-Lain-
Another week comes and goes, and while I have finally managed to rid myself of my shame after thankfully getting rejected by Anna, I have now found myself weighed down by a new stress. The stress of how to go about confessing to Sky. Of finally taking that next step and making it official. Of the thought of actually having a girlfriend and being able to do things that only girlfriends can do… ‘Getting to go on dates, which we sort of already do… Cuddling… well, we already do that as well. Hmmm, and we are already living together… No wonder everyone just assumes that we are already a thing. I guess the only difference is that we will get to kiss and have… uh, do other things…’ I think as I start to blush a bit.
Over the week it has been getting harder and harder to not look at Sky without certain feeling and desires rising. She’s done changing physically, has been for a while now and looks beautiful, but she is still growing and filling out. The times where I end up catching myself staring at her inappropriately just keep going up and it is making me feel like a bit of a perv.
Worst of all is how distracted I have been during training. I am making mistakes where I shouldn’t, losing myself in my mind and thinking about Sky when I should be focusing. Even during the quiet moments at night when I try to meditate on my darkness senses and this weird shadow stuff that people keep telling me that I am doing, I can’t maintain my focus; my mind continuously wondering to the girl sleeping in the room right next to mine.
I am seriously starting to think that I should just tell her and be done with it, but a part of me keeps saying that I should make it special. Make it an event to be remembered by the both of us…
These thoughts continue to bounce around in my head as I hug Sky, Anna, and my parents before pulling on my hood and climbing into the back of a Humvee. I can’t even properly focus as dad tries to crack a joke and mom wishes for me to be safe.
Today’s mission is to go out and clear out a nest in the city. A recon team has found a good location for building a new Forward Operations on the east side of the city, but a nest of rats is living nearby, and we need to clear them out. Normally, doing something like this would not be an option. If we go in guns a blazing, we will have half the city on our asses within minutes.
So, Command, in a stroke of brilliance, came up with a genius plan. Throw the Imp at it with a sledgehammer!
And, well honestly… I don’t see any reason not to do it. The rats can’t hurt me; I already confirmed that when I pulled Sgt. Lenz out of a pile of them. The only issue would be the rats tearing my clothes apart and me getting covered in blood, but it seems that they had a plan for that too. I’ve been issued a specialty made set of armor that covers me from head to toe, minus my tail. It even has a special helmet with built in slots for my horns to go in. All suited up, I look like a little demon prepping to go diffuse a bomb with nothing but a big ass hammer.
It’s not the easiest thing to move around in though, being a monstrous thing of armored plates and Kevlar, so for now it is packed away. I’ll get changed into it when we get there.
While I am getting comfortable in my chair, everyone else finishes loading in. Sitting next to me is Privates Sanders and Thomas. So, I luckily has some people that I recognize on this mission. Sadly, Rookie and Sgt. Lenz won’t be here with us, and Sandy is still recovering from her injuries. But at least I have some friends to hang out with.
Turning to Sanders, I give him a hit, “So, how’s the wife?”
He turns to look at me and barks out a laugh, “Girlfriend, and she’s grumpy. Finally, not stuck to her bed anymore. But a hole in the leg still takes a while to heal, so she’s been getting antsy from not being able to get out and do stuff.”
“Well, at least she has a boyfriend to help keep her company.” I say jokingly as I wiggle my eyebrows suggestively.
He gets a bit of a blush to his face as he laughs. Responding he says, “Ya well… How about you? How’s the wife?”
“Not my girlfriend yet…” I turn with a distant look, “I think I’ll confess to her when I get back from this mission…”
Next to us, Thomas moans out loudly, “Uhhhhh! Staff Sergeant Haren Sir, Lain and Sanders are raising death flags. Please tell them to stop!”
He doesn’t even turn to look at us from the passenger seat as the driver climbs in, “Both of you drop that shit. Do not make me come back there and slap you with my ring hand.”
“Just having a bit of fun!”
“She started it!”
“Uh, I'm going to be the one that get injured this time, aren’t I…?” Thomas moans, as Sanders and I laugh.
As we bullshit, the vehicles start to pull out and head towards the gate. I turn and watch out the rear window as Sky and my family shrink away in the distance, still waving as we head out.
I was mostly joking, but maybe I should confess to her after this mission. Maybe I can find her a present while I am out to give her when we get back…?
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
----------------------------------------
“Holy! Shit! I! Hate! This!!!!” I scream as I endlessly swing my hammer around, each swing being accompanied by pained squeaks, the gnashing of teeth, the breaking of bones and tearing of flesh, and the splattering of blood and organs showering everything around me.
I take another step forward and feel something soft squish under my armored boot, and for the dozenth time today I am thankful that I am not currently bare footed.
Everywhere around me is scurrying matted fur and pissed off squeaking rats. But they are not just everywhere, no that would be too nice... They are also all over me! No matter how many times I shake them off, swing my hammer, or kick them away, they just keep mindlessly throwing themselves at me and latching on to me, trying to pull me to the floor. The little dog sized bastards even keep biting at my tail only to get swatted by it and get their necks broken.
I swing my hammer and swing my hammer and swing my hammer, but their numbers just don’t fucking drop!
