Chapter 80

The Dark One’s Respite 10

-:-

The same day.

Evening.

Theo’s Lair

110 individuals of varying size stood in formation in front of a slightly elevated platform.

All of them wore Z61 Scout Armors with AR-15’s as their primary weapon.

While it was nigh impossible to see due to their full body armor, every last one of them were both excited and nervous.

It felt like there was electricity in the air.

It was as if some famous individual was about to speak to them.

The tension spiked even further when the maid clad Juno stepped onto the platform. She was already wearing her long violet wig for some reason.

She stood in front of the 110 with the aura of authority.

“Rejoice subjects! Your god has arrived!” roared Juno.

As power armor clad Theo walked onto the platform, all the 110 Reformants took a knee in perfect unison. Did they practice this or something?

He was also tempted to bitch slap Juno for the ‘god’ comment.

For now he let it slide. They were about to execute an important operation after all.

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I assume you already know why I’m here and what we are about to do. Nevertheless, I will recap for the sake of absolute clarification. Tonight, the hunter division of the Reformants will take a break from the whole ‘hunting’ thing. Instead, we will be performing a pure extermination operation.” said Theo.

A detailed map of the battlefield was sent straight to the heads of the Reformants.

Juno viewed the information on a hightech monocle on her right eye.

“The building and the surrounding area that we are about to assault will be the new front office for our future operations. Because of this, we must try to keep the damage to the building as minimal as possible. Our enemies are known as the ‘Man Eater Cult’. There are approximately 300 of them, give or take a few dozens. They are a bunch of deranged cannibals that was able to gain supernatural strength via some unknown method. Because of this unknown power, capturing them might lead to unnecessary sacrifices. As such, do not hesitate to kill them as quickly as possible. Is that clear?”

“””YES MY LORD!””” said the 110 Reformants in unison.

Seriously, did they hold regular meeting to practice doing things as one?

“Very good. Any questions?” asked Theo

A few hands shot up.

Theo chose the one nearest to him.

Thanks to all of them being connected on a shared datalink, Theo could easily tell who was he talking to.

“R9. Ask your question” said Theo to one of the first females of the Reformants.

R9 stood from her kneeling position and spoke.

“My Lord. Where will our spotters be position?” asked R9

A ‘Spotter’ in Theo’s army was a person that had a decent affinity with a flying spydrone with high levels of sensors.

In a sense, they were the radar of the group.

Unfortunately, due to the large amounts of data flowing into the Spotter, the unit almost always had to remained stationary and out of sight to safely control the drone.

And due to the limited ability of the Reformants, the range of the Spotter was much smaller compared to Theo’s.

In the erratic and ever changing environment of urban warfare, Spotters were extremely important to the still inexperienced Reformants.

“Dont worry. I’ll be serving as the Spotter for all of us.” replied Theo.

A fair bit of murmur could be heard from the Reformants.

“Er… No disrespect meant my Lord, but the Reformant’s purpose is to remove as much load on your shoulders as possible. It would be a sign of us failing our purpose if we let you do such a thing” said R9

Much to Theo’s surprise, a lot of the 110 nodded their heads in agreement.

Theo could not remember ever indoctrinating this levels of loyalty into the Reformants.

Before Theo could respond, Juno answered.

“Are you a fool R9? Lighten our Lord’s load? How laughable for you to think so highly of yourself. Our Lord Theo’s load is so great that a million of you would be crushed like an insect if you experienced 0.00001% of what he was carrying. Know your place!” roared Juno.

R9 was visibly annoyed at Juno, but kept her mouth shut.

Even Theo was a bit annoyed of Juno at the moment. He didn't understand why she was antagonizing the Reformants.

However, a few seconds later, he realized what she was after.

“Do not measure the power of our Lord with your pitiful metric system.” said Juno before turning to Theo. “My lord. May I ask for you to show our uninformed minions how powerful you truly are?”

“I see… Increase morale via a show of force huh. Not a bad idea” thought Theo.

He closed his eyes.

Barely a millisecond later, thousands of drones within the lair came to life all at the same time. The drones shot out of their respective containers and rushed towards the Reformants.

They then ran circles in both clockwise and counter clockwise around the group while skillfully dodging any collisions from the other drones that were moving in the opposite direction.

Some of them were as small as remote control cars while others were literal tanks. Yet despite the difference in size, weight, maneuverability, function or speed, not a single one accidentally slammed into the others.

The Reformants stood at the eye of the storm with a dumbfounded expression.

Since they were capable of connecting to the machines to some extent, they understood that the level of mental power required to control thousands of drones at the same time and in perfect manner was not a feat a normal human could possibly perform.

About 30 seconds later, all the drones returned to their respective hangar bay in an orderly manner.

After a few moments of silence, Juno spoke

“Question not our Lord’s abilities for he is a god and we are mere men. Believe in his words for they are logical and wise. Fear not your enemies for each of you are the instrument of his wrath. Show no mercy and KILL THEM ALL!”

