Re: Grand Battle S3G1! (Round Two: The Great Battlefield)
12-19-2011, 05:37 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.
5 seconds to doomsday:
Benjamin Jetsam’s brain turned on to find itself stuck in emergency broadcast mode: bright colors in vertical bars. He looked up to see a military base up off in the distance. Fighting all around. He was bleeding. He rubbed some blood out of his eye and blinked to find the military base had been replaced by a bright flash of all-consuming white light...
46 minutes to doomsday:
The helicopter touched down and two soldiers stepped out. Tengeri didn’t recognize either of them, so she assumed they must be Tor and Jetsam. She nodded, and to her chagrin they ignored her, looking instead in Scofflaw’s direction.
“Tartan Tyrant,” said Tor, smirking.
“Gentlemen,” replied Scofflaw, doing a poor job of hiding his resentment. “So,” he said, addressing the group. “I’ve just signed off on this ludicrous plan that doesn’t involve simply killing someone and getting the hell out of here before we all die. I am doing this out of my long-term interests, and because, hell, look at us all together like this. I just wish my pet dinosaur were here to share in this moment.”
9 minutes 30 seconds to doomsday:
Kerak, commander of the rapidly-diminishing Chartreuse Company, made for the bubble of levitating water sticking out of a trench. “You’re terrible at being inconspicuous!” growled the Deinonychus, rolling awkwardly behind cover next to the Leviath.
“Yes, well, I seem to be terrible at a lot of things lately, Kerak!” shouted Tengeri over the sounds of gunfire. “I should have seen this coming.”
Kerak laughed, an uninviting and offputting sort of throaty cackle. “General Tengeri, I used to tell people that I knew the future. If anyone should have seen this coming, it’s me. Now, what do we do about it?”
The answer made Tengeri sick. “I’m immune to conversion by gunfire—mostly, anyway. I think I might be able to get past whatever he’s thrown up.”
Kerak nodded, his snout bobbing up and down excitedly. “Alright. This seems like a fair division of labor. My people team up with your people to fend off the Plaids. You go after Scofflaw.”
Tengeri took a deep breath of water and nearly choked. Despite her cybernetics’ best efforts, it was getting a bit muddy down here in the trenches.
25 minutes to doomsday
“Aaaaaaand that’s three. High five!”
TinTen had barely any idea what exactly it was that he had just put together. He was fairly sure that they weren’t bombs, but after that he just had to take Scofflaw’s word that they were “resonators” for the main nullifier, and would suffice to disable the nukes if placed in the three other bases. Being disgruntled with the idea of taking Scofflaw at his word, he opted not to indulge the villain’s high-five. “Huebert and self will take Green Base,” he volunteered. Huebert shrugged agreement. “Won’t be easy. Greens most powerful army by far with Kerak’s contingent.”
“Nah, it’ll be a picnic.” The Tartan Tyrant brought his hand out of high-five position in order to rub it together with the other one menacingly. “Thanks to you solving the color-neutralizer problem. Once I flick this switch, not only will no one in a hundred meters be able to shoot at you, they’ll lose the conditioning that makes them want to. While we save the world from annihilation, we’ll also be spreading free will. Cool, huh?” He seemed legitimately enthused.
“I’ll head to Yellow Base,” offered Velobo. “It’s farthest away and I can cover the ground fastest. Tor, that leaves you to take care of Blue Base.”
Tor shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here with the nullifier. Scofflaw’s going to Blue Base.”
“A, it’s the Tartan Tyrant,” retorted, y’know, that guy. “B, I bet you’d like that, but it’s my machinery and I need to be here in case something goes wrong with it.”
“Agreed,” said TinTen. “Captain Kajan, stay with Scofflaw. If resonators don’t work as said, something goes wrong, kill Scofflaw and start next round. Tengeri can take care of Blue. Right?”
“Oh, don’t be stupid,” piped in Jetsam. “I can’t tell if you’re all being deliberately insulting because I got left out of the fucking secret meetings for your supposed fucking... game... thing... Look. She’s got an army to run. I can put the disarmer thing on Blue Base for you. No problem.”
There was a moment of silence, broken by a sincere chuckle on the part of the Tartan Tyrant. “Check it out! They trust you less than they trust me!”
18 Minutes to Doomsday
“Alright,” said Scofflaw cheerily, looking at his wrist (he wasn’t wearing a watch). “All our birds are in the air and Tengeri’s army should be safely out of range by now, so we should be safe to set phasers to neutralize. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if this just didn’t work? I haven’t even tried this.”
Tor, choosing not to respond to that, scratched his head and cautiously watched Scofflaw fiddle with some dials. Then something blueredgreenyellow happened in his brain, making him feel momentarily nauseous. He panicked and lunged towards Scofflaw (the villain was betraying us/the Red Army/HER/Chartreuse Company/the Blue Army/the Plaid Platoon/me) but stopped short when the conflicting jumble of loyalties resolved itself into a soothing calm. The parts of his psyche that had been tainted Black had been stripped away. He was himself again.
Scofflaw, meanwhile, was clearly relieved to find his kilt still intact. “I was worried,” he confessed, “that neutralizing myself would put me back in my old Saint Scofflaw outfit. Ugly old thing.” He looked up at Tor. “You feeling alright? Need to use the bathroom, or the crematorium?”
Tor couldn’t think of anything to say except “Cu cordata.” It seemed to be enough to put the conversation on hold for a bit.
