Geneticide: The Dreamers Reckoning
The Armageddon Saga: Part 1
By: W.O.L.F 0013

"What defines humanity?
There is mortality, ignorance, faith, desire, anger, fear and dreams... odd how all of these things are among the most destructive in the world."
-- DOOMSDAYMACHINE

The vision in my mind was clearer than ever before, and even more disturbing. What I saw every time I closed my eyes was a massive dragon enveloping the skies over a sea of blood. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't turn away from this image. I could only witness it and hope that this was the last time.

Thousands of smaller dragons came spitting fire on the flying behemoth but their bombardment of flames bounced off it like pebbles against a concrete wall. The dragon let forth a deafening roar and a beam of light pierced the skies incinerating the flying serpents that opposed it. The titanic lizard seemed to do nothing for a moment. Then, a blinding flash emanated from the eyes of the immense serpent, and before my eye's a sphere of black light swallowed up the part of the sky in which the dragon had previously occupied. Black flames began to emerge from the sphere of black light in the sky, hundreds, thousands, millions, and then billions of these flames covered the sky so quickly that the usual kind blue, innocent sky turned into a hungry and evil, living darkness.

The living flames of darkness spread through out the world as the scene before me changed into that of a city being burned by the living darkness. The flames weren't selective, buildings, human's animals and plants alike were all burned. Everything that was capable of screaming, wailed as their skin, feathers, or scales began to grow black and curl. Even after their screams had ceased and their skin had been turned into dust, their bodies continued to burn until not even dust remained

I wanted to punish someone. I needed to punish someone and a long oriental blade appeared in my hands as a tool of punishment. But as like before, I was paralyzed and forced to watch this vision. Despite all the effort I put in to change this, my status remained the same.

The scene changed once again. This time I was in a sea of darkness with no features whatsoever. Then out of the darkness his face appeared in front of my eyes. Despite the fact that his long hair was as black as the sea of darkness around us I could see his hair clearly. The only feature on his face that hadn't become seemingly symbolic of evil since I had first met him was his blue "C" tattoo around his left eye, the same tattoo that I have marked on my face.

The hatred I felt for this person filled me with a rage powerful enough to break me out of the paralyzed state I had been in until that moment. I found myself lunging forth at the vision with my sword in hand, only to pass through him as if he were a cloud.

"Temper, temper Wolf, how do you ever expect to win if you can't even control your self?" said the vision mockingly

Once again, I dove at the vision of Caligo with my blade, only to once again pass through it.

"Still thinking like a human, that's what makes you such a weakling."

Inhuman screams started to fill my mind, consuming every aspect of my soul, existence itself became the screams of anguish. Then, as if by magic, the sounds of the souls began to slowly fade, and it was once again possible for the mirror image of Caligo to touch my soul with poisoned speech.

"You hear them too, don't you?" He asked in a calm voice. "The death, the utter torment desperation," he seemed to be mesmerized by the screams of anguish still around us. "It's sickening, but at the same time, it's a beautiful rebirth." He paused and looked straight at me while he pointed at me with his hand.

The anguishing screams once again began to fill my soul as the sea of darkness started dissolving around me, slowly being replaced by relatively pleasant, and quite, reality of the homeless shelter that has become my home. Fearing that I was still having a vision I breathed hard for a few moments before I decided that this was indeed real. I began to lay back down when something poked into my hip, I reached down to find the cause and my hand grasped what felt like leather covered handle. When I brought the object into view my eyes went wide with shock. In my hand was the same sword I wielded in my vision.

******************

A scene of utter chaos was taking place on the streets below us. And we, the soldiers of the Special Urban Assault Squad, Team Omega, were the ones called forth to put an end to it.

Ever since the Geneticide plague began, six months ago, hate crimes sprang through the roof. The only real problem I had against that was that those freaks had the right to defend themselves under law.

Fortunately, we weren't called in to stop a simple hate crime.

Roughly three weeks ago, the governor of California came down with the Geneticide plague and turned into a centaur. He managed to keep the press from finding out about it, and started to pull a few strings in the state government. Then, four days ago, the governor came forward and revealed to the populace what had happened to him. On the same day, he announced that with the help of his political allies, he passed a bill that would sink a large amount of tax money into establishing and maintaining a special University for people who were transformed, much like El Trenton in Utah.

The citizens of California were outraged. In less than twenty-four hours after the governor made his announcement, the biggest riot in Los Angeles history broke out. As I looked down at the streets below me, they more resembled the streets of London during the Omni-war than LA.

It was for those reasons that we were called in. As Maxim, Tom, Ajax and Angela, were loading their Charges into the Sonic blasters, I looked down on the streets below and witnessed a nearly uncountable number of ordinary humans attacking a much smaller number of Transformed freaks. The former humans that society now named Morphs and Myths were nevertheless putting up an exceedingly good fight, despite the overwhelming numbers.

