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===[THE UGLY COLLY]===

image [https://i.imgur.com/5LEm5IY.png]

==The National Service Of The Empire==

[EYES EVERYWHERE]

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One danger they don't tell recruits about in special forces training, was that their greatest enemy - oddly enough - was not the human vermin in The Commonwealth. The humans could try all they'd like in their fearsome gas attacks, helicopter air-assault units, armored tanks, and cruel weapons that could only be hatched from the sinister evil that lurked in the hearts of man. Yet, the Avonian elf would always, naturally, emerge superior to their schemes. So long as they were of strong fortitude of course, and taught the appropriate ways of combating them - which all NSE recruits were.

In fact, their greatest rival wasn't really one they would've thought much of at all. Emeric's mouth was dry, and his muscles were sore with exhaustion as he watched his enemy approach... the greatest enemy of the NSE, was the sun.

The natural cover of the jungle was fading as the sun approached. It had only been minutes since dawn illuminated the horizon, and yet, he could already feel the rising temperature. As if the Kiote jungle didn't have him working up a sweat at night. All night he'd spent climbing, walking, expending energy to surmount the peak of a nearby hill. And his throat was parched. The savages had enough sense not to dump him close to any viable source of water, and unless he was willing to take his chances taking a drink out of the stagnant, algae infested, foul smelling pond that he'd found after nearly an hour of fruitless searching - he was... to quote a human expression, "Shit out of luck".

Water. He could practically taste the coolness of that one basic substance running across his dry lips, and yet it was so intangible. It had been a while since he last had a drink. If Emeric could remember correctly, a full day and a half had passed since he'd had much of anything - and that was before he was captured. Field work was long and intensive, and he had done his job to build up his mental and physical strength as well as possible, knowing full well that he was being sent into savage territory with little water and few MREs. He had a canteen of course.

'Had', being the key word.

He tried to keep himself from drinking out of it for the express purpose of saving water for when he really needed it. It was difficult to ward himself from doing so, especially with how hot it got here in The Kiote. And yet, here he was. Dying of thirst, and with no canteen to save him.

Emeric stopped his climb up the mountain to lean against a rock formation against the hill. His breaths were ragged and tired. He could try and wait for it to rain, using one of the leaves or something to form a bowl to drink the rainwater out of. It rained quite often and with regularity in the Kiote Jungle, yet, it wasn't reliable. It could very well be a full week until the thunder clouds started up again, and it had rained not too long ago. Whatever storm system had carried it would've passed by now, once again hanging Emeric out to dry. Literally. Gods, if he had to give the humans one thing, their expressions and phrases rolled off the tongue quite well.

On the other hand, he could keep looking for a drinkable water source. He had no way to decontaminate a filthy pond by mechanical means. He could've blessed the water using a magical spell, the NSE's magical warfare branch instructed their operatives well in the ways of survival by repeatedly drilling them in learning crucial spells. But spells of that caliber required far more energy than his body was capable of exerting. He would've had to cast such a spell, last night. Now, if he tried, he might not have had enough energy to stand back up again- even if he managed to get water cleansed. Food was another question, but he had only limited knowledge of the local berries and fungus that grew in the Kiote. Of those, there were only about three or so species that he could accurately identify as being safe to eat, and with his already dazed thought patterns, he'd be gambling with his life foraging. Hunting animals for their flesh was completely out of the question as he was weaponless, effectively magicless, and carried no tools to build traps.

The warrior elves had chosen a sentence more effective than execution. For this one gave him time to think while he died. His thoughts simmered.

The NSE would not come to rescue him. His team had been made aware of that before they left. They were given the choice of carrying a suicide pill with them should they ever be apprehended or find themselves in a predicament akin to what Emeric was living right now. Mostly, the pill was to ensure that any valuable information wouldn't be lost through torture. But the warrior elves were certainly thorough. They wanted to maximize Emeric's suffering as much as possible, and as such, the pill had been stolen rendering a painless suicide out of the option...

He sighed as he watched dawn approach. His treks had kept him moving, hoping to evade being mauled by the pack of Hellhounds. That's one of the reasons he embarked on the quest to go uphill in the first place, hoping to get out of range of their powerful scent and remain ahead of their pack. But he needed this break.