14 minutes til doomsday
Like being smothered by a dusty quilt, Jetsam felt plaid wash over him. It’s a hard sensation to describe. Bits of his brain bumped up against other bits of his brain and crackled and burned, only it wasn’t his brain, or there was something else there that was more real and permanent where the brain was just a squishy vessel he’d be vacating soon. Whatever that inner layer was—it still felt sort of reddish, but that wasn’t the truth of it either—this seemed to be the last straw. It removed itself from the process and let the poor Lieutenant Anzhi fend for himself.
In other words, while every other soldier in a radius of two hundred meters was enjoying a renewed sense of purpose and a nice breeze between their legs, Jetsam snapped.
The soldier next to him was dead before he hit the ground. When you’re out of your mind and want someone dead, it doesn’t matter whether or not your gun works. Your hands and feet and teeth just know what to do, as though guided by an unseen, unstoppable force.
17 minutes to doomsday
“Hey! You can actually talk now!”
“So I can.” The entirety of the Teal army outnumbered Chartreuse Company—very slightly—but Tengeri was no tactician. If this came to combat, she would lose her entire army. “Look, Kerak, is there any chance negotiations can wait twenty minutes? While you’ve been off playing war, the rest of us have been trying to avert the apocalypse.”
Kerak growled. “What, you haven’t taken care of that already? What do I pay you people for?”
“Don’t worry! We’re on it. Although if there’s any way you could get to TinTen and help him get into Green Base—“
“You need to infiltrate Green Base?”
“We need to infiltrate all the bases.”
The dinosaur’s tail twitched. “And if you can’t infiltrate all the bases, we all die?”
“Look, I know this looks bad, but I trust these people. Except Scofflaw. And Jetsam.”
“Jetsam!? Gods below, Tengeri, you—No. No, this is unacceptable. How’d you all talk each other into this? We need to kill someone and get to the next round.”
The Teal and Chartreuse soldiers started shifting back and forth nervously. If combat were to break out, the ones on the front lines could anticipate being converted several times before this was over, and that was never comfortable.
“That’s not going to happen, Kerak. There’s no need to panic—“
“Come on, Tengeri. Just radio Tor to take out one of the ones you don’t trust. Preferably Jetsam; Scofflaw and I go way back. For that matter, just tell me where he is, and I’ll take care of it.”
“Kerak. If we do what you say, and kill Scofflaw, and warp out of here—we’re the only thing standing between all these people and death. For their sake, we have to—“
“Last warning, snake.” Kerak’s voice took on a menacing, serious tone all of a sudden (privately, he called it his “oracle voice”). “Have one of the others killed, or I kill you.”
She had, what, fifteen minutes left before the nukes went off? Tengeri estimated she could probably hold him off until then, but it wouldn’t be pretty. She issued a silent prayer to her companions: Hurry up, guys. Then she turned her eyes back to Kerak. “Well then, I guess you’ll have to kill me.”
15 minutes til doomsday
“Fighting’s broken out between Teal and Chartreuse out on the battlefield,” reported Scofflaw. “I know this,” he confided, “Because I’ve tuned my dental fillings in to Kerak’s private radio frequency. Ever try turning a millimeter-wide dial using only your tongue? It’s awesome. Oh, but you’re not even listening, are you?” The Tartan Tyrant turned a disapproving eye upon the incandescent Tor-shaped mass writhing on the other end of the nullifier. “Can’t even make through one critically-important mission without needing to go out for a smoke. Christ. What do you think would happen if I peed on you right now?” Tor didn’t answer. “You’d probably enjoy it, you sick fuck. Alright, next question: what do you think would happen if I did... this?”
The nullifier was set to neutralize, broadcasting the energy frequencies of all four primary colors in perfect harmony and making it impossible for one color to dominate someone’s psyche. This struck the villain as terribly boring. He fiddled with the setting, cranking up red and green and staggering the broadcast in erratic pulses. “Come oooooooon work work work work work!” He cast an eye towards Tor, who was now stumbling to his feet as his body reshaped. The Telpori-Hal’s new skin looked... striped. “Captain Kajan,” Scofflaw said cautiously. “If you had a mind like mine, would you really waste it by trying to help people? Answer carefully now.”
Tor saluted, seeing no reason not to be honest. “Sir, absolutely I would, sir!”
18 minutes to doomsday
Jetsam almost, but didn’t quite, throw up. Something powerful and gray came out of the resonator and hit his brain, washing over the teal bits and bouncing up uncertainly against the red bits. He steadied himself against the Teal next to him—well, he wasn’t a Teal anymore. The white soldier shoved Jetsam off and looked down at his outfit uncertainly.
“What... what do I do now?” the White asked.
Jetsam’s head was still spinning. “Well,” he said. “If you want to help me save all your skins, come with me. If not, the war’s over for you. Go home.”
He stomped off, the nullifier tucked under his arm, hoping that whatever just happened wasn’t ever going to happen again.
13 minutes to doomsday
Sergeant Naamxe of the plaid platoon placed the resonator down on the floor in Green Base and remarked inwardly how small a thing it was, just a little metal cube without so much as an off button, and and how much it was going to change this war. Two hundred of his fellow Plaids were standing around in its defense and even if there had only been five of them they could have held off the entire Green Army, not to mention the nuclear holocaust it was staving off.
