Stormfall — Chapter 1

I woke up in a fire, surrounded by a broken building, and my lungs rapidly filling with smoke. To be fair, I’d been in worst situations.

Later, someone tried to come loot my corpse. Jokes on them—I wasn’t dead yet. I was really starting to wish I was, though. The drop went bad. Command went silent. The ‘dead’ city? There was more than one joke being told.

I’m low on resources, high on adrenaline, and stuck playing merc in a city that grows weirder the longer we stay here. We don’t have a clue what we dropped into. With no evac and no reinforcements on the way, things look grim.

But hey—at least I’m not bored.

———

Summary is a work in progress, and the title is definitely going to change at some point. I was compelled by puppy eyes to upload today. Merry Christmas actually this time around.

— — —

Pain jolted me awake. It hit before sound, memory, or much of anything else could register. A crushing weight pinned my chest, like the world had gotten sleepy and collapsed squarely on top of my lungs. I couldn’t breath right, and something wheezed in my lungs like a broken instrument. 

Then the heat hit. Fire blazed around me, crackling and singing my skin. Smoke choked my already broken lungs. The familiar acrid taste brought my focus back more than anything else.

I blinked, and the shattered room around me came into focus. What was left of it, anyway. Walls burned and concrete crumbled all around the place. Furniture lay snapped like twigs, and the glow of flames danced off of scorched wallpaper.

A few feet away, my orbital drop pod lay half embedded into a wall. It’d done its job and protected me from the dangers of the drop—most of them, anyway. I lay collapsed on the floor just outside of the pod like I’d crawled out. I didn’t remember that, though. The migraine pounding at my thoughts suggested there was more than one thing I couldn’t remember.  

A flickering, hazy screen blinked into my eyes. Just the mere presence of it caused my migraine to spike with pressure.

||NMT: Active

||Status: Critic—

Useless. I could feel just how critical I was without an outsider poking me. I waved it away and swatted for my bag. Every bone in my body ached in pain with the motion. The drop hadn’t been pretty, and my banged up body could feel every bit of trauma transferred into it. My lungs in particular felt like they’d ruptured.

I desperately tore at my bag and pulled out several emergency stims. The labels were blurry—wait, no, that was just my eyes. I couldn’t see straight, so I could only choose the stims off of familiarity and vibe. 

Armor blocked access to my chest. It took way too long to remember how it worked and tear it off of me. Underneath the gray plates was my dark blue flight suit all torn up and bloodied. Several lacerations cut straight through the thing. So much for being cut resistant.

I carefully worked the zipper and undid the seals that would’ve given me a few more moments of survivability if I was exposed to the vacuum of space during my drop. I peeled it off, revealing my already blood soaked undershirt.

I jammed the first stim in just left of my heart. Warmth bloomed throughout my body, and the pain dulled away. My lungs which had been struggling to even exist without misery soothed into a dull throb.

The second stim made everything feel kind of floaty. It wasn’t ideal when I was having a hard enough time trying to focus through what I was really beginning to suspect was severe blunt force trauma.

I reached for the third and—everything went black.

— — —

“Oi! Found one still kickin’!” An obnoxious voice broke through the darkness. “And it's a woman! Didn’ realize we was in luck!”

My eyes fluttered open. I was still in the apartment building. Two men stood around the room. One dug into the drop pod with interest, and the other stood over me, trying to tear off what remained of my armor. Every tug and jerk brought my mind back with sharp jolts of discomfort.

Their gear—scavengers? They weren’t in uniforms. They wore a combination of layered hazmat suits and scraps of armor held together with rivets, duct tape, and wires. The man standing over me was covered in scale-like radiation burns and deeply tanned skin. His eyes were wide with excitement, and he was practically panting over me.

“It’s been a long time since outworlders came by.” He dropped a hand onto my thigh, sending a wave of revulsion through me.

“Just don’ bang her up too much.” The other called in disinterest from the drop pod. “Boss’ll probably want her for the tithe.”

The first scav must’ve sensed my disgust. He looked up and met my eyes. “Ah! She’s awake!”

