Title: Tyrants' Road: Death Becomes Us All
Featuring: Violence Jack
Date: 12/12/2010
Location: Various

Alcoholism saved my life.

Bet you never thought you'd hear that one, huh? Well you'd be the first to answer in the negative. I always have to go into detail on this one and I imagine it actually saves a lot in the long run later. This story will probably reveal more about me than any job interview would, any night of liquour-laced over-indulgence between best buds might, even any psychiatric couch session. So let's start at the beginning.

I called off work that day. Nursing a hangover that overshadowed even those in my most unbridled of college days, just the idea of peering into the sunlight making my head throb.

The phone rang. It was like thunder breaking, my head nearly exploded. I scrambled to tear the receiver off the rest, just to stop the noise and thus dull the pain. It was my brother, frantic and breathless, and his family crying in the background. They told me to turn on the TV.

The first image I saw was of a man leaping from a high window. My first reaction was a simple shudder, wondering if it someone I routinely saw on the elevator in the morning. That was just the prelude to me tossing up the remnants of my cocktail binge the night before, washing my sheets with a fresh coat of reeking vomit. Even now I don't know the exact cause; I was still in a hazy stupor and this sublime wake-up call didn't do much to sober me up. Perhaps it was the images of human bodies streaking toward the pavement thousands of feet below, choosing a messy suicide over perishing in a hellish inferno. Could be just that I knew I might have been among them if not for the ill-advised night out that I'd only come home from a few hours prior. Or maybe it was some brief moment of foreseeable destiny, knowing what I'd become in the aftermath and over those next several years, like a moment of dark clarity torn from the ebbs of future time.

Forgive me on that last bit. I guess I have an artist's streak in me, waxing poetic at inappropriate times. Fact is that I just don't know and it sometimes just bothers me. This was a turning point in my life that I just couldn't fully embrace or explain. I didn't make my decision right then and there or anything but I know the seeds were planted. Hell, the firm I worked for didn't have an office anymore; I had no job to return to now that several tons of jumbo jet and a few thousand gallons of fuel had reduced it to cinders.

They all had families. All of those people I worked with, most of the ones I watched dashing by every morning in the lobby. I was still a pretty naive kid now that I think about it. I remember joking with a couple guys regularly, people-watching just a few feet from the elevator, commenting on them and their time-is-money, business-engrossed lifestyles. But even then, as I watched them labor to just keep their coffee from spilling all over the floor, I always caught glances of wedding bands on their fingers. And it was shocking how often I managed to catch these well-dressed wolves of business casually chatting over their cellphones with their children as they got ready for school. For all of their flaws, these were good men and women with peaceful lives. They didn't want to cause anyone harm, not even business rivals. They just wanted to live, and provide for their loved ones.

That was all destroyed that morning. I sobered up by the flicker of the television in my apartment, glued to the scene as the building collapsed and thousands of lives were ruined. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters...they all perished. They didn't die for a righteous cause, they weren't sacrifices in order to refresh the tree of liberty with patriot or tyrant blood. They were murdered. It was genocide on the part of militant maniacs, monsters that adhered to a code of thinking with no place in this century.

Whatever, I'll spare you my rambling. But that's essentially how I felt then, and it's been amplified since then. I had no job and all of my colleagues were dead. I could have started anew, updated my resume and gone hunting for a new position. But I couldn't. Not after that brush with mortality, knowing I was nearly another statistic that day.

I needed to make a difference. I had to help stop this from happening again. So I did what I thought was best. Not just for my nation but for humanity.

I went down to the recruiter, and after a long discussion about my past and my education, went home and packed my bags. Not long afterward I found myself in Officer Training School.



* * *



Grange wasn't sure how he felt about it. Even watching the boy attack the obstacle course, preparing for the conflicts they'd been told loomed bright on the horizon ahead, he weighed the bittersweet consequences.

Webb's brush with death had changed him. Ethan Knight had looked him directly in the eye before burying a blade between his ribs, nearly ending his life amidst the chaos that came to be known as the Sterling Estate Incident; it was only Knight's careless haste to escape his own death that spared Landon Webb's, so it was assumed.

Landon had always had a fascination with shotguns, ever since annual hunting trips with his father as a boy. It rivaled Grange's own and both had commonly gone into the field armed with shotguns for close-combat. But from the day he'd emerged from the ICU, Webb's personal collection had grown exponentially. And ever since retaking the field, joining his unit in ending cult activities, he had displayed a morbid fascination with dealing death at close-range. He'd adamantly refused to carry a standard rifle or carbine since, coldly insisting that no man would fall by his hand without peering into his eyes first, feeling his fury searing at their soul. Just as Ethan Knight had his a year ago. Only then would he feel right as he blew them apart.

