In my years of service in the British Special Forces, not once had I encountered a situation where I was completely dumbfounded at the enemy, until now at least. We were escorted inside the settlement and were forced to go in what I thought was the house of the bearded man. The house was in the middle of the settlement, had a spacious lobby and three other floors. It was mostly wooden with some stone foundations here and there. The topmost floor, I assumed overlooked the body of water to the south of the settlement.

We were seated on some uncomfortable couches made of wood in the lobby around a fireplace. Could I even call these couches? They looked more like wooden benches. Yeti and Snake were both seated on the smaller benches that were placed on each side of the fireplace while I was seated on the bench facing it. Diplomat was taken upstairs by the bearded man accompanied by three young ladies wearing maid uniforms which was odd.

Eight armed men in blue tunics and chain mail stood at the corners of the room and looked at us with suspicion. They were different from the spearmen who greeted us, they wore a pointed helmet, had better-looking armor, and had swords instead of spears which were placed inside scabbards on their waist.

“We can talk right? It’s not as if they understand us,” Snake said. She leaned against the backrest and crossed her legs. I then noticed the guards looking at each other in astonishment and disgust.

“Did they just understand me?” Snake asked.

“Probably not, I think they were disturbed with your behavior, or should I say, your mannerism,” Yeti explained. In a feudal world, women were treated poorly, subservient only to men. Snake, being the beauty she is, acting out of place must have been a shock for them.

“Tsk, I could care less about what these maggots think of me. Acting all tough because they outnumber us and have long swords, I doubt the swords are even that sharp,” Snake said.

“Oh come on now, you can’t compare our level of smithing to theirs, that’s like comparing a nuke with a rifle,” Yeti said.

I listened to their conversation for an hour or so, the conversation they were having seemed to be working in boring our guards. One by one, they slowly fell asleep, falling to the ground and knocking themselves out.

“It worked like a charm,” Snake said. It was a technique we discovered during a mission way back when the wars had peaked. We infiltrated a terrorist hideout under the guise of being the government agents supplying them. They led us to a room where we were told to stay while two young men guarded us. Snake initiated a conversation about pies, why? Because she was bored. She was then backed by Diplomat and Yeti who argued about which flavor of pie was best.

Before long, the two guards fell asleep on the floor. It made our lives easier.

All eight guards were now asleep, Snake stood and pulled a needle that was packed to the brim with green liquid.

“What the hell is that?” Yeti asked as Snake approached guards sleeping to her left.

“I’m going to use to induce place these boys into a coma,” Snake explained.

“I didn’t know you can do that?” Yeti said.

“Neither did I, I just discovered it a few minutes ago,” Snake explained further, “I think this is my upgrade? I have a meter that says how much liquids I have and yes, I have more than one liquid that I can inject into someone,”

This was a surprise. We were never informed about our upgrades, nor were we informed our suits were made of nanites. In actuality, during our collective briefing with the Director, he mentioned we’ll be getting state-of-the-art suits with capabilities that far outweigh the standard suit. He never told us our suits were This unique.

Before our deployment, we already noticed something suspicious about the Director. Well, it was already too late to think about it. We would probably get an explanation once we re-establish contact.

Diplomat knew what he needed to do. Learn their language, charm the leader, and get him or her to do our bidding. We needed a map of the region and he was to procure it.

“I doubt we can fancy our way into controlling this village or port or whatever the fuck this place is. Even if Diplomat manages to learn their language,” Snake said as she finished injecting the last guard.

“I’ll go check on Diplomat,” Yeti said as he pulled us his rifle and made his way upstairs, albeit slowly. Our suits were soundproof, the nanites would somehow negate any sound or just tuned it down just enough so it couldn’t be really heard by anyone, not even us.

[Can you hear me?] Yeti used the communicator.

[We here your ugly voice, loud and clear] Snake replied.

[You bitch. The second floor is a corridor of rooms, nobody is in them] Yeti said.

[Check the third, I bet that’s where the bearded bastard took Diplomat] Snake said.

[Roger]

Yeti took his time surveying the second floor, it took him three minutes before reestablishing contact.

[Oh, hey, what the hell are you doing?] Yeti was talking to someone.

[Turn on your communicator so that the others could hear you] Yeti said.

[Oh, didn’t notice it wasn’t on. Their language is very flexible and I think I grasped half of it already] Diplomat said.

[Okay, that’s good and all. But that does not explain why the bearded man and several others lay unconscious around your feet] Yeti said.

[Ah this? Long story short, they tried to force me to drink a purple juice. You know how much I hate purple-looking liquids. So I went and knocked them all unconscious, making sure I don’t kill them] Diplomat explained.

[Snake, get up here and inject these people with your green liquid] Yeti said.

[That sounded weird] Snake replied.

