Chapter 5

The truck sped across the muddy beaten path full of tire tracks from other vehicles. Lukas stared at the bright sky. Even if it was morning, the fact that the things they fight in the shadows existed made the world a dark one that no sunrise could ever illuminate. Back when he was living in ignorance, everything was colorful but when he was pulled into a battlezone where incarnated nightmares are the belligerents, everything just becomes black and white.

And he thought that the Moro rebellion was dark enough. This conflict, simply known in the documents as the Shadow War, had made him see everything.

He looked back down on the ground and waited as the truck shuddered and ground to a halt. They disembarked in a disciplined manner, with the first ones securing the perimeter for the other half, who were in the process of unloading.

The truck then moved away to the designated extraction point so that it would not get caught in the crossfire in case the shooting starts, and possibly jeopardize their exit.

Lukas turned at the cardinal direction of the compound and began marching, his team formed up in two columns one led by Sergeant Alice Abantay, and him. The gap left by the dead soldier in the previous deployment was replaced by a green one, straight out of an operation against the communist rebels in Bicol. He looked fine, but Lukas thought that he was lacking confidence, something needed to ensure your survivability in this god forsaken unit.

They moved quietly beneath the canopy of trees. The noise beyond increased as they approached. Lukas realized that the compound was more of an encampment than residential. He remained vigilant as the first concrete house came to view.

He smelt cigarette nearby, and the other soldiers in the immediate vicinity could also smell it. Lukas held a fist upwards, his expression hidden behind his polarized visor. He drew out his knife and quietly approached the lip of the clearing that led to the compound. A man with a fatigue pants, dirty shirt and shemagh wrapped around his neck appeared into view.

Lukas clamped his gloved hand on the man's mouth and pulled him closer. He aimed the tip of his knife against the neck of his target and drilled it against his skin. The knife buried deep as the man struggled under Lukas' grip. He tightened his embrace as he pulled the knife out and, in another swift motion, thrust downwards. More blood sprayed out before the man's arms finally limped and froze.

He wiped his bloodied knife against the man's shirt. The newest soldier broke from line and dragged the corpse elsewhere while Lukas replaced the knife back to its holster. He gestured for Abantay to approach him.

With a gesture, he instructed them to move to the left while they will take the right. Abantay nodded as she moved back to her stack.

The green one finally returned and they put Lukas' plan into action. The two fireteams separated from the middle and moved vertically ahead. Each soldiers swept the alleys between the concrete houses. Every time they saw someone unsuspecting their presence, they immediately put down with gunfires from their suppressed blessed weapons. Lukas quietly moved across. Two men suddenly appeared at a corner ahead. He quickly placed a knee down and steadily fired with controlled bursts.

His targets immediately dropped, prompting them to move on. His fireteam reached the end of the compound, but the interior of the ten houses around them were probably occupied. He gestured at Abantay once more to perform breaching actions at the houses near them.

He prepared to breach the first one beside them. His team gathered around the house before he reached for the knob and opened it. In a fluid motion, they funneled through the door one by one. Lukas and another soldier moved westwards two feet apart, covering the direction ahead while another two moved northwards while aiming to the left wall. The rest were waiting outside.

They aimed at the occupants sleeping on the cot and fired without hesitation, murdering them in their sleep before they move out quietly.

They initiated four more breaching actions, their activity mirrored by the other group. Lukas prepared himself for another round of killing as he turned the knob open, and to his dismay, found it locked. He raised his foot and kicked it open; the door almost fell from its hinges. The adrenaline rush brought by combat gave his kick extra pressure. He walked inside with the second man following closely and are ready to fire when they noticed that the targets at the end of the firing sight were female minors bound and gagged.

He immediately lowered his weapon after assessing the room, sweat trickled across his cheek. He would have killed them if he was not disciplined enough.

He relaxed himself with a deep exhalation as he approached the nearest abductee and began cutting her lose. The other soldiers did the same, waking some of them in the process.

"They're coming back." One of them whispered weakly. "They are coming back."

"Who's coming back?" Lukas asked rather loudly.

"Them," she replied. "The bad men are coming back."

As if on cue, his radio crackled in activation.

"LT, we got a problem." Abantay's voice was shrouded in static. "There are three L-300 vans rolling down the road--wait they have stopped. I am seeing seven men each, all of them armed. Kalashnikovs and M-16s. I noticed something carved on their forehead."

"What was it?" Lukas asked, impatiently.

"Pentagrams," she replied. "They've got fucking pentagrams carved on their foreheads, Lukas! They're cultists!"

"Establish a firing line. We will defend this compound at all cost." He stood up and faced the new soldier behind him. "PFC Nagar, stay here."