The poor elf panted, as the sunrise glistened across the trees. The bare tree trunks likely being the last thing he would ever see, provided that honor wasn't taken by the sharp fangs of a hellhound ripping into his flesh, of course. He could feel his ears droop, and with a defeated sigh, he fully sat down against the rock. The rolling hills and valleys of the Kiote peninsula were pleasant. At least the warriors had given him a beautiful grave, if nothing else...

He missed home.

A lot.

There was a part that the NSE could never truthfully drill out of him. No matter how much psychological conditioning, political education, and physical exercises they made him perform. He was still elven on the inside. He was of course glad to die in defense of the Empire. To defend the good people back home. To cleanse this broken and cursed planet of radical evil and the degenerate mass that plagued Commonwealth society. If his death meant that the Ossies would be beaten back in their plans for world domination - even temporarily - it was a worthwhile one. But it still hurt to accept it. It hurt him so much. He wanted to be back home. How could he not?

He shed a tear at the thought. Water. Valuable water, from his own eyes. It crawled across his cheek, before dripping into the dirt where it would be lost forever.

Emeric closed his eyes. He needed rest. He could formulate a better plan in a few hours when he woke up, hopefully. But just as the rustling sound of leaves, the chirp of rainforest birds, and the slow breeze threatened to put him into a deep slumber... he heard something else.

A buzz.

Emeric's eyes opened in alarm, fearing that a nest of cursed wasps or hornets lay nearby. He scanned the canopy of the rainforest, moving further uphill to get a visual. Yet strangely enough, the buzz shifted. He could hear each individual beat of something slicing through the air, repeatedly. Though it was extremely fast, he could hear it nonetheless. He continued to climb further uphill, reaching a rocky peak devoid of tree cover. The wind was blowing somewhat harder, and in every direction he could see the increasing dawn. As he stopped moving, the sound continued to grow, erasing his doubts that it was some sort of bees nest and rather something else in the air. Something large...

And then he saw it.

A singular black object moved through the air. A green light would occasionally flash from one of its strobes, indicating that it was indeed a machine. As it got closer, the shape of it morphed into something roughly circular, and with a spinning blade planted just above its hull. A metal vehicle. A helicopter...

"Humans..." Emeric whispered. He tried his best to hold his tongue and see what they were doing out here, a task made somewhat simpler as the green painted aircraft flew closer. Immediately a thought flashed in his brain. The helicopter might be his only chance of survival. As far as the eye could see, he could only make out the canopy of jungle. The nearest source of water could be in any direction, and he'd have no idea where.

The helicopter seemed to be searching for something on the ground. Every instinct in Emeric's body told him not to give in to the temptation. If he could even find a way to get the helicopter's attention, there was no guarantee that the humans wouldn't just ignore him and move on. And even if he did, he'd only be prolonging the inevitable, inviting misery onto what was certain to be a short life. Torture, definitely. They would try their best to drain all the information they could get using their cruel tools. They'd beat him, without a doubt. Though, it may have been possible to return home. Avonia and the Ostralands often swapped prisoners as diplomatic bargaining chips. If Avonia had something the humans wanted, they might... might... offer to return Emeric back home. That is considering Emeric's life hadn't already been written off, and his involvement with the NSE disavowed altogether. He was supposed to be dead by now. If one was captured, they were to kill themselves immediately to prevent any information from being leaked by either torture or coercion. That was the point of the suicide pill. And Emeric had a lot of information. Not just about all of the NSE's interior operations and the Empire's activities, but also, information that was directly related to the base in Canau. He had taken photographs of the alien fortress, and though his pictures were likely burned by the Kiotes, the other operatives on CASEMATE managed to make it out. He knew their names, identities, everything. One leak would effectively destroy the NSE's spy network on this side of the border, and Emeric would be that very leak if he allowed himself to be captured. That's if he couldn't resist torture for a prisoner-swap that may never occur...

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He felt his heart race as the decision weighed on him. He could pretend like he got lost on a hike, as unlikely as that was. He was fluent in the local dialect that the Raritan tribe of Warrior Elves communicated in, but he certainly didn't look like a warrior elf. He was still wearing his combat uniform for crying out loud! He could try and pass himself off as a Sevillan or a Riverlander, but that was a ruse unlikely to work for more than a few moments before the humans started to notice something off about him. If he acted as obediently and innocent as possible, the humans might be reckless with their custody of him, giving him a chance to escape... that is, if they didn't find out who he was immediately.

It was either he take his chances with the humans for the moment, and try to escape their clutches. Or face certain death out here...

