A Creature of War, Book 4, CH03 (Patreon)

She forced a smile, and they ate in silence.

“You’re El, right?” she asked when she was done.

He nodded. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t have one. I’m FXA.”

“The mission’s over, you should pick one.”

“It isn’t over until we get back to base. They say you’re the most powerful of the Specialists, that you held off an army of thousands, kept them from reaching your men, suffocated any who broke through on the spot.”

El shook his head. It had only been a few hundred. They’d been a few miles from an active volcano so he’d pulled the magma and made a wall between them and the enemy, giving his men time to retreat.

He’d tried to correct the story for over a hundred years, but it kept getting more outlandish each time he heard it. He’d given up trying when he realized no one wanted the truth. They wanted a story that inspired them, and the idea that he could stand up to a giant army, all by himself, suited their needs better than the reality.

“Well,” the ostrich said, standing. “No matter what happens now, we’re all proud to have served under you. We know that no matter what, you’ll get us home.”

El looked away. He couldn’t get anyone home. He didn’t even know what home meant anymore. It had used to be the elements around him but that was gone. What was left?

He continued eating. Unable to take his eyes off the pot of water. It still wasn’t boiling.

That night, Vee held him, and El remembered there was more to what home was than the elements around him. This, his lover holding him, was also home. Falling asleep against him in his embrace would be enough. All he had to do was stay with Vee and everything would be fine.

They had to spend an extra day while Vee healed everyone. Those who could, and El forced himself to help, hunted so Vee would keep his strength up. He felt more like himself during that time, but/ as soon as they came back and he noticed the water on the fire, not boiling, he felt the difference in the elements again and whatever certainty he’d regained during the night and the day vanished.

They broke camp the next morning. They buried the fires and removed any indications they had been there. They couldn’t use their compass, the needle spun aimlessly.

“What’s the name of that Zebra in the other unit?” EL asked. “The one with magnetism powers?”

“Karl?”

El indicated the needles. “You think that’s affecting him too?”

Vee pulled him close. “You’ll be fine, El. Whatever this is, it’ll pass.”

El hoped he was right.

They hunted for their food, and those were the rare times El could forget how everything had changed. He could still sense the element, even if they no longer felt right, so he could still sense the water in the animals and use that to track them. He didn’t have the speed of their runners, but he has experience, and brought back his fair share of kills.

Without a compass, they used the raising sun, and tried stay aligned east as best they could. When they came across the road, they all rejoiced. There were cars along it, a lot of them. There were also bodies, mostly humans.

There were signs of violence, but most of the dead had been trampled. Whatever had scared them, and caused them to abandoned the cars, El thought, until they tried starting them. None would ever start.

El looked at all these cars, thought of the batteries in them, all that electricity gone, or affected in another way, and he began laughing. He couldn’t stop, it came so hard he had to use one of the car to keep standing, then had to side down.

Vee was crouched before him, and the concern on his face made El make an effort to stop. “Sorry, I just thought about how something like this would drive Static insane.” He pulled his knees to him. He hadn’t thought about her in years. He hadn’t meant to forget, he’d just been busy fighting.

“I miss her, Vee.” The tears weren’t from the laughter anymore. “I miss them, Peek, Fade, Fiji.” He didn’t know why their absence was hitting him so hard this time, it wasn’t like he’d just lost them. Peek had been dead for centuries.

“I miss them too.” Vee took his hand and squeezed it. “We’re making camp here for the rest of the day,” he told the others.

El saw the look on their face, the worry. If he, a centuries old Specialist was losing it, what would happen to them? They were too young to have realized that in spite of being created, of their powers, abilities and training, one other thing they were was so very normal. They could fall victim to depressions just like the humans. They could fall in love, feel the loss of friends, brothers and sisters, as deeply and any of their commanding officers or the scientists at the lab. That didn’t diminish with age, it just gave them so much more things to feel.

One of them found guns in the truck of a car, a lot of them, but they didn’t work. It was as if every bullets was a dud. To test them, they threw cartridge without the tip in the fire, and instead of going up in a explosive ‘bang’ it just burned slowly.

They redid the test, by applying a flame to the cartridge, and the fire spread slowly over it. It burned easier than wood, but not as it should. The fire burned with the same intensity as before, It was still the least changed of the elements, so it was one of the chemical compound that had been affected.

Vee looked at him.

“I told you, it’s all different now, it’s all wrong.”

That night, Vee’s embrace didn’t feel as comforting. What else had changed that he couldn’t feel?

