The Clash of the Titans
The cultist quickly spread as artillery fire started pounding them.
As if the followers could
sense the incoming artillery shells, and take cover before the missile shell hit the ground.
Of course, some were unfortunate and didn´t have enough time to get out of the missiles way.
Soon enough, the four bloodthirsty regiments could see the bunkers.
The soldiers had been running for days, but now the priest were frenzying them into a “once more onto the bridge” state, and the soldiers complied.
They always complied, as a command from a priest was as if the God of War had given the command. Their frenzy wasn´t a blind rush towards their enemies, but a controlled state in where a cultist didn´t feel pain, emotions or fatique.
They were the ultimate creation of war. They knew nothing else except war.
The cultists began their frenzied attack on the bunkers, greeted by intense bombardment and long-range fire gatling fire.
But no matter what, the peacekeepers just couldn´t hit them properly, as the cultists were moving and dodging incredibly fast. The large Gatling gun platforms were just too slow, and the machine guns couldn´t shoot that far.
However, the situation changed as the attacking infantry regiments got close enough for the machine guns to come into the game.
Still, that wasn´t enough…
Chaos reigned amongst the defenders.
“Die, scumbags! Die!!!” Private Keller shouted, manning one of the machine guns.
“” The damn b*stards… they´re too fast…”” another soldiers next to him remarked while shooting the incoming cultists with his gatling rifle.
The cultists swarmed towards the bunkers, as dark shadows attacking it pray.
“I got one! I got one!” keller started chearing, glancing at his comrade next to him.
His comrade was dead, shot square into the head.
He glanced around, seeing everywhere dead or dying peacekeepers soldiers.
Snipers…
“All right, where are you! Where you hiding, huh?! Damn cowards, taste this…” Keller continued his furious firing, while looking with his targeting system for any snipers hiding somewhere.
Instead, he saw only running and dodging cultists, with some of them stopping for second and shooting series of gatling fire towards the bunker.
A terrible thought rose in his mind.
It can´t be…they can´t be so precise…or can they? They´re monsters, not humans…
He started shooting a small group of attacking Cultists, hitting one of them in the stomach before the group dispersed.
Got ya… he watched the dying cultists. Strange enough, the damn bugger wasn´t screaming of pain, but aiming with his gun this way.
Oh… you´re trying to hit me? C´mon, give me your best shot… Keller laughed at the thought
The next moment, a gatling bullet hit Keller straight into the left shoulder, ripping his arm off and throwing him on his back.
“Meeediiic!!!” He screamed, with a thousand knifes of pure pain slicing his stump of an arm.
*************************
The next moment, mortar shells started falling down on the bunker walls, releasing their deadly nerve gas. Everywhere, soldiers who hadn´t been fast enough to hide deeper into the bunker, were dying or badly paralyzed by the gas from Hell.
The Cultists charged in, climbing in or blasting their way into the bunker. Soon, skirmishes were reported across all sections.
And, deeper inside the bunker, a trainer and his swarms of mindworms attacked the charging cultists.
************************
“Damn it, don´t go there!” Private Jackson shouted to a group peacekeeper soldiers, who were running up a darkly lit tunnel.
“It´s a God damn ambush… listen to me!”
The other peacekeepers continued their run forward, not even bothering to notice his warning.
don´t go there… the warrior ones are there, again that voice came into his mind.
“Who… are you?” Jackson looked around him. Nobody was there.
Suddenly, sounds of gatling fire stirred his attention back to the tunnel in front of him.
Distant flashes lit the tunnel…and then nothing.
Nothing, except dark shadows, seeming to come his way.
“Sh*t…” he cursed under his breath and started running the other way.
He came to a cross section of a seemingly labyrinth of tunnels, when a bullet hit his knee.
Jackson fell down, cursing and screaming at the same time.
“God, it hurts…” he held his blasted knee, glancing behind him.
The dark shadows were near him, getting all the time closer.
Jackson closed his eyes and started signing quietly some long forgotten song.
Don´t be afraid… I will help… keep your eyes closed… The voice said again.
Suddenly, the roof of the tunnel above him was rumbling. Jackson instinctively glanced upwards, and saw large pieces of the roof falling on him. The whole cross section collapsed.
But he was still alive. Jackson opened his eyes, and he saw the tunnel as it had been a moment ago.
The shadows behind him had stopped, as if puzzled about what had happened.
He instinctively reached for his rifle, but again the voice came to him.
No, don´t… keep quiet…
The shadows stood there for a while, touching some kind of imagined border of the collapsing, then turned away and left.
Jackson let out a deep breath, he was safe now. Then he suddenly succumbed into a deep sleep.
A small swarm of mindworms came next to him and started dragging him up through one of the tunnels…
********************
Even with the help of the mindworm and its powerful illusions, the retreating peacekeepers couldn´t stop the cultists. They were like a cloud of darkness, coming from the shadows and killing everyone.
Soon, what remained of the peacekeeper garrisons was surrounded in the center buildings. Outside, the mindworms and their trainer already had been surrounded and burned to ashes.
The peacekeepers fought a brave and desperate battle, but the superior cultists kept coming.
After eight hours of bloody close combat, the last remains of the peacekeepers were massacred inside the bunker. Hundreds of combatants laid on the floors and the ground all around the base, pierced by gatling laser or poisoned by nerve gas.
After the end of the battle, the cultists lost their frenzy and succumbed into an overwhelming fatigue. But it was not time to rest.
The still able cultist soldiers and priest started gathering dead peacekeeper bodies in the center of the bunker, preparing for a ritual.
And at the end of that ritual, the fatigued cultists unleashed their lust for blood, a thing only thought to happen in vampire stories.
The few peacekeeper prisoners that had been captured watched the whole happening, paralyzed of horror, and fear that they would be next.
(OOC: Some gothic rituals, can the PKs beat that?
Okay, one regiment got completely hammered out of existence, and the rest have somewhere 10-30% dam. I´m going to post the attack by the Main army later.)
[This message has been edited by Cyber (edited March 29, 2001).]
