//: PLAY(LOG1-PLAGUESONPOV) - (0:01) [i]Now, of all times? Why now, why here?[/i] Internally, Denal raged against circumstance. Outwardly, he was silent as he slunk through the Jungle’s dense undergrowth. Behind him lurked cyborg drones, rotting, plague-infected corpses given exoskeletons to prolong their feeble life. He was happy to have an extra pair of eyes, especially now. A massive surge of mana was all the warning given to him. His Lab, his only safe home, had been completely overrun. Revolutionaries thought to take the Plague that infected him and every creature in the lab for themselves. Most of them were already barely-living piles of flesh, but those that escaped were just as dangerous. If any of them carried the plague back, two equally disastrous outcomes became reality. Either the revolutionaries gained control of the plague, causing mass destruction and an even worse result for him, as his Lord likely punished him for failure, or they infected the revolutionaries with the plague, a seemingly beneficial outcome, though the plague would become both unstoppable and uncontrollable at that point, leading Denal to lose his sanity and become like the drones that followed him now. Hopefully, the Jungle Reserve would get here soon. Denal held his hand up and sent a mental signal to the drones, telling them to halt and wait. As they crouched, as alert as their muddled consciousnesses could be, Denal leaped up from limb to limb, climbing through the massive mahogany trees before rapidly coming to rest amongst the thick branches of the canopy. From his new vantage point, he could see the dim flickers of light that signified movement. Flipping down his visor, he matched the waypoints of his few allies with some of the flickers, noting their location and direction. Using a complex system of hand gestures and neural signals, latches and magnets on his back detached his rifle, which he then shouldered. With a rapid series of mechanical thumps and the hissing of pneumatics, the previously mid-ranged rifle became a massively oversized, 10-foot long rifle. The magazine of ammunition that had previously been where the grip now is sat deep in the stock, and a quiver that was also magnetically suspended sat on his left leg and held 3 rounds for the runic “Plaguewrath” that Denal now held in his hands. [i]It took me weeks to get that transition right,[/i] He reminisced, reminding himself of the days of head-pounding annoyance that had been caused by something so seemingly simple. Racking the bolt back, he slid a massive shell into its chamber and pushed the bolt back into place. Using his visor, he ignored the need for a magnifying scope by simply zooming in on his HUD. With said magnification, he could make out movement among the underbrush. Many of the targets he saw were not even trying to hide. Though today, Denal only hunted one person, and one alone. The commander of this force was supposedly quite high up in the command structure of the revolutionaries, killing him would give Denal plenty of renown, but also would shred the system of the rebels. Scanning the forest provided little result. The flickers of movement were never enough to make out decals or decoration on the revolutionaries' armor. Denal decided on a much more up-close approach. Dropping the rifle, it automatically began to float behind him, once again suspended by magnets. He began to jump from tree to tree, accelerating until the entire jungle was a mere blur. The presence of the pair of drones that followed him stayed in the back of his mind, and it gave him a much easier way to tell if something was below him, as they would immediately engage and, at Denal’s speed, would rapidly fall out of his mental range. This happened almost immediately. The drones were, at first, there. Denal could even point at them, though he wasn’t likely to at this speed. Then, with no warning, they were gone, vanished from his consciousness. His fingers flew in more hand signs, and his cloak flared out, and he slowed enough to hit a tree and bound off of it, back in the opposite direction. Another sign and segmented blades sprouted from his wrist. Rocketing to where he last knew of the drones, he reached a branch and redirected himself almost directly into the ground. Stepping out of the crater, dust swirling around him, Denal almost instinctively growled, the sound a raspy yet deep rumble. The battle he had suddenly interrupted was still frozen, as even the drones stared at Denal, fearful of him, though he was no threat to his drones. The blades from his wrist gleamed a deep, dangerous green, and the revolutionaries backed away as he advanced. One yelled, “It’s just another one of the monsters! We can take him, fight!”, which was sufficient to inspire a spirit of fight in the detachment of around 30 revolutionaries. They raised their various weapons, and resumed the battle, prompting the drones to rejoin the fray. Dashing into the clearing, Denal reached the nearest soldier, who stared him down with determined eyes. Bullets flew from his rifle, striking Denal but doing nothing to slow him. Within a blink Denal was wiping blood from his blade, the soldier’s head on the ground. A bunched-up group of soldiers were thrust out of the melee and approached Denal, blind to the headless corpse directly behind him. Sometimes, the tunnel vision granted by the heat of battle was nothing short of impressive. Denal jumped into a spin, easily driving his right blade through the first soldier. The one behind him fell next to his left blade, twisted through the soldier’s gut. A third and fourth were cut down the middle as Denal whirled in the center of the melee, adding cuts and gashes to many others. He found himself back-to-back with a drone only long enough to cut down a fifth soldier before they had broken off once more. Three more fell as Denal continued the momentum of his blades, refusing to stop swinging. The plague cells present in the steel seemed to scream at him, hungry for more. Both of the drones had fallen, and even still thirteen soldiers remained, though none of them were unharmed. The captain of the small force had fallen, but a patrol had returned during the fight and bolstered their numbers. Denal stood in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by soldiers wielding powerful rifles. “Stand down, if you know how!” a soldier shouted, “We have you surrounded!” Denal took a deep, rasping breath, his lacerated vocal cords and rotting lungs straining with the effort of being used. “Nah.” Suddenly launching himself into the air with his superhuman speed, his blades retracted and made room for Plaguewrath, which he shouldered. Sometime during the melee, he had shortened the thing to give him more space to move, but now it grew back to its full 10-foot length. He was high above the canopy now, almost in the territory of the Harpies, but he could see each of the soldier’s amazed faces in full definition. The round remained in the gun even when it had shortened, and now he released its full power from its chains. The blast from Plaguewrath sent him even higher into the sky, nearing the upper atmosphere, almost breaching Space. The ground below felt a very similar result. Even at this height, it was obvious that the soldiers that had surrounded him no longer existed. His rifle glowed in the same deep green as his blades, satisfied with the carnage. He flung it over his shoulder once more and waited for gravity to drag him back down. Minutes later, he hit the ground again, cratering further the large gap left in the trees by Plaguewrath. Out to around 10 meters, nothing but dust and ash remained, a marginal success compared to the last test. Overhead, the booming of a rocket engine announced the arrival of the Jungle Reserve, meaning Denal had to sit around a minute or two longer. Ropes fell to the ground as soldiers rappelled out of the flying mechanical beast they used to get around the planet. One walked directly up to him, obviously attempting to appear unafraid. “What’s the deal with the mess here, ah… Plagueson?” “A weapon’s test,” said a second arrival, a scientist and doctor who had cared for Denal. He often spoke to others for Denal, as speaking was quite the pain. “What weapon woulda done this?” asked the officer incredulously. “We call it Plaguewrath, a play on his own nickname.” “Eh? Plague… Ah. Well, I’m not here to disturb you. Need us to leave?” Denal shook his head and gestured to the scientist. The officer seemed confused but seemed to realize enough of the truth to leave Denal be, for now. As the scientist and officer spoke, in the human way of adding useless information to pad sentences, Denal observed the soldiers. They were all normal heights, some two meters, though some almost reached Denal’s shoulder. Whenever he tried to make eye contact, they suddenly glanced away or busied themselves with their rifle. Humans will be foolish as long as they live. Denal made hand signals at the scientist, who acknowledged them with a nod. He was dismissed and could sleep the day off. Lovely.