* * * * *

They came across the first town three days after the gunpowder test. They didn’t get to see what the town itself was like, a group of them was waiting with pitchforks, knives and stones. Vee could have taken them on, each one of them could have fought them to submission alone, but Vee had them walk around. They weren’t here to fight civilians, which those clearly were.

For three weeks they proceeded this way, avoiding any settlement, no matter how small, but then the road took them out of the forest and onto a plain.

They had trouble finding animals to hunt. El’s senses didn’t reach as far as they used to, not that it would help. Even Vee couldn’t sense animal life withing the kilometers around them he could reach.

By the time they reach the next town, they were all hungry. The townsfolk were waiting for them with knifes and other makeshift weapons, but this time Vee had them walk right up, stopping only when they could make out the words being yelled at them.

El couldn’t understand the words, but the tone was clear. ‘Go away,’ ‘you aren’t welcome here.’ He hadn’t been taught any of the Peruvian languages. This mission hadn’t been about talking with them, it had been about annihilating them. 

There had been a time, one of the scientist had told him, years ago, when everyone spoke enough of the same language they could all make themselves understood, but that had been before the supply wars, which lead to the dominance war, which had brought about the creation of the Anthros, and then it was just war.

Vee still tried to talk with them. To explain they only wanted food, but the townsfolk understood as much of English as they did the local language. With a sigh of exasperation Vee had the six tougher looking men just drop and he walked through the others. If anyone came to close, he dropped them too.

Hypoglycemia, from what El could tell. One of Vee’s preferred method of incapacitating an opponent temporarily. Their systems would rebalance over the next hour and they’d be shaky for a while longer.

With orders to be gentle with anyone trying to stop them, Vee had them take what they needed, finding backpacks and filling them with canned food and powdered drinks. 

It was a grim experience. These people were civilians and shouldn’t be fought in such a way, there were clear rule to engagements, and while many country didn’t respect them, as demonstrated by the Peruvian’s attack on a US city, This was one Rule command had never let them even bend. Civilians were off limits.

But they needed food. It was only the ten of them, so this wouldn’t affect the town’s supplies all that much, and they had the luxury of going out and hunting. They were silent when they left the town behind them. None of them wanted to talk about it. Vee looked the most bothered, but he wouldn’t talk either, so El just held him.

They supplemented what they’d taken with whatever animal they could find and catch, far too quickly, they were running out. The runners had a higher metabolism, and that didn’t care of they were running or not.

The next town was larger, and they took twice as much. Their resupply was also more violent. They had to separate to gather what they needed and only Vee had the luxury of simply rendering his opponent unconscious with a thought.

They made it to a forest on what they’d taken, and instead of just traversing it, they took the time to figure out how to dry meats so they wouldn’t have to attack towns again.

When they set out again, they made it a month before their supplies became dangerously low. During that time they came across a city and stayed well clear of it, as well as the few towns.

The next town they came across was in the process of building a wall from tree trunks, and even without a language in common, Vee was able to led them understand they were willing to help in exchange for food.

During the two weeks it took to build the palisade, the town was attacked twice. The ten of them easily dispatched the attackers, which earned them the goodwill of the town.

When the wall was finished and they made to leave, there was tears and a celebration. They were given a cart, made from the bed of an old truck, to carry their supplies. They were given clothing to replace their military garbs, as well as thick blankets. They had to pull the cart themselves, but they didn't mind. Three months, and a few resupply missions, later, they crossed into Columbia with a cart nearly full, pulled by two oxen. The border was deserted, as was the city on the other side.

They searched every store, and while they only found a few that still had cans and dried goods. It was more than they could carry.

Most of the towns they came across through Columbia were deserted, and those that weren’t were populated by people huddling together, unarmed and without any desire to fight. They left those alone.

The majority of their problems came from groups of people attacking them on the road for their supplies. Most groups were human, easily taken down, even if they were armed with bows, knives and swords, but one had been led by an Anthro.

And not just someone from the infantry. This bear was a Specialist, able to form walls of force that could stop anything, even Vee’s powers couldn’t affect anything on the other side of it.

They didn’t know of any Specialist with this power, so it wasn’t a US soldier that had deserted. There were always stories of that happening, but never about Specialists. So this was one another country had made. Possibly the Columbian army, although El hadn’t heard of them having Anthro soldiers.

It was a hard battle, which they won only by slowly taking down all the humans who followed him, and then surrounding him and exhausting him. It was an expensive victory. Three of their friends died, as did an oxen, and the axle of their cart was broken.

They were famished by the time they reached the next town. Vee didn’t even bother trying to negotiate with them. He rendered anyone who approached unconscious and they took what they needed, including a new cart.