Finally, we were ready to end the pointless struggle on the streets below. I grabbed a Sonic Blaster from Angela, cocked the weapon and aimed it towards the crowds below. Once I pulled the trigger a high pitched shriek tore through the air for less than a millo-second followed by a painful, nearly indescribable, echo.

We were protected by special headphones, but that was of little matter to the people below as the rest of the team began rapidly firing off shots, each knocking out roughly twenty to thirty people. As I fired of the charges in my Sonic Blaster, I saw humans, myths and morphs grabbing their ears before dropping to the ground. I felt particularly guilty about what I was doing to the poor people of this city, after all, most of these people were god faring people. But, as I heard those in-human screams of the freaks amongst the crowd, I felt my heart soar.

The pleasure ended all too soon. After firing off a mere thirty-four charges, most people on the streets below were either out like a light or fleeing to the relative safety of their homes. Of course, there were many other areas of LA that were having riots as well, but between the national guard and the other SUAS teams, we would be lucky if we got four more hits.

But as we picked up our equipment and boarded our chopper all I could think about is our next hit and the screams that would accompany it. It was the combination of watching the deserted streets below me and daydreaming about the pain that I'd inflict which distracted me from my beeping Telecom.

After I hesitated for a few moments, I grabbed the Telecom, pushed the receive button, and was greeted by the vision of the High General, Caligo Atrox.

"Greetings, Dominic" said the recording of Caligo in a serious tone. "Your team has been re-assigned to a bounty hunting mission in New Enoch, Utah. The information you'll need to know about your target has been attached to this message. A military plane is awaiting you at LA international airport." At that the recording of High General Caligo ended.

"Is it something important?" asked the pilot in a detached manner.

"Seems like it," I said quickly. "Get us to the airport, pronto."

"General Caligo" I said rather meekly. "Are you sure that you should be re-assigning the top SUAS team?"

At that Caligo turned away from his computer screen, and gave me a mischievous and hate filled grin. "Oh ye of little brains," said Caligo while maintaining his grin. "Your just gonna have to trust me on this on Mr. Giles. After all, they didn't appoint me to High General because I'm stupid."

Having listened to similar speeches many times, I only offered a small apology before quickly fleeing from the dark confines of the domain of Caligo. If it were anyone else I wouldn't be nearly so cowardly. But, the rumors I've heard about Caligo make him out as the devil himself. And from what I've seen of him, those rumors could very well be true.

******************

They came out of no where, one moment I was playing the part of pedestrian, and the next moment, I was unsteadily fleeing into the back street's while the world dizzyingly began to spin around me. I couldn't help but be impressed by the elaborate nature of my pursuers, but as with all humans, my number one priority was self-preservation. As I continued my trek into the labyrinth of the New Enoch back streets, I could clearly hear my pursuers descending from their roof top perch. A chase was afoot.

I managed to stay two steps ahead of the game, but every time my stamina wavered, they were there, sticking to me like a shadow that I didn't want. I pushed my body to move faster and painfully it did so, but I couldn't ignore the burning in my muscles forever.

Desperate and searching for a way out of this predicament, I made the mistake of choosing a dead end street as my next route of escape. It took me a couple of moments to realize what I had done, and by then it was too late, as I turned around, I felt a hot numbness pass through my gut. As I fell against a large pile of trash, I brought my hands to my stomach and felt my warm blood pass through my fingers. Then I brought up my eyes to see who had done this to me; the vision of a red haired blue eyed beauty filled my eyes. Everything but the echoing of my blood dripping onto the floor seemed to freeze in my mind. There wasn't any pain, just a flash of light, and the dripping of blood, and then there was nothing, but a cold unending darkness.

As I stood up amidst the darkness, I could still feel my blood seep from my body, but the pain was reduced to a fraction of what it was before.

Thoughts of death and eternity filled my mind, if this was what I thought it was, then there would be no escape, or a struggle, just an endless eternity of darkness. These thoughts frightened me to such an extent that I simply couldn't remain still, so I found myself running, running from whatever demons or horrors that might plague me, running vainly.

Time became non-existent to me, thus, there was no way to tell how long I had been running when I saw the beacon off in the distance, glowing like a green star amongst the darkness.

I ran towards that beacon, I ran simply for the sake of escaping the darkness. Gradually the beacon of green light grew larger, enveloping the darkness and blinding my vision. Finally the green light was everywhere, and seemed to grow brighter, and brighter still, until my eye lids clamped down on my eyes on their own accord.

I opened my eye's not to a world of darkness, nor to a world of bright flashing light, but to a scientific laboratory filled with amazingly impressive equipment, and surrounded by the sea of darkness. It was a lot like a platform in the midst of some great void, and in the middle of the platform stood an immense giant tube built right into the floor. Within this tube I could make out a small inhuman form in glowing green liquid. As I looked upon the vague form, I felt a need to flee, and a fear of something hidden, but as I stood there the faint sound of a heart beating reached into my mind, beckoning for me to come forward.

