Fantasy Kill

Power armor and a High-Frequency External Weapon System, that's what marks a True Counter.

Not the patchwork gear they hand out to probationaries. Not the kevlar-plate and chainmail hybrids they wear. No, they are talking about the real deal. Full-body alloy plating. Reactive muscle fibers. Load-distribution servos. And that beautifully humming monster on their backs, a high-frequency weapon system tuned for fighting Riftborne. Not just some knife or baton. An armor-piercing, rift-rending, high-output tech, designed for one thing.

Killing monsters that don't die easy.

These weren't regular Counters. These were the ones who fought the worst things beyond the wall and came back breathing and even then barely. They'd seen Riftborne up close. Fought them in the dark, in the mud, in places maps no longer covered and survived.

Rus expected arrogance. Some had it, the kind of quiet superiority that clung to people who lived where others died. But most of them were tired.

Exhausted.

Dead-eyed and low on energy, like they were running on instinct and bad coffee. Rus caught a few watching their squad. Curious and measuring.

He didn't mind. They had reasons to be suspicious.

Apparently, word had gotten around. Someone leaked what he did during the last Rift breach. How he activated the ADR device alone. How he did it without support. It didn't hurt that Rus wore proof on his hip, Salvo, his HF blade, its edge dormant but unmistakable. Black steel, humming with potential.

One of the armored Counters gave Rus a nod earlier.

"You just need the armor," he said. "Then you're one of us."

No ceremony. No handshake.

Just recognition.

And that was enough.

Truth is, Rus had no beef with them. Most of them didn't want trouble either, they were too tired to posture. And no one wants to mess around with UH. They might be enhanced, even mutated in some cases, but everyone still fears bullets. The kind that tear holes the size of fists. Explosives don't care how tough you are. You could be augmented head to toe, but you're still red on the inside.

A Counter might laugh off a 9mm to the chest.

A .50 cal AP? That's a different conversation.

Missiles? Mortars? Napalm?

There's one universal law, regardless of the time or place:

Humanity is exceptionally good at killing things.

Rus respected the Counters.

They respected him back.

And they had separate orders anyway, so there wasn't much point in stirring shit. The FOB was cramped, and the waiting game was still on. All that was left was to sit on their trucks and watch time decay around them.

Rus missed their Humvee.

Despite all its rattling, overheating, and ancient AC, it at least had soul. These new eight-wheeler transports we got? All armor, no heart. And worse, they were constantly getting bogged down in the mud. Too heavy to lift manually, even for Counters. When tons of steel decide they don't want to move, they don't.

As a lieutenant, it was still his job to bark a few orders. Get privates unstuck. Coordinate digging. Relay Kilgore's latest updates. After that?

He just leaned against the side of a truck and waited.

The real delay wasn't them.

It was the terrain.

Gorda County was split by a river so wide you could mistake it for an inland sea. No functioning bridges. No fords. No ferries. No infrastructure. The entire area had gone feral over the years and was overtaken by trees, vines, and roots. The roadways had been swallowed whole. What remained of the tarmac was just green veins underfoot.

The new dozers were still en route from Libertalia. Slow bastards. Still, the Knights were making progress, piloting their mechs to clear fallen boulders, dead trees, and whatever else blocked their path. Towering constructs of steel and servo, stomping and digging while smoking a lot of black smoke

Behind them, Power Loaders, the workhorse machines, cut, gouged, and clawed their way through the overgrowth. No complaints. Just labor. Heat. Metal grinding against earth.

It was clear they wouldn't be leaving any time soon.

The jungle was winning.

And all they could do was wait their turn to start killing again.

***

Cyma remained on standby.

No marching orders. No immediate deployments. Just endless days of waiting for clearance while the jungle stubbornly refused to be tamed.

In the meantime, Rus had sweeps to coordinate. Not that he did much. A few radio check-ins. A couple of map updates. Some form stamping that passed for bureaucracy out here in the mud.

Rus spent most of his hours sitting in a cheap foldable chair inside one of the FOB's many identical green tents, legs kicked up on the table, surrounded by flickering terminals, half-empty canteens, and a rotating stream of bored officers pretending to work harder than they were.

Outside, the real show was happening.

