Every instinct in my body is screaming at me that I should have stayed and helped her. That I should have gone with her to fight the Goblin’s leader. That I shouldn’t have left her alone. But I had to go. We had to. If we didn’t, she would have ordered us to. And we all know how much she hates that…

If I was stronger… If I had magic of my own, then I could have stayed and helped her…

My eyes naturally go to Sam as we continue to tear through the forested remains of the city’s southern section, moving as fast as we can to reach the Forward Operations. We have long overtaken the hordes of Goblins and are almost there. Even as we run, Frank and Xander are still busily making calls through their radios, coordinating strikes as best as they can to hit the head of the traveling Goblin army.

I should have been eating monster meat like Sam. I had a head start over everyone else, if I had just started sooner, then I might have already developed my core by now. I could have stayed and helped Lain fight, but instead I am here…

Frank looks back as he runs and shouts at me, “Nathaniel, focus!”

“Right, sorry! I just… I don’t like it…”

“And there is nothing you can do about it. If you want to help her, then do what you can by doing your job. We have people to protect. She has her job, and we have ours, now focus, we’re almost there.”

“Right…”

Sam runs up beside me and gives me a smack on the shoulder. Laughing, she says, “Hahaha, don’t worry! Nobody can beat the Boss, especially not some smelly Goblin!”

I give her a smile in return and say, “Yeah, you’re right.”

Up ahead, Xander is talking in the radio, “FO, we are inbound with two secured assets, approaching from the north, hold fire, we are coming in. I repeat, we are approaching from the north, hold fire, we are coming in.”

“… ~Copy that, doors open and waiting. Make it quick. ~”

Getting confirmation that we aren’t about to get shot on accident, we pick up our speed and plow our way out of the woods, breaking out into the airport’s airfield. Not too far away is the section of destroyed forest where the Goblins had moved though previously when their scouts had attacked this place. Besides a fresh layer of snow, the sight of the battle still looks like a fresh mess, and in many areas, you can see where the remains of thousands of Goblins still stick out like bloody lumps in the snow. All over the place, scavengers that don’t mind the taste of rotting Goblin are digging into the snow and eating their fill. A flock of mutated crows seems to be especially enjoying the feast, and have gathered by the dozens, their bodies having changed to become slightly larger and more raptor like, like a microraptor or a rhamphorhynchus. With their wings changing to develop clawed three fingered hands, their beaks becoming serrated like they have teeth, and their tails growing out in length, their appearance is distinctly dinosaur-like in nature now. As we pass, one of them looks up from its meal, a bloody eyeball held in its beak as it watches us.

Pushing aside any thoughts I may have about the gruesome killing field, we keep moving and quickly clear the airfield, filling into the fortified entrance on the ground floor under the cover of a dozen soldiers, sweeping their riffles over the airfield before coming in after us and blockading the door. A private is quick to run up to us and snaps a salute to Frank, the highest ranking among us.

“Sir, the Lieutenant Colonel has sent orders for you to deploy on the north side of the roof, to be able to move as needed. Control of artillery fire is now transferring to our spotters, and we are going into full open communication. Please transfer your radio packs to us, and take these instead.” He says as he sets a box of multiband tactical handheld radios for us on a nearby table.

We quickly hand over the large radio packs to a couple of privates and get our new equipment strapped to our gear and earbuds to our ears. Switching the channels, information is being thrown around everywhere as final preparations are made.

We move quickly from there, hitting up the armory to grab fresh ammunition for our weapons, with Sam being especially happy to snag as many grenades as she can for her grenade launcher. We don’t bother with trying to get new armor for Sam and me. Most of our stuff got destroyed by getting burned or frozen, and the armory doesn’t have anything in size Demon. All of our stuff is specially made to order, which makes losing any of it a serious pain in the ass to replace.

After the armory, Sam and I spit from Frank and Xander to head towards the holding cell, while they head for the roof. We have some prisoners to drop off.

Sending in a quick call to the Lieutenant Colonel, I give him a quick rundown on who our prisoners are, and what the situation is. He is too busy to be able to come by for a visit, obviously having more important things to do, and directs us to drop them off with the other prisoner after getting reassurance from me that they won’t cause any trouble.

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When we get there, we find the holding room to be guarded by only one soldier and we quickly let ourselves in, much to the fright of current occupant who probably wasn’t expecting two Demons dressed in broken armor and wielding weapons to come busting in unannounced. The poor Hobgoblin woman lets out a scared squeak of a scream before scrambling into the corner to hide, her arm protectively covering her belly.

Without a word, Sam steps inside and sets the black sphere on her back, onto the floor. With a quick karate chop, she smashes it open, the sphere falling apart into dissipating shards of darkness.

Gra and Vivviv roll out of the broken sphere in a tangle of limbs, looking dazed and confused as they try to take in their surrounding by the lantern light of the room.

Gra is slow to pick herself up off the ground, clothes rumpled, and feet unsteady after the bumpy trip. Vivviv is still sprawled out on the floor, her eyes spinning as she mutters out some garbled words in Goblin.