“Alright, half of you, you’re with us!” called Lieutenant Henderson. “We’ll be meeting up with the main force outside and attacking Kerak’s Chartreuse Company from the rear. The rest of you: if that box leaves that exact spot, I won’t even need to take your heads, cause they’ll be atomized, you hear?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” came the cry. It made Naamxe proud to be a part of this brave unit.
6 minutes to doomsday
Luckily for Tengeri, deprived of their guns these soldiers weren’t any better trained in melee combat than she was. Leaving her with the size advantage, and a lot of water, with which to fend off the superior numbers of the Plaid Platoon.
To her credit, she almost made it to the nullifier before the sight of a tartan-skinned Tor standing over the device knocked the tides out of her and she gave the enemy an opening. She took a riflebutt to the gills and another between the eyes and wound up flat on the dry floor wriggling in a pool of water.
“Tor,” Tengeri spat, struggling to reform her water supply. “Think for a minute. You’ve been brainwashed.”
Tor smirked. “Of course I’ve been brainwashed, Tengeri. I know that. But those are the rules. I’m wearing the colors, so I follow the orders. Don’t look down on me just because you’ve managed to counteract the effects.”
Tengeri attempted to move more than an inch off the floor and was warned against it by the several Plaids hovering over her. “Alright, fine. I suppose it’s too much to ask for a moment of self-awareness in which you break programming and set me free?”
“Nah. I made that work with a couple primary colors a while back, but they’d just been converted by gunfire. The nullifier’s stronger stuff, I think. I mean, my new purpose in life is written on my skin. See?”
“Yes, I see.” It occurred to her that there was more or less no way to get out of this unless she did what Kerak wanted and killed Scofflaw. It was a depressing thought. Either way: “I know your general, and he’ll want you to bring me to him. Where is he?”
“You’ll have to wait a little while,” yawned Tor. “The Tyrant’s out cleaning after a mess Jetsam made over in Blue Territory. He promised he’d be back by doomsday, so... five minutes?”
4 minutes to doomsday
The resonator was just sitting there in the middle of the mud. And it had been smashed to bits. The Tartan Tyrant almost tripped over it.
“Oh, God,” he moaned. “Guys!” he called out to his squadron, most of whom were too preoccupied fighting off Blues to pay any attention to their glorious leader. “We fucked up! Haul ass!”
A soldier dressed in blue approached. The Tyrant eventually caught on that it was Jetsam, not from the man’s utterly forgettable appearance, but from the way he was standing—some deranged combat stance that was rounding the bend from unmilitary to inhuman. Jetsam pointed, apparently no longer capable of speech.
The former Scofflaw countered Jetsam’s animality with a sort of sumo stance he’d perfected over years of trying to convince people that he had ever bothered to train himself in hand-to-hand combat. He had very large hands, and when he held them out in front of him in a certain way, it made whoever he was fighting imagine having their entire head grabbed all at once, their faces smothered in those sweaty palms. It would have given anyone in their right mind second thoughts about charging, but Jetsam wasn’t.
Luckily for the Tartan Tyrant, the wanderer found himself clotheslined by a very long, very plaid tongue. Velobo leapt down from seemingly nowhere to join his general, who would have hugged the little cube if he weren’t afraid of the sharp corners. “Velobo!” he called warmly over the sounds of warfare. “Or, uh, Major Calidad! What rank did I give you again?”
“Your orders didn’t specify,” replied Velobo, still a little glib beneath his formal servility. “Only that I be called ‘the Plaidzmuth.’”
“Right. Now, is Yellow Base secure, how the hell did you get here and can we get out of here the same way?”
“Yeah, about that.” The Plaidzmuth scratched his face (the face to the left of the face with his face on it). “The Benefactors told me they could drop me off wherever.”
8 minutes til doomsday
They’d just finished depositing the resonator in Yellow Base (easy as pie, because seriously, yellow? They aren’t even a real primary color!) when Velobo found himself teleported to a secluded location in the center of the battlefield.
“Honestly,” said the CEO, "we weren’t sure that was going to work."
“Our avatars go on the fritz when caught in your general’s conversion field,” explained the General. “Apparently we can still transport data in and out on a small scale, but we can’t interact with the generators themselves.”
“A ‘hi’ would suffice,” said Velobo, unimpressed by the Benefactors’ attempts to be enigmatic. “What gives? I thought you’d washed your hands of us.”
“Yes, well,” sighed the Politican. “Obviously the situation has changed.”
“We didn’t think you’d actually find a way to stop the reset,” said the General. “But by God, did you put a sledgehammer to that problem.”
“We’d just like to formally admit defeat,” the Scientist chimed in. “The smartest computer in the world has been rendered incapable of so much as long division by this invasion of... plaid... and it’s resisting all attempts to reset it. You know we can’t even cut off its power source?”
Velobo smiled. He’d did it. The Tartan Tyrant had saved the Battlefield. “So what now?” he asked the Four, confident to be on the winning side for once.
“Where we’re from, we’ve accumulated enough power to coast for a while without the aid of the system,” mused the CEO. “After which, we definitely all have enough money to retire. Go home, spend more time with our families.”
“That was our first thought,” added the General. “But it never really got past the drawing board phase. Now we’re thinking we can use you people, especially your Tartan Tyrant.”
