“Typical primitives. Of course they’d view a slightly benevolent alien as a saviour.” I was explaining what the scientist told me about the General to the nano-chatte. The nano-chatte kept their hateful attitude towards the General even after I explained his heroism.
“Look, the General quite literally saved these people. I don’t think you can blame them.” I attempted to end the conversation as there was someone else on the helicopter, other than the pilot of course. I was given a partner that wore armour similar to the nano-chatte’s suit for my first mission.
“I can blame them. You don’t side with the man who’s going to bring on the end of everything just because he gives you some fancy gadgets.” The scientist told me about the General from another perspective after interviewing me. He was the one who gave them all the weird weapons that didn’t make sense, and the one that practically saved them.
“Put your armour on.” The robotic, heavily filtered voice of my partner rang out as we crossed into a heavily radioactive area. We were heading to Britain to stop some sort of ritual that was being conducted there. Why you would do a ritual in the middle of a radioactive hellscape was beyond my ability to understand.
The nano-chatte was let out of its cage, and wrapped itself around me. I felt our minds tether together as we merged again. I felt the nano-chatte’s thoughts again. The nano-chatte always acted confident, but I could feel the immense amount of fear it held as soon as we merged
“Jump off.” My partner said as they stepped off the helicopter, and expected me to follow, which I did. I felt two wings grow out from my back to slow my descent while my partner simply crashed onto the ground. “Wings? You have a strange armour spirit.”
“I am no simple armour spirit! Don’t you dare ever compare me to that approximation of life.” The nano-chatte replied. “Now, let’s get this over with.” I followed my partner as we travelled through the life-less environment. The ground was entirely made up of sand grain sized pieces of glass and the air was thick with an ashy foggy.
I flew over the craters as my radar scanned my environment over and over. The sound of its methodical, deep beeping noise was akin to a heartbeat. It was the only thing I heard for half an hour as we travelled. Then I snapped back to reality and fell to the ground as I reached a pocket of fresh air.
“Dammit! Why didn’t you warn me?” My partner was already there, tapping their foot impatiently.
“Why should’ve I warned you? It wouldn’t have mattered either way.” The air around us was completely purified as an odd gold coloured barrier pushed back against the fog. The ground was also starting to turn back to normal. Fresh grass covered the glass, and the few patches of ground without grass reverted back into normal dirt.
Soon enough, we arrived at a makeshift town. Tents littered the entire area while one massive church dominated the entire area with its light. My partner dragged me behind a small hill so that we would remain unseen, and that they could explain what the plan would be.
“Listen closely. We have to kill all the priests in one shot. If we don’t, they’ll summon an angel with their collective power. I need you to send your suit there and make the church blow up. We both know what it’s made of, so you don’t have to pretend like you can’t do it without them noticing.” The nano-chatte groaned internally before it separated itself from me. It spaced itself out into chunks too small to be seen by the human eye, and slithered its way to the church.
The church exploded a couple seconds after the nano-chatte disappeared, but my partner suddenly backed off. The nano-chatte surrounded me again, and the suit allowed me to see past the smoke. They had a mage. The mage had created a force field, and all the priests began praying. The fog closed in slowly, but was pushed right back when a being of pure light was summoned.
“Shit! I wasn’t told about a mage being here.” My partner continued backing off as the sphere of light began to create several rings with eyes on them, which orbited the sphere of light. An uncountable amount of wings sprouted from the being and all the eyes on the orbiting rings stared right at me. “The angel is immortal while the priests are praying, so you’ll distract it while I kill them.” I raced ahead of my partner and ordered my suit to grow bigger, better wings.
I quickly turned one of my arms into a rifle and shot at the angel to gain its attention. It quickly teleported right behind me, so I turned my elbow into a shotgun to blast it, only to have it teleport again. I was about to try doing something else, but I suddenly had a migraine strong enough to paralyse me.