I flinched, hand snapping down to my pistol on instinct. It’d already been pulled off though and tossed to the side. The guy wasn’t a complete idiot, then.

I shifted into a hard kick with my full body thrown behind it. My boot caught him square in the chest and knocked him backward. I darted after and pulled his pistol free of its holster before we could hit the ground again.

Before he could push himself back up, I snapped the pistol up with my finger on the trigger. His expression twisted into one of pure terror, and the man froze like he was watching his life flash before his—

Bang! Bang!

The gunshots rang loudly in my ear and felt even heavier on my banged up wrist. Both of them took the scav by the head, bypassing his armor and dropping him lifelessly back to the floor. 

“Bitch!” The other scavenger roared and dragged his patchwork SMG up to me—

A massive, black wolfhound slammed into him. Both tumbled to the ground, sending up a wave of ashes through the room. Before the second scav could even figure out what was happening, the dog tore into his throat with deadly precision.

”Gah!” A ragged gasp ripped out of the scav and his struggles weakened. After a few moments of being pinned down and clawed to pieces, he stilled entirely. 

“Ah… fuck.” I dropped back against the wall and held at my side. My ears rang from the point blank shots without any hearing protection. Unlike my own pistol, the scav’s gun lacked an integral suppressor. “Nice save.” 

The wolfhound lifted his head and looked toward me. His eyes burned with twin halos of white fire. Said white fire also wrapped around his teeth, burning away the gore and mess from his shaggy fur. “Sorry I was late.”

”Nah, don’t worry about it, Black Dog.” I shifted and looked around for my helmet. It’d been torn off at some point even before I woke up and filled myself with stims. “I would’ve had it handled.”

”Joy…” He shook his head and moved over to me, casting me in shadow. I always forgot just how big the massive hound was. For however large he was, his tail was so, so much longer. It was a shadowy wisp, stretching out much further than his body length. Said tail casually picked up the helmet and handed it to me.

“Thanks.” I pushed it on, only to be nearly blinded by static. The top corner of the HUD blinked incompletely with dozens of errors. I cracked on the side of the helmet a few times to fix it to no success. Manual it was then. I adjusted the dial on the side of the helmet. The electrical components in the helmet abruptly shut off, leaving just a normal view. The important bit was the filters though. No telling what this planet had on it. “You hurt?”

”I was.” The black wolfhound shifted over to me and sat down. The warmth radiating off his fur pushed back a chill from the tattered apartment building. Not that it bothered me much. “I came as soon as I recovered.”

I nodded my head a few times absentmindedly and looked over my injuries. The stims had done their job. I still had scrapes and bruises, but at least I could move and breathe without wincing too bad. I wrung out my limbs to get used to my new injuries. Couldn’t afford to stick around after so much noise. The sooner I could move, the better.

My clothes, on the other hand, weren’t as great. The flight suit exposed my skin to this planet’s chilly air. Here was to hoping there weren’t any dead contaminants on this planet, or I’d be toast. At least the air seemed breathable.

I caught my reflection in a shiny spot of the downed drop pod. My eyes, as always, snapped to my hair first. A shock of snow white hair was matted to my head by ash and soot. Pale blue eyes stared back with a dead, bored stare. No matter how I tried to look cheerful and happy, my eyes always stayed the same. Course, my sharp features didn’t help anything.

Where even was this? There shouldn’t have been an apartment building anywhere near the drop zone. I tried to think back, but my recent memories were a chaotic rave of white-hot burning and strobes of pain. 

Something definitely went wrong during the drop. That much was clear. I carefully put my chest plate and armor back on. The dark urban grey pressed reassuringly onto me once more.

Black Dog left my side and headed for the drop pod. He returned a moment later with his tail wrapped around my assault rifle. Thankfully, it looked to still be in one piece. “Here.”

”Thanks again.” Okay, Joy, Deep breaths. Panicking definitely wouldn’t do anything for me. I needed to assess the situation and figure what I could before anything else. “Status. Full breakdown.”

||Status: Stable

||Nanite Load Capacity: 110/140

||Active Nanites Strains:

• H7 Nanite Monitoring Tool(50) - 98%

• Templar Immuno Mask-3.14(15) — 88%

• Templar Clot Weave-14.01(15) — 23%

• Kairos Armory Low-Grade Dermal Reinforcement(30) - 5%

No wonder I feel so bad. At least the Immuno Mask strain is still fine. I’d rather not feel my body eat itself again. The others were in a not so great state. Except the NMT, though that wasn’t much of a surprise. 