Rus watched the footage stream in, helmet feeds, drone surveillance, thermal scans. Cyma Squad was out there again, doing what they did best. Efficient. Unrelenting. Quiet in the way only true killers could be.

And alongside them was the new Murder Bot they'd rolled in last week now freshly repainted, patched up with armored plating and just enough personality quirks to freak out the rookies. The squad had already given it a name.

Cym.

Not Cyma. Cym.

Because of course they did.

And as usual Cym lived up to it. Precision violence wrapped in an alloy chassis. It didn't speak. It didn't hesitate. It just executed its objectives with a kind of cold violence that made even hardened Counters shift uncomfortably when it walked by.

The footage showed limbs flying. Bursts of steam. Screams cut short by high-frequency blades and plasma bursts. Non-humans, Gobbers, ferals, rogue fauna, whatever hadn't been sterilized yet turned into red mist and crumpled organs.

Cym and Cyma were out there mowing them down like it was routine yard work.

And in a way, it was.

That was the rhythm now.

The jungle moved.

They bled it dry.

Rus sipped stale coffee and scanned reports while machines did the killing.

The dozers arrived first, crawling through the jungle like they owned it. Their engines thundered through the valley, cutting fresh scars into Gorda's overgrown skeleton. The earth trembled beneath their treads. Trees fell. Roots were torn apart. The jungle didn't scream, but if it could, it would've begged for mercy.

Behind them came the troops.

Convoys of armor and foot soldiers, more boots than the FOB had room for. The place swelled with bodies and noise with Libertalia reinforcements, specialist teams, drone operators, logistics crews, and another Counter unit still shaking off the last Rift engagement. Tents sprang up like fungus. Generators buzzed. Antennas stabbed at the sky.

The war machine was growing.

And Rus could feel something was coming.

Kilgore found Rus near the edge of camp, crouched over a half-eaten ration and half-written sweep order. He didn't wait for formalities. 

"We've got a location," he said. Rus stood, brushing crumbs off his chest plate. "Talk."

"Southwest. A bay—natural harbor. Flat terrain, clear waters. Perfect for ships, logistics, and potential forward expansion."

Rus nodded. "Are we planning to take it?"

"We are taking it," he said. "HQ wants it locked down before the end of the week."

That gave them days, maybe less, depending on resistance.

"Intel in the area?"

"Sparse," he said. "Recon drones picked up some non-human structures. Could be Gobber nests, could be something worse. Old wrecks dot the shoreline. No known human presence in years. But if we take it, Libertalia has a new port. That changes the map."

It did. A bay meant supply drops by sea. Artillery platforms. Floating command centers. It meant they weren't crawling inch by inch through the jungle anymore. They could punch straight through with force.

"Who's going in?"

"You are," Kilgore said. "Your squad, Cyma, the Murder Bot, Cym, whatever your squad's calling it and a couple of new Knights to test exo-loaders in live terrain."

Of course it was them.

Because when it's unclear what's out there, when something might go wrong, when the terrain's shit and the resistance unknown?

They send Cyma.

Rus crushed the empty ration pack in his hand and dropped it into the mud.

"Alright," Rus said. "When do we move?"

Kilgore handed Rus a data drive. "Brief your team. You leave at 0500."

And just like that, they had a new objective.

***

The map flickered on the portable holoscreen, blue outlines dancing across terrain we hadn't stepped foot on yet. Most of Gorda was still just topography and guesswork from old satellite images. Forests rendered in washed out green, rivers in soft blue. The southwest edge? A jagged coast curved like a claw and at the center of it, a bay wide enough to swallow a fleet.

Rus stood at the front of the tent with the screen beside ho,, arms crossed, voice steady. The rest of the squad sat or leaned, Berta, Amiel, Gino, Dan, Foster, Stacy, Kate. Cyma stood motionless in the back, and Cym loomed nearby, optics dim but recording.

"Here's the situation," Rus began. "Southwest of us is a natural bay. HQ wants it. Command sees it as a high-value logistical point. Flat shore, potential for naval landings, enough room to build a seaport."

Berta raised an eyebrow. "So, beachfront property."

"With landmines and corpses, yeah."