“This guy—alongside the squid--shut down the world’s most complex computer on its own terms,” the Scientist stressed. “We don’t know what he did exactly—we don’t think he knows either—it’s like he created an entire branch of science that recoded the computer to make itself possible within the world of the battlefield.”
“And then he figured out a way to turn it into beer, which is brilliant marketing,” added the CEO.
“If we figure that out, we can use it,” said the Politician. “We can learn from the dinosaur’s tactics or the snake’s cybernetics.”
“Hell, I’d like a look at your anatomy,” joked the Scientist. “You’re a cube. Your mouth cavity takes up, like, thirty percent of your volume, and your tongue’s—“
“All we can do now is encourage you to stay the course,” interrupted the Politician. “Keep everyone alive. Stop the nukes. Conquer the Battlefield. Do whatever you want with it. Your job is to bring up to your general the idea of entering talks with us when the time is right. Can you do that, little cube buddy?”
“I don’t like you,” said Velobo, earnestly. “But I can’t account for the Tyrant. Of course I’ll relay everything I heard here.”
“You’re a real soldier,” said the general. “Company man to the last. I like that.”
“I like that too.” Before his conversion, Velobo would have hated himself for saying that and agreeing with it, which was why it was comforting and freeing to know that his thoughts were not his own. He couldn’t be held accountable for his actions, his desires, his every thought. What a wonderful way to live!
3 minutes to doomsday
In spite of everything, Chartreuse Company was still winning right up to the end.
Of course they were winning. The leader of Chartreuse Company wasn’t at all like Scofflaw. He was an everyman, a down-and-dirty type, willing to get in there and direct things from the ground. He inspired respect—no, love—from his men, not mere blind brainwashed obeisance. He was a goddamn dinosaur.
Kerak had personally torn out the throats of nearly fifty plaid soldiers and evaded conversion since the shit had hit the fan with Tengeri fifteen minutes ago. He was getting his confidence back. Of course they were going to all end up against him. He was different. He didn’t fit in with their technologized world. All he’d had to rely on—all his life—were his wits and his brother. They’d never understand that.
Since he’d caught sight of the squid from atop a hill a few minutes back, all dressed in plaid and fighting back-to-back with his friend, Kerak hadn’t been consciously aware that he was heading in that direction. But when he looked up from his latest meal he found himself staring down the barrel of what he had been led to understand was called a “plasma projector.” He’d seen what it did to people over the hill, and it wasn’t just a color change.
Kerak smiled. “I’d imagine your new general wouldn’t want me dead. That would undo all the progress we’ve done here.”
TinTen smacked the deinonychus on the temple with the big gun. “Correct,” said the meipi. “Similarly, illustrious commander of Chatreuse Company wouldn’t risk being labeled murderer next round, and would wait for Tengeri to kill Tartan Tyrant.” Kerak could almost see the squid smiling under his rebreather. “Which, in certain view, would be considered justified. So: no one dies; stalemate.”
That wasn’t precisely correct. Kerak glanced over at Huebert and wondered what would happen if he only killed one of the pair. “Alright,” he told TinTen. “Between the two of us, sure, it’s a stalemate. But here on the battlefield? My Chartreuse Company is unstoppable. Scofflaw’s little gambit, though I have a lot of respect for it, just isn’t going to work against me and my men. Let him send whoever.”
“Hmmph. One point of view. Huebert: show prisoner to Kerak.” Huebert whistled, and two Plaids emerged from behind a rock escorting a bound-and-gagged Green officer.
“You know the rules,” said Huebert, pointing his pistol at the general’s head. “If a plaid takes out the Green general, all the greens—every shade of green—are converted.”
Kerak growled. The brainwashed part of him—although, come to think of it, he had never explicitly been converted, only chosen to side with Green—felt an instinctive need to protect his commanding officer. And he didn’t want to become plaid. “If it’s as easy as that, then why haven’t you taken him out already?”
“Tyrant hypothesizes that conversion will lose effect without enemy to fight against. Until Plaid dictatorial rule fully established, wants to perpetuate wartime conditions to foster loyalty. Green, with most manpower, is obvious candidate. So, one-time offer: give self up, general is released to fight another day.”
“You’ll be one of us,” added Huebert, “Which, surprisingly, isn’t that bad. It’s not real mind control, we can still think and stuff, we just agree with everything he says now. You’ll be a high-ranking officer in charge of fighting this army you’ve just created. Sounds pretty fun to me.”
To Kerak it sounded like two rocks coming together on either side of his skull. What else could he do? He lunged at Huebert.
Just as he wrapped his teeth around those big, meaty shoulders, the first bolt of plasma hit him in the eye, rendering him half-blind. From the side he couldn’t see he heard the squid’s voice above the insistent whine of pain and the crackling noise of his scales burning. “Shouldn’t have attacked Huebert.”
Kerak rolled off Huebert—who cursed rather patronizingly—and laughed. “Haven’t we gone over this? Boss’s orders. You can’t kill me. Hurt me all you—aaaaaaagh—all you want. I’m not afraid.”
“As previously stated,” sighed TinTen. “Supposed ‘brainwashing’ left free will largely intact. Some things more important than orders. Shouldn’t. Have. Attacked. Huebert.”
The second bolt of plasma went right through his charred flesh and into his brain. The last thought that passed through his mind was the idea—or it was like a thousand ideas all at once—that everything he had ever lied about to everyone about himself and about the Gods and about everything might actually be true and he would never know it. The last image recorded on his remaining eye was of a bright, all-encompassing flash of light from the direction of Blue Base.