Marcus Stryker, were he alive today, would regret the transformation in the kid that had once been so uplifting to his squadmates, so sanguine in his outlooks. That wasn't lost on Grange after coming to know the major for so long. Knocking at death's door had that effect on most, changing them forever. On some, its impact was all the more resounding. All the more destructive.

He watched the kid push through the obstacle course, a man driven by rage. Somehow his near-death experience had made him better, more determined and focused. Every blast from that shotgun was surgical, shredding the targets, each one a killshot had they been human adversaries. But he'd seen him in battle since and been forced to reproach him for recklessness.

"If I'd been alive that day, been there when that animal Luther killed the major, perhaps he'd still be alive. I can't restrain it, Simon. When we get in there, and I hear those crazy motherfuckers start to speak and attack us, something happens. Vengeance, hate, something, whatever it is takes over. They called Knight the Angel of Death. Maybe I'm an angel of revenge. I fear for them, Simon, I actually fear for those maniacs having to face whatever is inside of me."

He hadn't forgotten that conversation. Likely never would. Especially not given the absence behind Landon's eyes. There wasn't the spark that used to be there. Perhaps they should be afraid.

Perhaps everyone should be afraid of the kid.


* * *



I've been told that maybe it a part of God's design that I was saved that day, to be a soldier on his part. But after watching all of that shit unfold I don't mind admitting that I don't believe in God. Not the loving daddy figure that preachers speak reverently about in all of his benevolence and devotion. Fuck that. I may fight with a crusader's zeal but I do it for the kingdom of Earth, not Heaven. God has to do better than spare me while killing most of the people I know in one cataclysmic massacre to count me as his warrior.

So I did. I requested field assignments in every far-flung hotspot in the world where warped dogma threatened to usurp sanity. And when requesting didn't work, I demanded it. Usually that wouldn't work all that well with superior brass, but it hadn't taken long to discover I had a knack for a few things, and those things made sniffing out and neutralizing the enemy easier. Specifically finding them and killing them with an ease that, I'm told, nearly defied explanation. Any unit I was attached to could systematically make estimated mission completion times look like drawn-out campaigns. It was just a talent I suppose; I could find and track down the enemy like a dog. Like a bloodhound. Evewn managed to work up a little bit of a reputation in the special operation and intelligence communities. Soon it became rare for me to even have to make demands on where I'd be sent. The decisions were made at HQ.

"We need the best. Ask for the War-Hound."

I love what I do.



* * *



Russell Slade slammed his rifle down on the desk. It shook as papers scattered and floated to the ground, threatening to buckle under the weight of the massive custom-constructed firearm and its camouflaged hopper. Dylan Connors barely moved for a long moment, mumbling aomething to himself as he finished up the paperwork that had been ruining his entire day. But he realized things were about to get worse as he inclined his head, looking straight into the rough face of the massive Blackhelm soldier.

"I want an upgrade."

"And a good day to you too, Russ."

On the hopper were a series of scratched-out slashes. Each counted as a kill that the hulking sergeant had made with this weapon, the heavy gun that had taken on the name Thunder Reign.

"It doesn't kill enough for you as is?" the armorer said, deadpan in tone as he stoically admired the markings.

"Shanahan is back. And the Seraph are with him."

"I'm aware of that. Yet another upgrade to the mechanism then. So...what's the issue? Do they have adamantium plate armor now? Are they flying astride dragons, setting the countryside ablaze?"

"Firing rate. Increase it."

Connors just stared the big man. His face was completely devoid of humor, a terrifying prospect given what he was asking. "You're serious? Jesus, sergeant, you plan on facing down half of North Korea with this thing?"

"I want to send every one of them to Hell that I can. You read the reports, you know how they come in numbers at the major sites. It unsettles me when any escape."

A grumble and a shake of the head from the armorer. "I'm shocked you don't want us to retrofit this monstrosity with a fucking rocket launcher while we're at it. Some heat-seekers, maybe a bunker-buster..."

"Can you do that?"

Connors grunted in response. "Funny. We'll have to overhaul the recoil system for this. The fuckin' thing is pushing it as it is the way you run through ammunition. The forms I have to routinely handle just to account for you alone, let alone your entire unit..."

"What are you implying, Dylan?"

A sigh. "I'm saying you're reckless. Learn to aim, you bastard."