"Yes, sir!" Nagar replied as he stepped closer to the weakened abductee and lifted the lip of his canteen to her mouth.

Lukas and the others quietly closed the door leading to the abductees. They hid in an alley behind the first house. Opposite them was Abantay's team. Beyond, behind an old shack, the armed cultists appeared. Lukas observed in horror that one of them, who was wearing a sleeveless vest and no undershirt, possessed a large mouth located on his chest down his abdomen. His eyes visibly possessed two pupils in each eyeballs.

He made a mental note to save this one for interrogation later.

The others had weird features. He would see a cultist with a very long forked tongue, the other had a tattoo over his bald head of satanic imageries, the other had an additional arm located on the back, while another one was literally an amalgamation of fauna and flesh because of the vines and leaves growing out of his face and hair respectively.

In short, they are a bunch of freaks. And those they have killed earlier were followers who hasn't "transfigured" yet.

These men had made pacts with the Devil at what cost? Stylized alterations of their God given appearances?

No, it must be power. It always have been power. To Lukas' eyes, they were the same as those corrupt bastards who employed private armed groups to act as their soldiers and honor guards in their little empires across the archipelago. Same scum, different gods. He will kill them all.

He raised his sidearm, a silenced M1911 Beretta and aimed at the one with an abdominal maw and fired at his groin thrice, instantly incapacitating him from joining the fray. His companions stopped to turn to him when the other soldiers fired from their cover at the distracted cultists.

Lukas holstered his weapon and noticed that the bastards had an abductee among their midsts. He raised his radio to warn everyone in his platoon.

"Be advised, they have a hostage with them." He said. For now, it was the closest term he could think of to describe the abductee. He raised his weapon and opened fire at the bald cultist, bursting his head apart like a watermelon. Another cultist returned fire at his location, forcing him to recoil back to safety.

The wall beside him was pulverized to dust. He lowered his stance and took peak once more. The foolish cultist tried to find him, but failed to realize that his target was just centimeters below. Lukas opened fire. Blood sprayed out of the space between the cultist's midnight black eyes. He fell to his knees and died.

Lukas took cover. He glanced to the right as an idea formed in his mind. He turned to the soldier beside him and instructed him.

"Keep their heads down, corporal!" He yelled.

"Sir, yes sir!" The soldier replied as Lukas moved past him until he was behind the last soldier in the stack.

He moved among the high stemmed plants, his stance lowered in a crouch but his movement was doubled with haste. The first house disappeared behind him and the plants transitioned into bushes. He used the height of the plants in his advantage to keep himself hidden. He moved around the compound and exited towards the back of the vans of the cultists, effectively flanking them.

He looked behind him and pretended to have soldiers under his command.

"Men, open fire and leave no one alive!" He yelled very loud to no one in particular, distracting the nearest cultists.

He fired at them quickly before taking cover. Lukas only noticed that one of them hit the ground. the confused and afraid cultists turned at his direction, making them vulnerable to those ahead.

But it kept them pinned in one location and all thoughts of escaping vanished from their minds.

He aimed underneath the cars and fired at the feet of the cultists with his handgun. He terminated those who still have will to fight back. He killed at least three when the firing eventually stopped.

The four remaining cultists surrendered with weapons thrown to the ground and the abductee released from their hands. Even if the bastards are evil to the bone, they are still under the Geneva Convention, to Lukas' dismay. He approached them from behind with his weapon raised while the rest of the unit appeared from their covers with weapons also trained at them.

"We surrender!" One of them yelled.

Lukas' expression was grim but a bloodthirsty grin formed. He looked at the abductee, who ran towards the soldiers. The trooper led her inside the house where PFC Nagar was. He lowered his rifle but he pulled his sidearm out. The problem with the Convention was that it does not officially recognize the existence of the paranormal combat units and therefore, was not included in its jurisdiction.

He aimed at the backs of the malformed mutants and began killing them.

"Put lead in them." He revealed a cylindrical detonator device from his vest. "We'll start expunging." He nodded at the Sergeant. "And detain our prisoner over there. We'll keep him for interrogation."

He walked a few steps away as the soldiers began firing at the bodies which were not shot by the chemicalized bullets from their primary weapons. When he was notified that it was done, he pressed the button on the detonator, remotely releasing the acidic toxins inside of each rounds. For a few seconds, the bodies of the dead began to liquify until they melted to the point of becoming transparent. Their bodies mixed with the soil, effectively redacting their existences from the world.

Lukas glanced at the afternoon sun above. The soldiers around him began to gather the abductees before they made their way back to the truck.