5 seconds to doomsday:
Benjamin Jetsam’s brain turned on to find itself stuck in emergency broadcast mode: bright colors in vertical bars. He looked up to see a military base up off in the distance. Fighting all around. He was bleeding. He rubbed some blood out of his eye and blinked to find the military base had been replaced by a bright flash of all-consuming white light...
46 minutes to doomsday:
The helicopter touched down and two soldiers stepped out. Tengeri didn’t recognize either of them, so she assumed they must be Tor and Jetsam. She nodded, and to her chagrin they ignored her, looking instead in Scofflaw’s direction.
“Tartan Tyrant,” said Tor, smirking.
“Gentlemen,” replied Scofflaw, doing a poor job of hiding his resentment. “So,” he said, addressing the group. “I’ve just signed off on this ludicrous plan that doesn’t involve simply killing someone and getting the hell out of here before we all die. I am doing this out of my long-term interests, and because, hell, look at us all together like this. I just wish my pet dinosaur were here to share in this moment.”
9 minutes 30 seconds to doomsday:
Kerak, commander of the rapidly-diminishing Chartreuse Company, made for the bubble of levitating water sticking out of a trench. “You’re terrible at being inconspicuous!” growled the Deinonychus, rolling awkwardly behind cover next to the Leviath.
“Yes, well, I seem to be terrible at a lot of things lately, Kerak!” shouted Tengeri over the sounds of gunfire. “I should have seen this coming.”
Kerak laughed, an uninviting and offputting sort of throaty cackle. “General Tengeri, I used to tell people that I knew the future. If anyone should have seen this coming, it’s me. Now, what do we do about it?”
The answer made Tengeri sick. “I’m immune to conversion by gunfire—mostly, anyway. I think I might be able to get past whatever he’s thrown up.”
Kerak nodded, his snout bobbing up and down excitedly. “Alright. This seems like a fair division of labor. My people team up with your people to fend off the Plaids. You go after Scofflaw.”
Tengeri took a deep breath of water and nearly choked. Despite her cybernetics’ best efforts, it was getting a bit muddy down here in the trenches.
25 minutes to doomsday
“Aaaaaaand that’s three. High five!”
TinTen had barely any idea what exactly it was that he had just put together. He was fairly sure that they weren’t bombs, but after that he just had to take Scofflaw’s word that they were “resonators” for the main nullifier, and would suffice to disable the nukes if placed in the three other bases. Being disgruntled with the idea of taking Scofflaw at his word, he opted not to indulge the villain’s high-five. “Huebert and self will take Green Base,” he volunteered. Huebert shrugged agreement. “Won’t be easy. Greens most powerful army by far with Kerak’s contingent.”
“Nah, it’ll be a picnic.” The Tartan Tyrant brought his hand out of high-five position in order to rub it together with the other one menacingly. “Thanks to you solving the color-neutralizer problem. Once I flick this switch, not only will no one in a hundred meters be able to shoot at you, they’ll lose the conditioning that makes them want to. While we save the world from annihilation, we’ll also be spreading free will. Cool, huh?” He seemed legitimately enthused.
“I’ll head to Yellow Base,” offered Velobo. “It’s farthest away and I can cover the ground fastest. Tor, that leaves you to take care of Blue Base.”
Tor shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here with the nullifier. Scofflaw’s going to Blue Base.”
“A, it’s the Tartan Tyrant,” retorted, y’know, that guy. “B, I bet you’d like that, but it’s my machinery and I need to be here in case something goes wrong with it.”
“Agreed,” said TinTen. “Captain Kajan, stay with Scofflaw. If resonators don’t work as said, something goes wrong, kill Scofflaw and start next round. Tengeri can take care of Blue. Right?”
“Oh, don’t be stupid,” piped in Jetsam. “I can’t tell if you’re all being deliberately insulting because I got left out of the fucking secret meetings for your supposed fucking... game... thing... Look. She’s got an army to run. I can put the disarmer thing on Blue Base for you. No problem.”
There was a moment of silence, broken by a sincere chuckle on the part of the Tartan Tyrant. “Check it out! They trust you less than they trust me!”
18 Minutes to Doomsday
“Alright,” said Scofflaw cheerily, looking at his wrist (he wasn’t wearing a watch). “All our birds are in the air and Tengeri’s army should be safely out of range by now, so we should be safe to set phasers to neutralize. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if this just didn’t work? I haven’t even tried this.”
Tor, choosing not to respond to that, scratched his head and cautiously watched Scofflaw fiddle with some dials. Then something blueredgreenyellow happened in his brain, making him feel momentarily nauseous. He panicked and lunged towards Scofflaw (the villain was betraying us/the Red Army/HER/Chartreuse Company/the Blue Army/the Plaid Platoon/me) but stopped short when the conflicting jumble of loyalties resolved itself into a soothing calm. The parts of his psyche that had been tainted Black had been stripped away. He was himself again.
Scofflaw, meanwhile, was clearly relieved to find his kilt still intact. “I was worried,” he confessed, “that neutralizing myself would put me back in my old Saint Scofflaw outfit. Ugly old thing.” He looked up at Tor. “You feeling alright? Need to use the bathroom, or the crematorium?”
Tor couldn’t think of anything to say except “Cu cordata.” It seemed to be enough to put the conversation on hold for a bit.