The drop must’ve been way rougher than I thought if my Dermal Reinforcement nanites were down to 5%. I either bled out or used up 95% of it already. I wouldn’t be able to rely on them to protect me from small injuries until I got topped up again.

I stood up and moved to the shattered wall of the apartment building. I was high up, maybe on the fourteenth or so floor. It gave me a great view of the abandoned city Stormfall Company was supposed to drop into. 

Clouds churned above, and lightning flashed near constantly. Rain pounded through the gap in the building and washed some of my blood off my armor. The abandoned city was dark, though that just drew my attention toward the specks of light spread throughout the place.

Explosions and gunfire occasionally flickered down the streets. Whatever chaos caught and sent me so far off target looked like it spread to the rest of the Stormfall Company. No visible dropships or gunships either, so my impromptu nap hadn’t eaten up too much time. 

My eyes caught on several blocks away from my building. Two three-story tall Titans were in the middle of a clash. Spotlights atop their frames lit up the surroundings like small suns, brightly illuminating the tattered remains of their surroundings.

One of them rushed forward in a heavy duty scrap mecha. It didn’t look like any pattern I recognized. A construction rig, then. Maybe it was something slapped together by the local scavengers? It had a massive broadsword that easily cleaved through the surrounding buildings. 

The other was a familiar figure even from up here. Stormfall Company’s VGL-09, my warden’s Titan. Vigil was a lightweight Jackrabbit-pattern Titan that easily danced around the larger, clunky scav one. Plasma burst from the front of Vigil, throwing the mech into a backward dodge and out of the scrap-mech’s range.

Mid dodge, Vigil brought its railcannon up to bare and fired a full charged shot into the scrap-mech’s torso. The impact exploded loud enough to be heard even from here, and the scrap armor glowed a brilliant red with several panels torn off by the impact. It staggered back, broadsword stalling mid motion.

Cyra wasn’t one to let an opportunity slip through her hands. She controlled the Titan to dart forward with more bursts of plasma from behind, massively spiking her acceleration. A shock-dagger flicked into the mech’s hand. She wasted no time slamming it deep into the already weakened armor of the scrap Titan.

The scrap-mech collapsed onto the torn streets. Warden Cyra drove the dagger in several more times, ensuring the job was finished. She then controlled VGL-09 to back away and head further down the street, sweeping the place with the bright spotlights for other combatants.

”Windrunner, this is—“ The comms channel blared into fuzz, drowning my head in a wave of pain. 

Comms were down. Jammer? I wouldn’t be able to contact her like this. I felt an uneasy feeling in my heart as I watched the lithe form of the Titan pad down the street further and further away from me.

The drop pod sparked and sputtered with smoke, crackling behind me. I couldn’t stay here. It was only a matter of time until more scavengers came to check out the smoking remains or were drawn by the death of their companions. With comms out too…

“We’re fine, Joy.” Black Dog moved up beside me and pressed against my side comfortingly.

”I know that.” I dropped a gloved hand onto his head and lightly ruffled the shaggy dog’s ears. The hound was deeply comforting even on the worst of days. “My nanites are basically scrap though.”

”It’s fine. They already did their job.” His tail wrapped around my side and touched a bloodstain. The wound had already been healed. “How’s your psion levels?”

I shifted from foot to foot. Unlike the nanites, there wasn’t an easy interface to pull up and look at. I took a deep breath and fell deep into introspection. 

At first, my mind was too chaotic to focus properly. It fell into line as I breathed slowly, and something began to fill the darkness covering my eyes. It started as a trace of light, and slowly gathered in my chest into a crackling white flame. The flame burned around a pure white stone with golden circuits running through it.

The flame itself looked fairly strong, though it was noticeably weaker than when I last checked. “Drained a bit. Probably from healing and recalling you. I’d say… seventy percent?”