““”UUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”””

While Theo was grateful that Juno skillfully increased the morale of the troops, he was very worried on how she delivered her speech.

It felt eerily similar to what religious fanatics would say.

-:-

1 hour later

The Vermilion City Scrapyard was a massive jungle of steel and concrete of varying origin and function.

Cars, trucks, half destroyed buildings, bridges and many others often find their way to this place.

In that chaotic mess were a few functioning buildings that acted as both offices and recycling plants.

However, due to the ever growing number of crap being thrown into the scrapyard, the recycling plants would sometimes be isolated by a wall of scrap.

The workers would then be annihilated by the many many wonderful things that want the building for themselves.

The main reason why Theo easily acquired the ownership of the land was because the original owners were practically begging someone to buy it.

Normally the city would want to own such a prime real estate, but evicting the myriads of murderous individuals would be costly in money and lives.

Even the superheroes have lost a few of their brave souls to this concrete hell. But that’s because they were not prepared.

They went about their stupid arrogant style of sending small highly trained groups in hopes of beating the enemy bosses

This was a mistake Theo had no intention of making.

Their target was the recycling plant closest to Theo’s home.

Going through the normal route from the surface was suicide because you’d have to go through a few gang territories. Some of them were more than just your garden variety thugs.

To save time and effort, Theo’s group went underground via the sewers and excited about the target area.

The building itself was only 2 stories tall, but it covered a fairly large land area. Its structure and the unintentional wall of scrap around it made the area a perfect bunker complex for Theo’s forces.

And since Theo could simply transmute an underground path that connected the building and his lair, it could easily be stocked up with supplies and armaments.

To the cannibals, the building was just a building.

To Theo, this was a fortress that he needed to get his hands on.

With that in mind, Theo’s group split into 12 groups and made a perimeter around the area. The reformants positioned themselves on top of scrap mountains where they could easily shoot down from.

With around 20 stealth drones flying around the area, Theo’s group had a complete understanding of the battlefield.

“Is everyone in position?” asked Theo through the coms.

In response, group 1 to 11 reported that they were ready.

Each group had 10 members with at least 1 Spotter. However, since Theo was present, everyone could take up arms and fight.

The only group that didn't follow this format was group 12.

This group only had 2 members, namely Theo and Juno.

Clad in his Z49 power, Theo had his usual load out of 1 Beretta ARX160, 2 Beretta 92 pistols, 2 HF Blades and 2 frag grenades.

He also had at least 2 flying armory drones with lots of goodies waiting to be unleashed.

Juno had her maid uniform, violet wig, 6 HF Blades and 4 frag grenades. For this operation, she wore a gas mask.

“It’s been awhile since we had a lovely date. Haven't we?” said Juno as she hugged Theo’s arm.

“You call this a date? Then what the hell was all the sex we had in the last few weeks?” asked Theo.

“Those were me performing my god given duty as your sex slave wife. Dates are where we take a stroll and do fun things together but is not related to sex.”

“You never cease to creep the shit out of me” said Theo with a sigh.

“If that does happen, I would gladly eat your shit with gusto” replied Juno with her ever smiling face hidden behind the gas mask

“God! That’s disgusting!”

“You’re welcome”

“Gah! Enough of this! Get ready Juno. We’re starting the operation”

“Your command is my wish.” said Juno as she drew 2 HF Blades

With a mental command, one of the flying armory drone began carpet bombing the building with generous amounts of tear gas bombs.

Based on the readings from the spydrones, there was barely any wind and there were no chance of rain.

There were at least 300 enemies with supernatural strength against 110 Reformants that had barely any combat experience and were still getting used to their cybernetics.

Theo’s group might have the technological advantage, but he wasn't going to take any chances.

But why tear bombs?

Because it causes skin irritation, bleeding, severe eye pains (may lead to blindness) and heavy restriction to breathing (may cause death via suffocation).

It has a decent AOE and lasted longer than a simple frag grenade.

Most importantly, it did not damage the structure of the building.

As expected of a cult, the Man Eaters were ill prepared for the ambush.

The gas covered the entire area, effectively sowing panic among the cultists.

A mass stampede inevitably broke out as the cultist who were untested in combat ran around like headless chickens.

They tried to escape the gas that choked and blinded them, but the gas persistently tortured them no matter how far they ran.

Those who were lucky enough to be able to reach the edge of the tear gas cloud was showered with led as the Reformants mercilessly gunned them down.

In just under 5 minutes, the 300 strong Man Eater Cult went down to about 100 with most casualties dying from either choking or was via stampede.

The ones that remained were either the really lucky or the really strong.

“Not a bad opening act.” said the pleased Juno.

“I agree.” said Theo before speaking to everyone via coms. “Phase 1 complete. Let’s start phase 2. Remember to keep at range and avoid melee combat at all costs. You are only useful to me alive. Am I clear?”

“””YES MY LORD!”””

With that said and done, Theo and Juno rushed into the building.

“Let’s have some fun!”