14 minutes til doomsday
Like being smothered by a dusty quilt, Jetsam felt plaid wash over him. It’s a hard sensation to describe. Bits of his brain bumped up against other bits of his brain and crackled and burned, only it wasn’t his brain, or there was something else there that was more real and permanent where the brain was just a squishy vessel he’d be vacating soon. Whatever that inner layer was—it still felt sort of reddish, but that wasn’t the truth of it either—this seemed to be the last straw. It removed itself from the process and let the poor Lieutenant Anzhi fend for himself.
In other words, while every other soldier in a radius of two hundred meters was enjoying a renewed sense of purpose and a nice breeze between their legs, Jetsam snapped.
The soldier next to him was dead before he hit the ground. When you’re out of your mind and want someone dead, it doesn’t matter whether or not your gun works. Your hands and feet and teeth just know what to do, as though guided by an unseen, unstoppable force.
17 minutes to doomsday
“Hey! You can actually talk now!”
“So I can.” The entirety of the Teal army outnumbered Chartreuse Company—very slightly—but Tengeri was no tactician. If this came to combat, she would lose her entire army. “Look, Kerak, is there any chance negotiations can wait twenty minutes? While you’ve been off playing war, the rest of us have been trying to avert the apocalypse.”
Kerak growled. “What, you haven’t taken care of that already? What do I pay you people for?”
“Don’t worry! We’re on it. Although if there’s any way you could get to TinTen and help him get into Green Base—“
“You need to infiltrate Green Base?”
“We need to infiltrate all the bases.”
The dinosaur’s tail twitched. “And if you can’t infiltrate all the bases, we all die?”
“Look, I know this looks bad, but I trust these people. Except Scofflaw. And Jetsam.”
“Jetsam!? Gods below, Tengeri, you—No. No, this is unacceptable. How’d you all talk each other into this? We need to kill someone and get to the next round.”
The Teal and Chartreuse soldiers started shifting back and forth nervously. If combat were to break out, the ones on the front lines could anticipate being converted several times before this was over, and that was never comfortable.
“That’s not going to happen, Kerak. There’s no need to panic—“
“Come on, Tengeri. Just radio Tor to take out one of the ones you don’t trust. Preferably Jetsam; Scofflaw and I go way back. For that matter, just tell me where he is, and I’ll take care of it.”
“Kerak. If we do what you say, and kill Scofflaw, and warp out of here—we’re the only thing standing between all these people and death. For their sake, we have to—“
“Last warning, snake.” Kerak’s voice took on a menacing, serious tone all of a sudden (privately, he called it his “oracle voice”). “Have one of the others killed, or I kill you.”
She had, what, fifteen minutes left before the nukes went off? Tengeri estimated she could probably hold him off until then, but it wouldn’t be pretty. She issued a silent prayer to her companions: Hurry up, guys. Then she turned her eyes back to Kerak. “Well then, I guess you’ll have to kill me.”
15 minutes til doomsday
“Fighting’s broken out between Teal and Chartreuse out on the battlefield,” reported Scofflaw. “I know this,” he confided, “Because I’ve tuned my dental fillings in to Kerak’s private radio frequency. Ever try turning a millimeter-wide dial using only your tongue? It’s awesome. Oh, but you’re not even listening, are you?” The Tartan Tyrant turned a disapproving eye upon the incandescent Tor-shaped mass writhing on the other end of the nullifier. “Can’t even make through one critically-important mission without needing to go out for a smoke. Christ. What do you think would happen if I peed on you right now?” Tor didn’t answer. “You’d probably enjoy it, you sick fuck. Alright, next question: what do you think would happen if I did... this?”
The nullifier was set to neutralize, broadcasting the energy frequencies of all four primary colors in perfect harmony and making it impossible for one color to dominate someone’s psyche. This struck the villain as terribly boring. He fiddled with the setting, cranking up red and green and staggering the broadcast in erratic pulses. “Come oooooooon work work work work work!” He cast an eye towards Tor, who was now stumbling to his feet as his body reshaped. The Telpori-Hal’s new skin looked... striped. “Captain Kajan,” Scofflaw said cautiously. “If you had a mind like mine, would you really waste it by trying to help people? Answer carefully now.”
Tor saluted, seeing no reason not to be honest. “Sir, absolutely I would, sir!”
18 minutes to doomsday
Jetsam almost, but didn’t quite, throw up. Something powerful and gray came out of the resonator and hit his brain, washing over the teal bits and bouncing up uncertainly against the red bits. He steadied himself against the Teal next to him—well, he wasn’t a Teal anymore. The white soldier shoved Jetsam off and looked down at his outfit uncertainly.
“What... what do I do now?” the White asked.
Jetsam’s head was still spinning. “Well,” he said. “If you want to help me save all your skins, come with me. If not, the war’s over for you. Go home.”
He stomped off, the nullifier tucked under his arm, hoping that whatever just happened wasn’t ever going to happen again.
13 minutes to doomsday
Sergeant Naamxe of the plaid platoon placed the resonator down on the floor in Green Base and remarked inwardly how small a thing it was, just a little metal cube without so much as an off button, and and how much it was going to change this war. Two hundred of his fellow Plaids were standing around in its defense and even if there had only been five of them they could have held off the entire Green Army, not to mention the nuclear holocaust it was staving off.