The little menaces have this building absolutely filled and they are constantly pouring out of rooms and halls as they run to replace their dead inbred cousins and siblings. So, I keep slowly walking forward, further and further into the building, dragging a pile of rats trying to weigh me down as I move further into the building. Just swinging and swinging and swinging away.
The further I get into the building the worse it gets and the further my mood plummets. Everything smells of shit and piss in here and the fresh showering of viscera is hardly doing any favors.
But complaining will get me nowhere… So, I decide to just lose myself in my head and think about what I am going to do when I get home. Not to mention, I still need to look around and find a gift for Sky…
What would she like? Books, shiny baubles to decorate her nest, a new weapon? Well, she does have that knife she found; not that I want her being in a situation where she has to fight… Hmmm, I doubt that I would find any nice clothes out here… Maybe some jewelry? We could maybe find a store that hasn’t been cleared out yet. A ring would be a bit much too soon, but she would look great with a nice necklace or a bracelet…
“Ahh! You little fucker!” I get pulled out of my wandering thoughts as a rat manages to catch my tail in its mouth and bites me. Pulling back, I grab the little bastard and crush its neck with a squeeze before then throwing its corpse into the crowd.
“Ahhhh! This is so fucking annoying! Just how many of you are there!?”
----------------------------------------
-Thomas-
It's already been two hours since she went in, but she still hasn’t finished clearing out the nest. We have long since already sealed all the exits on the ground floor to keep anything from escaping, so now we are all just standing around as we wait for her to finish. The team sent to start work on the new Forward Operations Base had long since gotten bored of waiting and went off to get to work on fortifying the building across the street. Honestly, I can’t blame them. Just standing around waiting for someone to finish a job isn’t exactly fun and we haven’t had any rats escape the building yet, so security while working quickly became much less of a concern. Our only worry now being the potential for monsters to wander in from nearby.
“So… you think she is doing alright in there?” Sanders leans over and asks.
As I am about to answer, one of the windows on the second-floor shatters as the corpse of a rat gets thrown through, landing a few feet away from us with a wet squelch. From the broken window we can hear an assortment of curses getting thrown around as Lain screams angrily and the building shakes a bit. Shortly after, some loud crashes sound out as a section of the floor from the second story collapses down to the first, the windows letting out billowing clouds of dust.
We both step back a few paces, “Ya, I think she’s doing fine…”
Through the clattering of breaking stone and wood we hear her angrily screeching, “Mother Fucker! Get back here and let me kill you!”
----------------------------------------
-Lain-
I don’t even want to think of how long it took for me to clear that building, but I finally got every single last one of the little menaces! Kicking open the blockaded door, I finally step outside as I drag the corpse of the final rat behind me by its tail. With a huff, I throw it to ground and then rip off my helmet as I walk over to the team.
“Ahhhh! Fresh air! Gods, I don’t want to do that again!” I exclaim between full breaths of delicious clean air.
“Jesus! What the hell is that thing!?” Sanders curses.
I just point back towards the horse sized rat that I dragged out with me, “Rat King, or something, I don’t freaking know… Sanders, help me get this armor off. I smell horrible!”
“Uh, pass… Thomas, you help her. I don’t think there is a single inch of her that isn’t covered in guts…”
“I don’t wanna…”
“Both of you help me, or so help me, by the gods, I will give you both hugs until you are mentally scarred for life!” I threaten.
SSG Haren comes walking over from where the others are working and interrupts them as they try to refuse, “You heard the lady, help her get out of that armor soldiers. Now!”
“”Yes sir…””
He walks over to me as the two despondent men get to work on pulling apart my gore covered armor. He is noticeably trying to ignore the smell as he talks to me, “Lain, report.”
“Buildings cleared sir. Found an area in the basement where the rats had accessed the sewers, but I sealed it up with debris and corpses. If they manage to get through, they might try to reclaim the building. Personally, I recommend fire. Cleanse the building and the whole area. Especially to keep scavengers from coming for a free meal tonight… We also need to be careful of any other places with sewer access in the area.”
As I give my report, Thomas and Sanders keep working away at pulling apart my armor until I am finally able to extract myself from it. Unfortunately, it hadn’t managed to keep everything out, but I am much cleaner than I would have been otherwise.
The Staff Sergeant gives me a nod, “Good work. We have a station over there with water. Sanders and Thomas, help Lain get that armor cleaned up and packed away. Afterwards, Lain you are on reserves for the rest of the day. Relax, but be ready in case we need you to kill something. Thomas, you’ll be replacing the guard at the north entrance, Sanders, I want you to take Coal and George and scout the perimeter for any areas where any rats could potentially crawl out of the sewers; mark them and we will work on getting them sealed.”
“””Yes sir.”””
Nodding his head, he turns around and heads back inside to oversee construction on the foundation for our new eastern FO Base. Reaching down I grab my heavy armor from where it isn’t stained with gore and tiredly drag it behind me to the washing station. Sanders runs over and grabs the helmet from when I dropped it on the ground before following us over. Collapsing into a folding chair I let out a huff as I get to work with Thomas and Sanders, bullshitting with them as we scrub blood and viscera off of steel plate and Kevlar while trying and failing to not get any on our hands.