPORT—"
Static.
Then HQ's voice, sharp and urgent.
"Fallback to defensive positions, do not engage directly. Repeat, do not engage. We are redirecting aerial support to your location."
Dan gritted his teeth. "Great. We just have to survive until they get here."
Foster swore. "That's fucking comforting."
Another shadow lunged from the rubble.
Rus turned and fired again, his shots tracking it mid-movement. The bullets hit—this time, it dropped, twitching, bleeding out in the dust.
But for every one they killed, more were coming.
"Hold the line!" Dan barked, raising his shield as another creature lunged. The impact slammed into him hard, knocking him back, but the shield held.
Gino let loose another burst from the turret, tearing through the ruins, forcing some of them back.
Foster was panicking. His hands shook as he fired, rounds going wild.
"Shit—shit—shit!"
Dan grabbed him by the collar and yanked him behind cover.
"FOCUS YOU RETARD!"
They were outnumbered. The ruins erupted into chaos.
The air filled with gunfire, muzzle flashes flickering like lightning in the dark. Shadows moved fast between the wreckage, too fast. They darted, crawled, slithered between rubble, coming at them from angles they couldn't cover.
Gino kept firing the turret, laying down suppressive fire, but even the heavy rounds couldn't track them all. Dan braced against the impact of another creature, slamming into his tower shield with enough force to dent the metal. Foster fired wildly, missing more shots than he landed.
Rus was moving fast, aiming, trying to kill the fuckers before they reached them.
But they kept coming.
More than he could count.
And they were running out of time.
"WHERE THE FUCK IS OUR AIR SUPPORT?" Gino shouted into the radio, his voice strained.
HQ responded, voice tense but cold.
"Two minutes out. Hold your position."
Two minutes?
They didn't have two minutes. Sure they're armored up, but with the enemy's number they'll be pinned down.
One of the creatures broke cover, sprinting low. Rus raised his rifle, tracked its movement, and fired a controlled burst.
The bullets tore through its chest. It stumbled, falling to its knees, twitching. Should've been dead.
But then…
It moved.
Jolted upright, like a puppet with its strings yanked.
The thing looked at hi,, head snapping up unnaturally fast. It should have been bleeding out. It should have been dying.
Instead, it smiled.
A grotesque, too-wide grin.
Then it charged again.
"WHAT THE FUCK?" Rus yelled, switching to full-auto.
Dan pivoted, slamming the butt of his baton into another creature's head, cracking its skull open. But even as it dropped, another lunged from the side, climbing onto his shield.
"THESE THINGS AREN'T NORMAL!" he shouted, poking the creature with his baton, sending a thousand volts to its brain.
No shit these fuckers weren't normal.
Another one pounced at Rus, limbs outstretched. He barely had time to react before Dan intercepted, slamming it to the ground with a bash of his shield.
It screeched, a sound that made his eardrums burn, then twisted unnaturally, its bones cracking as it tried to right itself.
Dan stomped on its head. Hard.
A sickening crunch.
It finally stopped moving.
For now.
They pulled back, using the Humvee as their defensive cover. Gino kept firing, but the turret was overheating. Foster was out of ammo, resorting to his baton and fists.
Rus slammed another mag into his rifle, heart pounding as he unlocked the sheath of his combat blade.
The creatures were everywhere now.
The clicking sounds had turned into screeches.
Then as if God finally answered them.
A roaring noise from above.
Gunships.
Finally.
The first missiles streaked down, slamming into the ruins with thunderous explosions. Fire bloomed across the battlefield, lighting up the night in a wall of flames and shrapnel.
Then came the heavy guns.
Rotary cannons tore through the ruins, ripping into anything that moved. The creatures screeched as their bodies were shredded, torn apart, disintegrated under relentless gunfire.
One moment, they were fighting for their lives.
The next?
It was over.
God bless the pilots, Rus thought.
Smoke choked the air. The ruins were reduced to rubble. The only sound left was the distant hum of gunships circling above.
Rus let out a shaky breath. His hands were still gripping his rifle, tight enough that his fingers ached.
Foster collapsed against the Humvee, breathing hard. "Holy fuck."
Dan wiped blood off his shield. "That was not a standard Gobber nest."
No one argued.
Because they all knew, this was something else.
Something they hadn't seen before.
And something that HQ didn't warn them about.
Gino spat onto the ground. "They knew."
Rus looked at him. "What?"
He gestured at the ruins, at the smoking remains of whatever we just fought.
"They fucking knew," he repeated. "HQ. The brass. They sent us in here as bait."
Foster paled. "No. They wouldn't—"
"Shut the fuck up," Dan muttered. "They didn't send us reinforcements. They sent a goddamn bombing run."
And that?
That meant they never intended for them to win this fight.
Just to confirm what was here.
And if they died in the process?
Well. That was just part of the mission.
Rus looked down at one of the corpse piles, at the thing he had killed.
At the thing that should've died the first time.
This wasn't just another Goblin purge.
This was a test.
A trap.
For us.
And HQ?
They just got their answers.
Didn't take long for a recovery unit to arrive.
They moved in with precision, fully geared, fully armored, not a single hint of exhaustion in their movements. They weren't like them. They were expendable grunts, sent in blind to see what happened. These guys?
They were here for the cleanup.
They picked through the ruins like vultures, securing corpse samples, analyzing the damage, tagging biological remains for transport.
And Rus was still pissed.
He was leaning against the Humvee when he spotted movement.
A corpse, half-buried under rubble, its chest rising just barely.
It wasn't dead.
The fucking thing was still breathing.
Something inside Rus snapped.
He walked over, lifted his boot, and with all the rage he had bottled up, he stomped down on its skull.
A sickening crunch echoed through the air as its head collapsed under his boot, bones and brain matter splattering across the dirt.
Only then did he feel satisfied.
Then someone had the balls to tell him to stop.
"HEY—" one of the recovery guys snapped. "We needed that one alive."
Rus turned to him, still pissed off, and let out a slow breath.
Then, calmly and politely, he said, "Fuck off."
The guy stiffened. Rus could see the anger in his stance, the way his hands twitched like he wanted to grab him, but he didn't.
Because he knew.
He knew what they had just been through.
And he knew that if he started shit right now, Rus would try his best to break his jaw without hesitation.
So instead, he just huffed and muttered something under his breath before walking off.
Rus didn't care. He was done with this place.
He climbed back into the Humvee, rubbing a hand down his face.
Dan sat next to him, cleaning the blood off his baton. Gino was in the back, reloading his mags with slow, methodical movements. Foster was just staring at the floor, silent for once.
For a brief second, they all just sat there.
Then the radio crackled.
"Bravo Team, new orders. Move to the next sector for clearing. ETA twenty minutes."
Rus stared at the radio.
Then at the burning ruins around us.
Then back at the radio.
"…Are you fucking serious?" Rus muttered.
No response.
Of course not.
Dan sighed. "Guess we're not getting a break."
Rus exhaled slowly, trying to shove the frustration deep down where it wouldn't boil over.
Then he did what he always did.
He got into the driver's seat.
Started the engine.
And drove them toward the next shitshow.