“Alright, half of you, you’re with us!” called Lieutenant Henderson. “We’ll be meeting up with the main force outside and attacking Kerak’s Chartreuse Company from the rear. The rest of you: if that box leaves that exact spot, I won’t even need to take your heads, cause they’ll be atomized, you hear?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” came the cry. It made Naamxe proud to be a part of this brave unit.
6 minutes to doomsday
Luckily for Tengeri, deprived of their guns these soldiers weren’t any better trained in melee combat than she was. Leaving her with the size advantage, and a lot of water, with which to fend off the superior numbers of the Plaid Platoon.
To her credit, she almost made it to the nullifier before the sight of a tartan-skinned Tor standing over the device knocked the tides out of her and she gave the enemy an opening. She took a riflebutt to the gills and another between the eyes and wound up flat on the dry floor wriggling in a pool of water.
“Tor,” Tengeri spat, struggling to reform her water supply. “Think for a minute. You’ve been brainwashed.”
Tor smirked. “Of course I’ve been brainwashed, Tengeri. I know that. But those are the rules. I’m wearing the colors, so I follow the orders. Don’t look down on me just because you’ve managed to counteract the effects.”
Tengeri attempted to move more than an inch off the floor and was warned against it by the several Plaids hovering over her. “Alright, fine. I suppose it’s too much to ask for a moment of self-awareness in which you break programming and set me free?”
“Nah. I made that work with a couple primary colors a while back, but they’d just been converted by gunfire. The nullifier’s stronger stuff, I think. I mean, my new purpose in life is written on my skin. See?”
“Yes, I see.” It occurred to her that there was more or less no way to get out of this unless she did what Kerak wanted and killed Scofflaw. It was a depressing thought. Either way: “I know your general, and he’ll want you to bring me to him. Where is he?”
“You’ll have to wait a little while,” yawned Tor. “The Tyrant’s out cleaning after a mess Jetsam made over in Blue Territory. He promised he’d be back by doomsday, so... five minutes?”
4 minutes to doomsday
The resonator was just sitting there in the middle of the mud. And it had been smashed to bits. The Tartan Tyrant almost tripped over it.
“Oh, God,” he moaned. “Guys!” he called out to his squadron, most of whom were too preoccupied fighting off Blues to pay any attention to their glorious leader. “We fucked up! Haul ass!”
A soldier dressed in blue approached. The Tyrant eventually caught on that it was Jetsam, not from the man’s utterly forgettable appearance, but from the way he was standing—some deranged combat stance that was rounding the bend from unmilitary to inhuman. Jetsam pointed, apparently no longer capable of speech.
The former Scofflaw countered Jetsam’s animality with a sort of sumo stance he’d perfected over years of trying to convince people that he had ever bothered to train himself in hand-to-hand combat. He had very large hands, and when he held them out in front of him in a certain way, it made whoever he was fighting imagine having their entire head grabbed all at once, their faces smothered in those sweaty palms. It would have given anyone in their right mind second thoughts about charging, but Jetsam wasn’t.
Luckily for the Tartan Tyrant, the wanderer found himself clotheslined by a very long, very plaid tongue. Velobo leapt down from seemingly nowhere to join his general, who would have hugged the little cube if he weren’t afraid of the sharp corners. “Velobo!” he called warmly over the sounds of warfare. “Or, uh, Major Calidad! What rank did I give you again?”
“Your orders didn’t specify,” replied Velobo, still a little glib beneath his formal servility. “Only that I be called ‘the Plaidzmuth.’”
“Right. Now, is Yellow Base secure, how the hell did you get here and can we get out of here the same way?”
“Yeah, about that.” The Plaidzmuth scratched his face (the face to the left of the face with his face on it). “The Benefactors told me they could drop me off wherever.”
8 minutes til doomsday
They’d just finished depositing the resonator in Yellow Base (easy as pie, because seriously, yellow? They aren’t even a real primary color!) when Velobo found himself teleported to a secluded location in the center of the battlefield.
“Honestly,” said the CEO, "we weren’t sure that was going to work."
“Our avatars go on the fritz when caught in your general’s conversion field,” explained the General. “Apparently we can still transport data in and out on a small scale, but we can’t interact with the generators themselves.”
“A ‘hi’ would suffice,” said Velobo, unimpressed by the Benefactors’ attempts to be enigmatic. “What gives? I thought you’d washed your hands of us.”
“Yes, well,” sighed the Politican. “Obviously the situation has changed.”
“We didn’t think you’d actually find a way to stop the reset,” said the General. “But by God, did you put a sledgehammer to that problem.”
“We’d just like to formally admit defeat,” the Scientist chimed in. “The smartest computer in the world has been rendered incapable of so much as long division by this invasion of... plaid... and it’s resisting all attempts to reset it. You know we can’t even cut off its power source?”
Velobo smiled. He’d did it. The Tartan Tyrant had saved the Battlefield. “So what now?” he asked the Four, confident to be on the winning side for once.
“Where we’re from, we’ve accumulated enough power to coast for a while without the aid of the system,” mused the CEO. “After which, we definitely all have enough money to retire. Go home, spend more time with our families.”
“That was our first thought,” added the General. “But it never really got past the drawing board phase. Now we’re thinking we can use you people, especially your Tartan Tyrant.”
“This guy—alongside the squid--shut down the world’s most complex computer on its own terms,” the Scientist stressed. “We don’t know what he did exactly—we don’t think he knows either—it’s like he created an entire branch of science that recoded the computer to make itself possible within the world of the battlefield.”