"You're just getting pissy because I make you fill out paperwork." There was a sign of a smile appearing on the giant's lips. In truth, he realized that between all of the paperwork and bureaucracy, Dylan and his guys liked a challenge. The elite arm of Blackhelm regularly offered that in spades. Even if he appeared outwardly ornery about it. It was just a part of the armorer's charm.

"We'll get on it. But kindly get that thing off of my desk, I have work to do. And I don't want to go hop on a forklift to move it."



* * *



Not long ago, Bruce Shanahan led a crusade to shatter the world of man. Once again I had to sit idly by as a campaign of twisted faith led to death, destruction and untold affliction. Some claim demons even roamed the Earth for a short time before his monstrous cause was stopped. I didn't see them, but the stories are widespread enough not to be ignored. Besides, I saw the craziness that went with it. I was on the front lines against crazed cultists that thought even Shanahan was too extreme. Some weird shit happened all across the world, between the weather anomalies and the mass hysteria. That can't be denied.

I requested this assignment. I was contacted personally by top officers of the Black Coalition's military arm. It's outside DoD jurisdiction and they admitted to me in briefing that they didn't like losing one of their best to an organization whose designation borders on a private contractor. But it was undeniable that I was hunting a man that made my previous targets look minor by comparison. This one had nearly broken the world as we know it. His power was immense, his accomplishments previously unthinkable. I spoke to chaplains who claimed he was the anti-Christ or perhaps more, even someone with the ability to slay God himself were he to succeed.



* * *



The village was a slaughter. He hadn't had all of them killed; surprisingly for him, the women and children had been spared. But the men, militants especially, had been butchered. Most gruesomely, the entire radical contingent had been doused in the gore of slaughtered pigs.

"What the hell?" It was about Wade Deacon could think of to say at the sight. He admitted to never being the wittiest of guys in the face of stomach-churning murder scenes.

Bishop jotted down notes. "Have you ever heard that urban legend concerning General J.J Pershing?"

His partner shook his head, prodding one of the bullet-riddled, gore-slicked corpses with the butt of his rifle.

"It says that he had a number of Muslim terrorists captured. He had them chained, and as they watched, brought in hogs and had them slaughtered in front of the terrorists. Fundamentalists loathe pigs. There was even a thought that to touch pork was to be corrupted to the soul, and would mean being barred from paradise forever. Even martyrdom by the radicals couldn't free them from that fate. This alone horrified them."

Deacon didn't care for pigs himself. Never mind that he was vegetarian for different reasons; the man simply didn't care, no how much it was sanitized, to eat the meat of an animal that commonly wallowed in its own excrement.

"Pershing then had his men dip their bullets into the blood of the pigs. And summarily executed each terrorist, shooting them dead with the defiled bullets before burying them and covering their remains with the entrails of the pigs. One man was released, to tlel his friends about what Black Jack Pershing had in mind for any terrorists he found."

"Seems sound strategy."

"Either way, it's complete bullshit. But it became an accepted story for a while after 9/11. I'm sure he knew it wasn't true, but..."

Deacon stared at the symbols painted on the buildings around the mass grave. Painted with the blood of the dead, the icons were occult, resonating with evil. "Psychological warfare just the same? Maybe a statement?"

"Perhaps just an insult. Showing a little contempt for the more primitive of Islamic convention and thought."

"Calling card?"

"Same one. It's him. Besides..." He paused, gesturing to a ridge overlooking the village and the valley. Even from that distance there was obvious activity. "...we're searching the cave. These people were protecting something. Lost scrolls that even the local imam feared speaking about."

Bishop looked confused. Deacon hadn't expected that from a man of superior rank, even given the flurry of changes in the organization as of late. Why he hadn't been briefed on the situation eluded him. But then, there were so many specialties within the organization.

"He's been collecting writings from across the world. Ancient writings and insights whenever he can locate them. He's putting together an occult grimoire that will make the Necronomicon look like Demonic Rituals For Dummies."

"Do they know?"

It was Deacon's turn to look puzzled. "Who? There's a lot of 'theys' at play here."

"Exactly my point," Bishop pointed out with a smile. "It's been quiet. I doubt that's going to remain much longer.

Wade Deacon shuddered, and it had nothing to do with the chill enveloping the air as the night embraced the desert. It didn't incredibly insight to figure out that his days were about to get a lot longer.



* * *



They call me the War Hound. I'm told I have big shoes to fill. I'm not concerned with replacing a great man or building any sort of epic legacy. I'm here to break the tides of evil however I can, whatever the cost to my body and soul. Whatever will make them fear my name, and shiver when they hear the bark of a dog or howl of a wolf.

I'm Ramsay Bennett. And my guns will forever be the end of you, Shanahan. You and everything that you've spawned.
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