Looking around, Gra spots the other Hobgoblin woman in the corner, I don’t remember her name, and then turns to look at us. “Where are we?”

“Don’t have much time to explain, we have to go quick. You two are to stay here for now and behave. If anything happens, we will come and protect you, as per the contract, so please just remain here and stay safe.” I quickly tell her. Sam is already out the door and moving to catch up with the others.

“Wait, what is going on? Tell me-“

“No time, I have to go. Stay here.”

I quickly leave and shut the door, leaving the confused Hobgoblins behind to sort themselves out.

Rushing through the halls of the airport, soldiers moving about every which way but parting to let me through with a startled noise or a curse, I quickly find the stairs and head for the roof. It doesn’t take me long to catch up with the others, finding them deploying their LMGs along with a number of soldiers behind a nest of sandbags. Not too far away, our snipers are set up and waiting with their spotters, almost blending in with the snow-covered roof. I take my spot next to Frank and check over my weapons, making sure that everything is in working order and ready to go.

Frank has his hand up to his ear, listening in on communication chatter, cursing, he looks up and delivers us some bad news.

“We’re going all out with this one, no more hiding out of fear of calling a kaiju on our asses. We have drones in the air and all comms are up. The situation has just gotten worse.”

“What, over a few tens of thousands of Goblins? I mean, it’s a lot and will take a while, but we’ve got this. The only real threat is the mages, right?” I ask, but he just shakes his head no.

“Change your channel, were getting updates from drone footage now. Current estimates are putting their numbers at close to half a mil.”

“What!? But I thought the estimates was in the tens of thousands, hell maybe a couple hundred at worst…” I say as I quickly switch through the open frequencies until I can catch the updates. Apparently, now that all the Goblins aren’t entrenched in the city’s depths anymore, we are finally able to get a clearer picture of their numbers.

Sam, off to the side, pipes in. “I told you guys about what I saw out there. Those little things breed like rabbits and pop out kids like a factory production line. I wouldn’t be surprised if they doubled or even tripled their numbers since taking the city. Hell, just imagine how bad it would have been if we left them alone for the whole winter! Hahaha, forget half a mil, we might have been dealing with even more than that!”

Xander adds, “I don’t think that numbers would have gotten much higher than a million. You have to account for food. Eventually, their population would have reached a breaking point, where their remaining food wouldn’t be able to sustain their numbers. Eventually, they would have had to turn to cannibalism after all the food is gone, and that would keep their numbers from getting too much higher.”

“Uhh…” Sam grimaces. “Well, this is going to fucking suck. Even ignoring the mages, do we even have enough ammo to deal with that here? Forward Operations is fucked…”

Listening to their conversation in one ear, and the updates in the other, I give her some of good news. “Well, we aren’t getting all of them our way.”

“What you mean?”

“Sounds like we are only going to get hit with about half of them. The Goblins split when they found the trail left by those scouts that attacked this place the other day and are now heading this way. The rest of them are heading for the base and will pass us by. We’re getting orders to hold them off as long as we can before retreating back to base.”

“Oh, great, but we’re still getting a fuck ton of them, nice.”

Franks cuts in, “Ok, that’s enough bullshitting, they’re getting close, artillery is stopping at minimum safe distance, eta for contact is five minutes. Get final checks finished, and get ready for a slog.”

Shutting up and getting serious, we double, and triple check our gear. Deploying the bipod on my LMG, I get it set up on the sandbags, flick off the safety, and chamber my first round. Stock to shoulder and aiming down the sights, we all wait along with the gathered soldiers, the barrels of our weapons pointed towards the devastated tree line where thousands of Goblins had been cut down previously.

Five minutes tick by at a slug's pace. Around us Demons, the human soldiers shift and fidget, trigger fingers itching to go. Eventually, over the din of exploding artillery, we can hear the sounds of hundreds of thousands of little feet charging across the ground like the rumble of an earthquake.

The first of the little green monsters emerges from the green, stumbling out from a snow-covered bush with a war cry on its lips. More quickly follow, streaming out like so many cockroaches scuttering out from under a fridge.

The order comes over the radio and is relayed as a shout by anyone with a rank higher than private.

“Open Fire!”

The lead of the Goblin army is instantly vaporized into a pink mist by an ungodly amount of lead cutting through their ranks and spilling into the forest at their back. Some trees further back fall as they are cut through or blasted apart, screams calling out from the unseen depths of the woods.

“Focus left and right flanks, spread out fire power!”

Orders get called out to reorganize as more of the enemy army starts to show itself, spilling out from the woods further to both sides and growing until the entirety of the northern tree line is shaking and expelling Goblins by the tens of dozens.

Our lines of fire spread out to mow them down as they come, the open ground of the airfield leaving no cover to protect them from the lethal hail of bullets crashing down on them and reducing them to bloody messes on the snow, left to be trampled underfoot by their comrades.