"Patch them through."
The moment Colonel Hark heard there were survivors from the search team, he demanded the connection.
The communications officer worked quickly across the keyboard before nodding.
"Signal transferred, sir. You can speak directly."
Hark immediately leaned toward the microphone.
"Report your current situation, Sergeant."
On the other end of the radio, Captain Kobe let out a long breath of relief.
Just hearing a friendly voice lifted a weight from his shoulders.
"Staff Sergeant Kobe reporting, sir."
"We came under attack."
"As far as we know, my squad is all that’s left of Third Search Team."
He paused before adding quietly,
"Five survivors."
Hark frowned.
"Only your squad?"
The search teams he’d deployed weren’t ordinary patrols. Every one of them consisted of experienced special operations soldiers equipped with first-rate weapons and vehicles.
Twenty elite troops...
Reduced to five.
His expression darkened.
"How many enemy combatants?"
"Five, sir."
"...Five?"
Hark thought he’d misheard.
"Was it an ambush?"
That was the only explanation he could think of.
Anti-tank mines.
RPGs fired from concealed positions.
A carefully prepared kill zone.
Kobe immediately denied it.
"No, sir."
"We spotted them first."
"They attacked us head-on."
"What?"
Hark’s voice exploded through the speakers.
"What were you doing? Suffering food poisoning? Couldn’t figure out how to open your ammunition crates?"
They had detected the enemy first.
They outnumbered them four to one.
And still...
They had been nearly annihilated.
The result was unacceptable.
Kobe’s voice rose as well.
"They weren’t human, sir."
"They were monsters."
"Monsters?"
Hark scoffed.
"What, did you run into Terminators?"
"Or giant lizards that shoot laser beams?"
"I don’t want excuses, Sergeant."
"If you’re lying to cover up this disaster, I’ll personally see you court-martialed."
Before Kobe could answer, another calm voice entered the conversation.
"This is Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D."
"I’d like you to describe these... monsters in as much detail as possible."
Unlike Hark, Coulson wasn’t dismissing the report.
If anything...
He suspected something even stranger.
Mutates.
Enhanced humans.
The world had become increasingly familiar with impossible things.
Kobe swallowed.
"Listen, Agent..."
"I’ve never seen anything like them."
"They walked upright..."
"But they weren’t human."
"Tell me exactly how they attacked."
"They weren’t carrying weapons."
"They weren’t wearing armor."
"They were practically naked."
"But our assault rifles..."
"Our machine guns..."
"Our grenades..."
"They barely slowed them down."
"They just walked through everything we threw at them."
Coulson mentally filed away the information.
Exceptional durability.
"What else?"
"They were unbelievably strong."
"They tore people apart with their bare hands."
His voice faltered.
"Mercy..."
"They ripped him in half."
"They tore the mounted machine gun off a Humvee with one hand..."
"...then shoved the barrel straight through the gunner’s mouth."
"They punched straight through another soldier’s torso."
Extreme physical strength.
Coulson continued building the profile in his head.
Purely physical enhancement?
Or something else entirely?
"How did you escape?"
"A dying soldier detonated a block of C-4."
"It killed one of them."
"The blast set off one of the Humvees."
"We escaped during the confusion."
His voice grew quiet.
None of them had really escaped.
They’d simply survived longer than everyone else.
Coulson nodded.
If conventional explosives could kill one...
That was encouraging.
At least these creatures weren’t on the Hulk’s level.
Rocket launchers weren’t bouncing harmlessly off them.
Just before ending the conversation, another question occurred to him.
"Were all five identical?"
Kobe hesitated.
"...Identical?"
"The creatures."
"Did they all possess the same abilities?"
"Yes, Agent."
"As far as we could tell."
"They even looked almost exactly alike."
Strictly speaking, that wasn’t entirely true.
Each fel-corrupted warrior still retained subtle differences in facial features.
But under life-or-death circumstances, nobody spent time studying a monster’s face.
Besides...
Distinguishing individuals after they’d transformed into hulking demonic creatures was hardly easy.
Ask someone to tell two nearly identical huskies apart during a firefight and see how well that goes.
"I understand."
"Remain where you are."
"We’re coming to retrieve you."
Coulson leaned back, already deep in thought.
Five identical enhanced beings.
Identical powers.
Identical appearance.
The odds of five naturally occurring mutants with matching abilities finding each other by coincidence...
Were effectively zero.
Someone had made them.
Before Hark could ask another question, chaos erupted over the radio.
The thunderous roar of an M2 heavy machine gun shattered the conversation.
A frantic shout followed.
"Captain!"
"They found us!"
Kobe spun toward the sound.
"Hold them off!"
Then he grabbed the radio again.
"They’re here!"
"We need support!"
"Now!"
Hark reacted instantly.
"Launch the Predator."
A technician answered immediately.
"Predator drone will arrive on station in one minute."
The Predator was one of the U.S. military’s newest reconnaissance drones.
It could also carry Hellfire missiles.
Unfortunately...
This particular aircraft had launched in a surveillance configuration.
No missiles.
Just cameras.
Even so, it reached the village almost exactly one minute later.
The live video streamed directly into the command center.
One look at the footage...
And every person in the room slowly rose to their feet.
No one said a word.
...
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