He made the choice, raising his hands high above his head and waving for the helicopter to fly over to him. At first, it seemed the helicopter didn't notice. Quickly he took off his imperial-grey colored shirt, and waved it in the air. The helicopter ceased its hover, slowly maneuvering its way towards him! It worked! They saw him after all! He sent a silent prayer to the gods that the humans were complete idiots. He knew human intelligence was... wanting... in comparison to the elven mind. But even they weren't stupid enough to actually believe he was just a Kiote civilian who had gotten lost when he was literally wearing imperial clothes. But for the time being, he'd have to keep such thoughts to himself, as he would be at their mercy. A horrific thought.

The blades of the helicopter kept cutting through the air, and its spin grew louder and louder with each passing second as it drew near. Soon the glass of the cockpit became visible, and a door slid open before it made its landing. It chose a spot a bit farther downhill. Emeric watched the humans disembark, swallowing a nervous gulp of saliva as he saw their green uniforms and black rifles. The apes looked ridiculous, some of them didn't even have the straps to their pot-like helmets fully tied around their heads. But they could be temperamental, and they had guns. It would be best if he didn't try to agitate them just as he was about to get rescued.

He walked the short distance downhill to the helicopter's landing point in a clearing within the woods. Immediately the humans started to bark at him, their growls forcing him to put his hands over his head to prove that he was unarmed. One of the humans, a slender looking male wearing big round sunglasses marched up over to him. Pulling out a translator from his flak vest, and switching the device on, "Can you hear us?" The human demanded from him with a sick smile.

"I-I'm sorry..." Emeric said as he knelt down before their guns, trying his best to make himself look small "I j-just got lost and I dont-"

"Spare me the song and dance, we know who you are," The human smiled, he took the sunglasses off revealing dark bags around his eyes and a veteran-like face. Emeric could hear it in his voice, he wasn't an Ostralander. He was a Colly. And a particularly ugly one at that. His face was broad and pockmarked with wrinkles that stood in direct contrast to the natural smoothness and elegance of an elf's vibrant skin. The primate's eyes were dark brown with narrow black holes for pupils that were like a void, completely devoid of the magical natural light that illuminated the iris' of Elves. Humans were hideous creatures, a mockery of elves if anything. But this one's mug was particularly offensive to Emeric's sight. His smile was crooked, even for a human's. Layers of tar from chain smoking stained his teeth brown. His face was covered in a unkempt field of tiny black hairs that they'd call "stubble". He wondered if the primate was balding underneath the green steel pot of a helmet. Even the other human grunts around him, hideous creatures as they were, looked far better groomed in comparison.

"Don't do nothing stupid, you're being detained," The ape smiled, hints of his cigarette breath insulted Emeric's nostrils. He snarled, spitting on the ground.

"As if I'd ever take orders from you radical imps!"

Emeric winced as he heard the soldiers chamber their guns, preparing to rapidly shorten his life. He couldn't help but hide the tremors wracking his body. At the very least, the humans would offer a quick death... but unexpectedly, the human held out his hands to the others, keeping them from shooting him.

Emeric looked at the hand as if it were some kind of monster out to kill him, before he looked up at the human, smiling wide as ever, "Feisty one ain't you?" The man chuckled to himself, "You've got some damn nerve talking to us like that. You oughta be kissing my ass, we're here to save you after all."

"If you know who I am then spare me the torture. Your soldiers are waiting for it, monkey. Shoot me. Go ahead. I know you primates can't hold your violent nature in for long."

"Ah, great. This one's a fucking supremacist too," One of the soldiers, a silver haired woman among their ranks whined, "Why don't we oblige his final request? I've been itching to shoot something all day."

"My dad fought orderite pricks like you in The Sacred War. It doesn't matter to me if the orderites are Valdacian or Avonian. I always knew you Imperialists were orderites underneath it all," Said another, a mustached man whose eyes were also hidden beneath the polarized lens of dark sunglasses.

"Hold on now, racist or not we caught this son of a bitch snooping around some vital intel. The bigwigs want him alive," Said the Ugly Colly to his troops before turning back to Emeric, "I ain't gonna hurt you none. But I can't say the same about my troops, heh. I'm Tucker Blackwood. Sergeant First Class, RDI. Special Operations Division."