“Why do you have nerves? You’re not an animal.” The nano-chatte shut off my nerves so I could get back up and continue fighting the angel. Its rings grabbed onto me and tightened. I ordered my suit to slim down and reform my shoes into thrusters so I could get out before the rings could tighten again. The angel would teleport every time I tried shooting him, so I had to think outside the box.
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I reformed my right hand, and turned the left one into a payload. I left the complicated tracking and the turning of my suit into something aerodynamic to the nano-chatte, as I planned out my strike. I rushed at the angel with my top speed, just barely managing to grab onto one of its rings. It tried teleporting away, but I was teleported with it this time. I unleashed the payload and let go of the ring just as it teleported again, and everything went according to plan.
“Good job primitive. That should keep it unsummonable for at least two microseconds. Maybe try just distracting it next time.” Sure enough, after the angel cried a terrific chorus of screeches, it reformed, and crumbled away. Soon, the golden aura keeping this place pure began cracking.
“That’s the priests dealt with. We need to go. Now.” My partner tried dragging me off, but the nano-chatte took control of my mouth and pushed my partner away.
“Me and my associate are staying. I can get them back on my own. You can leave on your own.” The voice was filtered enough to sound like the nano-chatte, so he knew it wasn’t me. My partner tilted their head, then tapped their ear.
“What would you want to stick around for? We did what we were asked and now we have to leave.” The nano-chatte was more irritated with each second that passed, yet there was an undertone of something more complex.
“We’re looking into what ritual they were doing. Command never told us what they were planning. The more info we bring the better. Right?” My partner stopped, as if thinking for half a minute, and then finally brung their finger down from their ear.
“They were planning on summoning an archangel. We can go now.” That didn’t even make sense. Why would it have to be here? Wouldn’t it be better to do it anywhere that wasn’t a radioactive hellscape?
“No. The more info the better.” This time, me and the nano-chatte said it in unison, and walked over to the now destroyed church. Only one artefact remained. It was a holy book of sorts. Its pages were yellowed with age despite it being made yesterday, the cover was made from top quality leather, and a golden symbol adorned every page. I only caught the first word of the spell: “Purification”.
“We're getting out.” My partner shot the book, and it burst on fire. The nano-chatte quickly uploaded the info into my brain. It was a radiation purification spell. It would turn the environment from a radioactive hellscape into something to outshine the garden of Eden.
“What? Why did we stop this?” I said as my partner facepalmed, and tapped his ear again.
”Look pal, I can smooth this over with high command if you forget everything about that book.” My face slowly turned to bewilderment as he dared to tell me that. The new kingdom was supposed to be bad. Yet it was the one trying to purify the world. There was no reason to stop it from doing that, and the fact my partner is threatening me into staying silent told me everything I needed to know.
These people weren’t to be trusted either.
I grew out wings again and flew directly upwards as fast as possible. Past the fog, past the clouds, and finally, into space. There was no side for me in this war. The kingdom was out to get me, and I would rather jump into the sun than give in to the Revifier. Whatever remained of Nato was clearly corrupted by the General. I should’ve trusted the nano-chatte’s judgement.
“We’re going back to the base. I’ve analysed their defences from the armour’s footage. I found a way through their defence.” Said the nano-chatte.
“Why? They still have armour similar to ours. It would still be suicidal to even try going there.” I would tear my own heart out if the nano-chatte suggested killing everyone on that base. Sure, they’re doing morally questionable stuff, but that wouldn’t merit a rampage.
“We’ll run past them. Here is the real plan. We take over the organisation. We go in, lock the director in with us, question her on why she would stop purification. Then, before security can get us, we’ll make her agree with us either by implanting a fraction of me in them, or by conventional means.” How did it already plan a coup? We left the purification site a minute ago. It wasn’t like it was patchy. The plan sounded fool proof to me, assuming their estimation of our top speed was accurate.
“Fine. How do we get past the defences?” I felt my heart give way to an engine that quickly moved itself to the centre of my chest. The engine glowed an incomprehensible colour. I would look at it, understand what it is, and immediately forget anything about what it looked like right after. “What is this?”
“FTL drive.” Faster than light? Oh… Oh no.