“And then he figured out a way to turn it into beer, which is brilliant marketing,” added the CEO.
“If we figure that out, we can use it,” said the Politician. “We can learn from the dinosaur’s tactics or the snake’s cybernetics.”
“Hell, I’d like a look at your anatomy,” joked the Scientist. “You’re a cube. Your mouth cavity takes up, like, thirty percent of your volume, and your tongue’s—“
“All we can do now is encourage you to stay the course,” interrupted the Politician. “Keep everyone alive. Stop the nukes. Conquer the Battlefield. Do whatever you want with it. Your job is to bring up to your general the idea of entering talks with us when the time is right. Can you do that, little cube buddy?”
“I don’t like you,” said Velobo, earnestly. “But I can’t account for the Tyrant. Of course I’ll relay everything I heard here.”
“You’re a real soldier,” said the general. “Company man to the last. I like that.”
“I like that too.” Before his conversion, Velobo would have hated himself for saying that and agreeing with it, which was why it was comforting and freeing to know that his thoughts were not his own. He couldn’t be held accountable for his actions, his desires, his every thought. What a wonderful way to live!
3 minutes to doomsday
In spite of everything, Chartreuse Company was still winning right up to the end.
Of course they were winning. The leader of Chartreuse Company wasn’t at all like Scofflaw. He was an everyman, a down-and-dirty type, willing to get in there and direct things from the ground. He inspired respect—no, love—from his men, not mere blind brainwashed obeisance. He was a goddamn dinosaur.
Kerak had personally torn out the throats of nearly fifty plaid soldiers and evaded conversion since the shit had hit the fan with Tengeri fifteen minutes ago. He was getting his confidence back. Of course they were going to all end up against him. He was different. He didn’t fit in with their technologized world. All he’d had to rely on—all his life—were his wits and his brother. They’d never understand that.
Since he’d caught sight of the squid from atop a hill a few minutes back, all dressed in plaid and fighting back-to-back with his friend, Kerak hadn’t been consciously aware that he was heading in that direction. But when he looked up from his latest meal he found himself staring down the barrel of what he had been led to understand was called a “plasma projector.” He’d seen what it did to people over the hill, and it wasn’t just a color change.
Kerak smiled. “I’d imagine your new general wouldn’t want me dead. That would undo all the progress we’ve done here.”
TinTen smacked the deinonychus on the temple with the big gun. “Correct,” said the meipi. “Similarly, illustrious commander of Chatreuse Company wouldn’t risk being labeled murderer next round, and would wait for Tengeri to kill Tartan Tyrant.” Kerak could almost see the squid smiling under his rebreather. “Which, in certain view, would be considered justified. So: no one dies; stalemate.”
That wasn’t precisely correct. Kerak glanced over at Huebert and wondered what would happen if he only killed one of the pair. “Alright,” he told TinTen. “Between the two of us, sure, it’s a stalemate. But here on the battlefield? My Chartreuse Company is unstoppable. Scofflaw’s little gambit, though I have a lot of respect for it, just isn’t going to work against me and my men. Let him send whoever.”
“Hmmph. One point of view. Huebert: show prisoner to Kerak.” Huebert whistled, and two Plaids emerged from behind a rock escorting a bound-and-gagged Green officer.
“You know the rules,” said Huebert, pointing his pistol at the general’s head. “If a plaid takes out the Green general, all the greens—every shade of green—are converted.”
Kerak growled. The brainwashed part of him—although, come to think of it, he had never explicitly been converted, only chosen to side with Green—felt an instinctive need to protect his commanding officer. And he didn’t want to become plaid. “If it’s as easy as that, then why haven’t you taken him out already?”
“Tyrant hypothesizes that conversion will lose effect without enemy to fight against. Until Plaid dictatorial rule fully established, wants to perpetuate wartime conditions to foster loyalty. Green, with most manpower, is obvious candidate. So, one-time offer: give self up, general is released to fight another day.”
“You’ll be one of us,” added Huebert, “Which, surprisingly, isn’t that bad. It’s not real mind control, we can still think and stuff, we just agree with everything he says now. You’ll be a high-ranking officer in charge of fighting this army you’ve just created. Sounds pretty fun to me.”
To Kerak it sounded like two rocks coming together on either side of his skull. What else could he do? He lunged at Huebert.
Just as he wrapped his teeth around those big, meaty shoulders, the first bolt of plasma hit him in the eye, rendering him half-blind. From the side he couldn’t see he heard the squid’s voice above the insistent whine of pain and the crackling noise of his scales burning. “Shouldn’t have attacked Huebert.”
Kerak rolled off Huebert—who cursed rather patronizingly—and laughed. “Haven’t we gone over this? Boss’s orders. You can’t kill me. Hurt me all you—aaaaaaagh—all you want. I’m not afraid.”
“As previously stated,” sighed TinTen. “Supposed ‘brainwashing’ left free will largely intact. Some things more important than orders. Shouldn’t. Have. Attacked. Huebert.”
The second bolt of plasma went right through his charred flesh and into his brain. The last thought that passed through his mind was the idea—or it was like a thousand ideas all at once—that everything he had ever lied about to everyone about himself and about the Gods and about everything might actually be true and he would never know it. The last image recorded on his remaining eye was of a bright, all-encompassing flash of light from the direction of Blue Base.