With every step forward, the rhythm of the heartbeat grew louder, filling my soul with fear and the need to flee, but as much as I wanted to turn and flee, I was unable to do so.

Finally I was less than an inch away from the glass incasing that held the creature within its confines. The creature was an unborn monster. Bald infantile wings protruded from its back and hung weakly on it's shoulders while the creature curled up hugging itself with four undeveloped arms. The infant, while mostly canine in appearance, sported four pointy nubs on the back of its skull, and its tail resembled the shape of a lizard's tail.

Frightened, and somewhat awe inspired, I reached out my hand to touch the glass incasing, but as I reached out, I was supremely shocked to see the unborn body copying my movements. Never the less my hand continued moving forward, touching the glass incasing, leaving blood smeared upon the glass, probably from my wound.

The heartbeat became erratic at that precise moment, it echoed in my mind like some immense drum beating a dozen times every second. The beat began to grow louder and louder, shaking reality in an unforgiving cycle.

As the beating continued, reality began to fade around me, slowly being replaced by a totally unfamiliar environment. As this happened, the pain in my stomach slowly began to increase to an extremely high level.

The creature seemed to be in pain as well. Seeing it writhe in pure agony was almost too much for me to bear, but as the dream faded, this was the last image I would see, and then there was nothing but the sight of a wooden ceiling before my eyes.

"It's about time you woke up," said an odd sounding voice from the other end of the room. I lifted up my head and searched the room for the source of the voice and was rewarded by the sight of a badly scarred humanoid kangaroo with a cybernetic arm, and a camera eye.

"First off boy," said the kangaroo man in a snapping tone, "The name's Scotch, now why don't you tell me exactly what you were doing on my property.

******************

Working for Caligo, was dangerous in and of itself, throw in the fact that I had been sent to spy on Caligo, and I'm practically a dead man.

Dozens of people that have worked around Caligo have either disappeared or killed themselves for it to simply be a coincidence. These thoughts were the ones that bothered me the most as I waited in my car for Caligo to leave through those doors that stormy evening. Secondary thoughts, such as why the NSA had to choose me for this job, constantly racked my brain as I viewed the building from the safe refuge of my car.

It seemed like the hours had passed before I saw Caligo leave the confines of the building, with a suitcase in hand.

With no-one else there, the hallways of the building, felt like a long tunnel, or a mouth ready to swallow me up, the imaginary screams I heard off in the distance did little to ease these feelings of unease.

Never the less I slowly ascended up through the building, and eventually entered the lions den, more commonly known as the High Generals office. Upon the desk of Caligo, there were many files, most of them were labeled as "Recycling project" and "The Ultimate, Rebirth", but when I looked inside of these files I found them to be extremely cryptic and impossible to understand. Swearing silently under my breath, I closed the files and made my way to Caligo's computer.

It was still running which was a good thing, but oddly the computer was running a program that was requesting a password to continue further. The High Generals interest in security, or rather lack of interest, struck me as bizarre, however I cast this feeling aside and entered the word "Rebirth" as the password.

Suddenly the computer went dead, leaving me with a blank screen. I tried desperately for a few moments to restart the computer, when an agonizing pain over-took my body forcing me to my hands and knees.

"Did you really think it would be that easy," said the voice of Caligo from the door.

"Sir," I said rather pleadingly "I forgot some paper work and I…"

"Oh spare me the theatrics Giles," said Caligo as the pain in my body seemed to grow. "I know all about you and the NSA, and I don't plan on letting you get by without punishment."

As Caligo said these things my body began to feel too large for my clothing. "What are you doing to me?" I asked in a quickly deepening voice.

Caligo smiled, "I always knew you were a spineless mutt, I'm just helping you look the part.

At that exact moment my hands and knees fell out from underneath me, causing my jaw to painfully hit the floor. As darkness began to become my reality, all I could feel was the unfathomable pain in my body and a foreign presence in my mind. And then, there was nothing.

******************

As reality returned to me, the first thing I noticed was the scent of food. I opened my eyes to a darkly colored room with sunlight shining through the window onto master. I worked my way back onto four feet, whining as I did so. Master apparently heard me because at that he looked down at me and made that chattering sound that I've 'ever been able to understand.

I had the strangest feeling that something was wrong, but I quickly forgot that matter and turned my attention to a more important matter, food. Master walked over to the counter, making more chattering sounds as he did so, and reached out his arm out of my view, when I saw his hand again their was a large bowl in it.

I jumped up to my master, wagging my tail furiously as he brought the bowl and its contents down to the floor. As soon as it hit the floor I dug my muzzle into the sweet juicy treasure in the bowl. I don't know why, but at that moment master made a noise that sounded like a long whooping series of barks.

It scared me for a few seconds, but I almost instantly turned my attention back to my food. Devouring the treasure in the bowl was my sole purpose for living, my other purpose was to serve the master, and those two things were all I knew.

The End

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