"RDI?" Emeric felt his heart drop. Fuck. The RDI was the worst, most psychotic, violent, pure evil, branch of the Commonwealth's fighting forces. The NSE's direct rival. He'd spent much of his training learning how to outwit and kill RDI demons in particular. They were cruel, but most importantly, cunning. If he'd ran into their standard grunts or marines, he may have been able to deceive them for a moment to gain some sort of hospitality within his imprisonment. Yet, if these humans were truly from the RDI, the chances of that happening were close to none. They were the worst of the worst, and he had willingly offered himself to them as their plaything. A foolish move in hindsight, but he'd thought it was only chance of survival. For a brief moment, Emeric's fear was so palpable that he'd forgotten the fact that he was quite literally dying of thirst. But his musings only left one question...

What in heaven's name was the RDI doing all the way out here? The warrior elves had shifted him around the Kiote Peninsula, and as far as he could tell, he was quite far removed from Canau - and therefore the alien base. It was unlikely that the warriors would've dropped him off anywhere close to Raritan or the Kiote border, which is likely where the RDI's agents would be most active. So what were they doing here?

As if to answer the question, the Ugly Colly opened his mouth, "We got word that our friends had released an Imperial agent out here. Figured to leave him out in the jungle for dead. That's a damn good sentence if you ask me, but we've got other plans for you..."

"F-fuck you. You'd be better off talking to a brick wall," Emeric spat at him. Taking the bullet now would be the preferable option to being in RDI custody. Fuck, he should've thought this out better before he intentionally flagged down a human helicopter. It was a stupid decision in retrospect, but his weary body and water-deprived mind had his thinking all screwed up.

The Ugly Colly smiled more, "Oh don't worry about a thing, Sharp ear. I'm thinking about putting you to work. Emeric... that's your name right?" And like that, all doubts that these humans were from the RDI were completely erased. Indeed, they knew exactly who he was, "NSE agents are a big game catch for us. Now I could shoot you, but the images you took of the little fortress in Canau are already high tailing it back to the Empire as we speak. I know you're aware of that."

Emeric forced a haughty smile, "The NSE has eyes everywhere..."

"And yet they wont come to save your sorry ass, am I right?"

"Stop antagonizing me! What do you want?"

The Ugly Colly gestured to one of his soldiers, the silver haired woman. He offered her a curt nod of his head towards Emeric's direction, and on cue, the woman understood. She took aim...

A gunshot. A bang. Emeric felt a searing pain in his leg, screeching as he fell to the floor. His face met the dirt, and he gritted his teeth, holding the leg that had been shot. The humans used solid steel ammunition that fragmented upon impact, rather than the energy-based rounds of ekron pulse rifles. Though the bullets were worse against shields, they did a hefty amount of damage to flesh and bones, tearing it, shattering, burning. Luckily the human was precise in her aim, for she steered clear of a major artery, nailing Emeric directly in his foreleg. Yet, it didn't mitigate the amount of pain shooting up his spine from his now useless limb.

As he was on the floor, The Ugly Colly walked up to him, his smile wider than ever. The sunglasses were back on his face, thank the gods. Emeric wouldn't have to spend his last moments seeing his hideous smile.

"Told you I wouldn't hurt you," The Ugly Colly chuckled, "That's just so we can be sure you won't do anything stupid. Don't want our trophy hunt running off on us, do we? We'll get you a medic soon, so you can quit crying."

"Fuck you! You fucking primate!" Emeric strained out a yell as he continued to hold his wound, his eyes were closed shut. It was the least he could do to lash out against natural human savagery. Even the warrior elves, uncivilized as they were, had the decency to restrain their violent urges to dedicated torture sessions. Once again proving that for all the humans adored in technological prowess, elves would naturally emerge the more civilized of the two "brother" species.

"Oh you... what am I gonna do with you. I know," The Ugly Colly stuck a cigar in his mouth. A Zanican cigar, expensive by the looks of them. The stench of the smoke leaf burning stung at Emeric's sinuses. The Ugly Colly drew in a breath, before blowing out a cloud of smoke and ash that covered Emeric's wounded body, a blatant sign of disrespect if there ever was one, despite his dumbass smile. The Ugly Colly gestured to the mustached soldier this time, and then he locked eyes with Emeric while the soldier walked up to him with his rifle in his hands.

His smile faded, "Welcome to The Free World, son."

Emeric lay there confused, expecting to be shot.

A swift blow to the temple with the butt of the soldier's rifle was all he was met with, before he fell unconscious.

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