Rus tapped the screen. The map zoomed, showing a rough satellite pass. Blurred outlines of buildings, a possible shipwreck half-buried in the surf, and lots of unknown terrain. "Recon drones scanned the area. Sparse data. No direct human presence in years. Could be old Gobber camps. Possibly ferals. Structures aren't recent. No movement patterns."

Amiel spoke without looking up. "Which means we're the movement pattern now."

"Exactly."

Foster shifted uncomfortably. "What's the play?"

"Simple," Rus said. "We move out at 0500, escorted by Knights running mech support and a forward dozer unit. First objective: secure the beachhead. Clear any non-human threats. Second: mark ground for drone supply drop. Third: hold until reinforcements arrive."

Dan rubbed his temples. "So sweep and hold."

"No retreat," Kate added, voice quiet.

Rus nodded. "We hold it, or we die on it. Usual."

Berta grinned. "Well, shit. Just as always."

Rus then added. "You'll move with Cym. Advance suppression, full engagement clearance. No civs expected. Rules of engagement are green."

Rus handed out data slates to the squad, preloaded with terrain overlays and threat possibilities. "Expect swamp crossing. Fog zones. Possible underwater hazards. Air cover will be limited due to terrain height. We'll be close to the treeline and coastline both potential ambush routes everywhere."

Berta slung her axe over her shoulder. "Guess we earn our hazard pay."

"You don't get hazard pay."

"Exactly," she said with a grin.

Rus let the banter fade. "Final note is that command believes this is a staging point. Not for us. For them."

Everyone went still.

"The enemy's been building something. We don't know what. But if they're trying to expand through the coast, we cut it off now."

The briefing ended the way all real ones do, not with applause or questions, but silence.

The moment the briefing ended, the tent emptied like someone had pulled a pin.

No shouting. No pep talks. Just motion.

They'd done this enough times that no one needed to be told twice.

Outside, the FOB buzzed with pre-deployment tension. Troopers moved in tight formation, engineers locked down fresh cargo, loaders groaned under the weight of crates, and drones zipped through the misty morning air, scanning every thermal signature they could pick up through the tree canopy.

Rain had started again, just a fine mist for now, but it soaked everything fast. Even the machines looked tired of it.

Their squad moved in silence.

Berta checked her axe, scraped a film of rust from one of the grips, and gave it a hard swing into the dirt. A test. A ritual. She didn't speak, just slung it over her back and popped a nicotine gum.

Gino and Dan were double-checking mags, muttering quietly about angle grips and shot grouping. Foster was silent, pacing a little too fast, looking anywhere but at the transport trucks. Stacy and Kate moved with methodical speed, like they were winding themselves tighter, prepping for something worse than they could picture.

Amiel had already disappeared.

She'd ghosted from the group twenty minutes ago to prep her own gear in peace. Or maybe she just didn't want to listen to Foster ask if they had motion sickness pills.

Cym stood near the mechs, quiet as monuments. Armor locked. Power cores humming. Cym ran diagnostics with surgical precision, checking servos, confirming payloads, inspecting for structural anomalies. 

The Knights arrived shortly after, towering, angular warframes stomping onto the staging grounds with rhythmic, metallic grace. Their pilots were visible through the tinted faceplates, all grim-eyed and focused. 

These weren't rookies.

The dozers rolled in behind them, grinding over flattened underbrush, engines coughing smoke and noise. The ground shook slightly with each turn of their treads.

Rus stood off to the side for a minute and just watched.

His armor was already sealed with the standard plating reinforced with patches, HF blade Salvo locked against his right hip, pistol holstered, spare mags checked twice. He moved down the line and made eye contact with each soldier.

Foster looked away first.

Gino nodded once.

Dan didn't even blink.

Berta gave him a grin sharp enough to cut steel.

"You say the word, boss," she said. "And I'll carve our new beachfront."

Rus clapped her shoulder once. "Try not to drown in the surf."

"No promises."

He keyed the squad channel. "Final call. Load in."

Amiel's voice clicked in from somewhere unseen. "Already moving. Perimeter clear. No signs of patrol breach."

"Good."

Transports roared to life.

Knights stomped into forward positions.

The jungle ahead, thick, wet, and hiding something they hadn't named yet.

Rus climbed into the lead truck and locked his gear into place.

Next stop was the bay of Gorda