Grand Battle S3G1! (Round Four: City of the Dead)

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

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Anzhi jogged through the corridors of the Red base, heading for the nearest flight of stairs to the surface. His impeccable sense of navigation guided the lieutenant without any trouble, peaceably ignoring the fact he was pretty sure he just ran under a Green-Yellow skirmish the Reds had received intel on a few days back. It was a good day to be alive, and an even better day to be a Red soldier.

Anzhi's stride broke only briefly, a disconnect in his orders annealed by the ever-adaptable mind of an officer. Rescue the Teal soldiers. Red soldiers. Red was the enemy. Teal didn't even exist. Red yellow green blue they were the enemy. Four colours. Four enemies. It was a good day to be alive, and an even better day to be a Teal soldier.

Burning, roiling, immolation, rolling up the corridors like blue-green Unity, flooding settling in Anzhi's head like six feet of invasive, persuasive tide on a stricken city's streets. Anzhi blinked, surveying the damage with all the regret and comprehension of a mildly misanthropic crocodile.

Something was sleeping in a basement. Was being the operative word. The floodwaters were trickling down the steps, pooling in its nest and leaving Anzhi trembling in its cold, steel gaze.

It wasn't happy. It was awake and damp with teal and its city had fallen to the cerulean sea like a pangolin before Unity. It wasn't happy at all.

The lieutenant's eyes snapped open. Jetsam stood up, having found himself brought to his knees, and slowly unclamped his hands from his head. He didn't so much have a splitting headache as feel like one - a ferocious, red-as-turquoise –banners-burning migrane. It wasn't pleasant, but Jetsam suspected this Anzhi character was having a worse time of it. His subconscious kept riffling through the dichotomous shambles that was the lieutenant's headspace, trying to make some sense of it all. Something finally became clear; Jetsam was deep in enemy territory. Somebody else had taken charge of operations, and Jetsam had no intention of surrendering his autonomy to the slippery bastard.

Relying on the Teal lieutenant's impeccable sense of navigation (Jetsam was pretty sure the poor bastard was still in here, somehow), the man found the nearest escape shaft out of the Teal base.

---

One of the Black Ops was waiting for him, quite literally materialising from the dappled shade of a tree. Anzhi told Jetsam that he didn't like the soldier; Jetsam's senses were telling him that not liking the gun in his hand was more pertinent.

Jetsam raised his hands in exasperated surrender, which seemed to throw the operative. He seemed to deliberate, before assuming a less aggressive stance. Not that he moved, per se; merely flickered like a cheap hologram and jumped without preamble from aggressive to amicable. Somewhere between the two postures, he'd lit himself a cigarette and offered Jetsam another. Jetsam took it, and found – somewhat surprisingly – that it was real. He patted down Anzhi's uniform for a lighter, wishing he had a solid coat slung over him again.


"You're the eighth, yes?"

Jetsam shrugged, passing the cigarette back to the Operative, and receiving a lit one. "Maybe. I don't know. If I am, they didn't tell me."

"Dr. Nyoka was correct, then."

"Who?" The smoke in Jetsam's throat was apparently real, as was his suspicion.

"The sea serpent. The one who conquered the near-entirety of the Red-"

"I've got nothing to do with that snake, and I don't want to," interjected Jetsam. The Black Op raised a placating hand, and then motioned for him to follow through the woods.

"Her Majesty determined that would be the case, judging by your behaviour. General." He took a long drag upon his cigarette, turning to regard an incredulous with Jetsam with little surprise.

"You're joking."

"An even quarter of Her Majesty's nodes have been knocked offline, General. With two of my fellow operatives chasing your compatriots, my tangibility is something I'm grateful for, let alone a sense of humour." He really wasn't smiling. "As the highest-ranking officer remaining in the Red Army, you are now the General. My protocols would dictate I eliminate you where you stand, but Her Majesty decreed you'd be receptive enough to diplomacy."

Jetsam flinched a bit when the Operative's gaze lifted, his senses hovering in a state of perception somewhere between an out-of-body experience and vertigo. There was someone –either in his head or the head he was camping in – insisting this was all based on sound and ludicrous military theory. The duality hurt, in an existential kind of way.

"You work under us now, General," and by now Jetsam couldn't doubt the fact, Teal fatigues he was slouched in notwithstanding. "The node whose brain you kicked a hole in to escape the tealwash knows it, too. You – or who you claimed to be – knew the Black Ops' weapons can only eliminate the system's nodes."

Jetsam was thinking hard; mashing a few plans for escape through the mesh of Anzhi's knowledge, and sighed. "So you can't kill the snake or its soldiers, but you can kill me if I don't do it for you," he finally spat. The Operative shrugged. He was holding a cigarette again.

"If the rogue agents are eliminated or integrated successfully, Her Majesty gladly extends an offer for you to serve on as General. Or freedom, or whatever you wish. Bear in mind, Operative Null reports General Tengeri possesses defences against conversion."

Jetsam sighed again. "Fine. But if it's a choice of killing the snake or making a pet of it, I'd prefer the former," growled the soldier.

"That's at your discretion, General." The trees were thinning out.

"Great. What're we here for?"

The Black Op explained Scofflaw's "Trench", and the fact the last fourteen members of Jetsam's army were being held captive in there.

"Great," said Jetsam, with significantly less enthusiasm.