”Next time don’t pull me out before you land.” He huffed and moved toward me. “Let’s get moving.”

”Yup.” I recalled Black Dog and moved for the door. The large hound erupted into white fire and then disappeared like he was never there in the first place. It always made me feel lonely recalling him.

In my mindspace, another stone appeared next to the flaming one. This one was black, with white magma-like lines cutting through it. Part of the flame split off from the first and smoothed over a few cracks. It seemed he wasn’t quite fully healed after all.

I checked my gear and headed for the door with my rifle ready to go. Almost all of my tech was fried by something. Easy access to a map was unfortunately out. I’d have to either find a map somewhere in this city, or try to link-up with other grunts from the Stormfall Company and figure it from there.

I tapped a switch on the side of my helmet. A light erupted and cast a dull glow over the dusty halls of the apartment. Trails in the dust suggested only two scavengers came up here to check out the drop pod crash. Hopefully it was only two.

My rifle stayed up and at the ready just in case as I crept through the halls. The building was almost entirely abandoned. Almost. Down on the first floor, I found a lone scavenger picking through the lobby. 

I raised my rifled up to drop the guy-

“Pl-please!” He froze, trembling when my light flashed over him. “Don’t do it!”

I likewise froze. His voice—I looked past my sights, eyeing the kid. He was young. Too young. Maybe two or three years younger than me. His clothes and style matched the group above. A lookout, then? He had the same chemical or radiation burns that the others had.

”Drop your weapon.” I ordered in as stern of a voice as I could muster. The smoke inhalation helped and made it come out much gruffer than normal.

The kid raised his hands and dropped a pistol to the ground. “I-I was forced into this! Please let me live!”

Tears streamed down his face. Or maybe it was just rain? Either way, it made me hesitate. “Where are we?”

”Junis Tower!” The kid hesitantly pointed up toward a plaque near the lobby’s counter. It was overgrown with foliage, though still readable. We were indeed in Junis Tower. Probably should’ve looked around more instead of hyper focusing on him.

I took a step to the side and skirted to his pistol. It was a junky piece hardly worth being its name as a firearm. Still, I carefully kicked it away, all the while keeping my rifle trained on him. “Stormfall, do you know it?”

“N-no.” He flinched at my frown and trembled even fiercer. “I-If you're talking about the outworlders, I-I can guide you! J-just please.”

”Where?” 

He froze for a moment and something flashed in his eyes. “T-to the north! Five blocks!”

Five blocks to the north… Well, I didn’t need a guide anymore. Should I- should I kill him? Scavengers weren’t even the target. These were just people trying to live their lives and caught in the crossfire. 

I stared at his fear filled face. I couldn’t help but see myself in him a few years back. Lost. Hurt. Desperately trying to find a way out. If it wasn’t for Cyra and the Stormfall Company…

Taking him in or with me was out of the question. Not when I didn’t even know the situation I myself was in, let alone the rest of the company. “Close your eyes and count to ten minutes. Don’t move until then.”

The kid desperately closed his eyes and started to mouth the passing seconds. I watched him for a few moments and backed away loudly. He just kept counting without any sign of a betrayal.

Just in case, I raised a hand and flicked off my light. The kid didn’t waste any time. As soon as I ‘turned away’, he snapped down to a hidden second pistol and pulled it free. His eyes widened when they met my visor-

Bang!

One single shot sent him careening to the floor. A heavy sigh left me. Not one of guilt, but sorrow. That was just the way things went sometimes. I shook my head to clear out the sudden melancholy and turned back to the building’s entrance and the rainy streets beyond.

I pushed open a cracked glass door. Five blocks to the north? He could’ve been lying, but it was as good of a place as any to start-

“Freeze!” Lights flashed across my body from several different directions. I couldn’t see past the blinding lights, but it looked like ten or so people. “Drop your weapon!”

“Shit.” I slowly unhooked my rifle and let it slip out of my hands. My arms raised in the universal sign of surrender.

— — —

AN: What do you think so far? Still kinda feeling this one out, but I’ve got the next ~160 chapters planned out if I decide to keep one going.