The more time we spent stuck in the settlement, the weirder the people got. Diplomat and Yeti came down and Diplomat proceeded to explain what the hell happened up there while Snake went up and injected the maids and the man with the green liquid.

He explained that the man and the maids took up to the third floor and was led to a balcony. From there, the man explained what the settlement was, how the people were, and how much he had longed to finally meet, him, Diplomat.

Diplomat by then had somewhat pieced together the grammar of their language and tried to construct a sentence but it seemed like it was misunderstood. The maids tried to subdue him while the man tried to force him to drink the purple liquid he was referring to.

He then proceeded to knock the man and the maids unconscious by controlled-punches.

“Why didn’t we hear anything? A scuffle that big would have caused a ruckus” Snake asked.

“I don’t know either, when they fell on the floor, they did not make any sound so maybe the room was already tampered with so that anything that happened there won’t be heard?” Diplomat said.

“That may be true, something involving magic maybe? I saw nothing on the floor that could act as a sort of sound barrier. Our main culprit would be, I refused to acknowledge it until now but, magic,” Yeti said.

Magic was still unknown to us, we needed someone who knew about it to explain to us the basics of which. From what we know, almost everyone can use magic and because everyone can use magic, technology has failed to make any significant progress.

“What do we do now? The people in this settlement are wack,” Snake asked.

“This place is called Port Azure,” Diplomat said. He then pulled out a piece of medieval paper.

“That’s a map!” Yeti said in excitement.

“Indeed, my friend. Okay, so let me explain what I have thus far understood. This place is called Port Azure of the Empire Of Hilrida, governed by Count Druk. The large body of water is actually a strait called the Gherfun Strait across which we will stumble upon the rest of the Empire. This port is actually the only settled area in this continent, well, from what these people know, at least…

…The Hilridan Empire wants to expand north, which is why they established this port. That’s as far as I can understand. The other texts, I could not really decipher but I am certain most of it involves exploration of the Northern taigas,” Diplomat explained.

“Does that mean that the caravan we tailed was actually an exploration team?” Snake asked.

“I believe so, also. I think we have been mistaken as the “explorers” or so they called them, that were sent here a few years on an expedition,” Diplomat continued.

“Dumbasses” Snake said.

“Interesting, a medieval society engaging in colonial ventures. How the hell does that work, unless, you know, magic,” Yeti said.

We needed to decide what our next course of action was to be. The settlement was hostile, after what had happened, we had no chance of charming ourselves into the populace. So, after much deliberation, we decided the do the one thing we all did best when it came to hopeless situations.

“Burn everything down, leave no survivors. Start with a clean slate,”

We had our suits return to our normal form and pulled our machine guns.

“We are sorry,”

“If only you could see,”

“The light of a new age,”

“That we will bring,”

“Upon your land,”

We bombed the house from the lobby and it all came crashing down. The rest of the port was alerted but it was already too late for them. As the house collapsed behind us, we walked out into the streets and fired indiscriminately at everyone. Men, women, and children. The spearmen tried to lunge at us but none of them even had the time to react against volley after volley of gunfire. The archers over the walls were quickly shot dead and the rest of the town’s defenders began retreating to the port.

Snake went house and house, slaughtering the people hiding in them with no remorse. Yeti pulled out his signature flamethrower and began burning the wooden buildings down while Diplomat continued gunning down the people running to the port.

Our faces were blank as we committed this atrocity. We knew we were taking innocent lives but this was for the advancement of our world. Not theirs, the traumas we had experienced back then still lingered in our mind and to see it come back because of this world was something we could not accept. Their destruction would be our salvation.

They are too few for their needs and rights to be honored, the many are to be prioritized.

[Missiles Ready]

I had my own personal upgrade. I was equipped with a small missile launcher on my back that would spring upward and launch a cascade of small missiles. I saw five galleons docked, they were bringing people in. There will be no escape from us.

[Missiles Fired]

The missiles launched themselves from my suit and flew towards the galleons. They could only stare as three small missiles truck each galleon one by one. A domino explosion ensued as my missiles hit the galleons from right to left. The night was lit up by the flames of their destruction.

As the rest of my team finished killing off the survivors, we walked towards the now ruined port and stared at the corpses that floated over the water. The galleons laid burning and slowly sank until they hit the sand underneath.

“Ghost, there’s a child over there,” Snake pointed to our left, next to one of the burning galleons. There was a child hanging on for dear life on top of a box.

“What should we do?” Snake asked.

I looked at the child, he or she was hanging on that piece of debris. The child seemed unconscious yet his or her arms were holding on tight at the edges.

Exactly what I needed.

Director Bullwright, you have been summoned under the orders of the D.O.D. for this questioning regarding tampering with Phoenix Team's equipment.

I don't remember doing such a thing.

Director, the council only wants your honesty. They already know about what you did so let me get to the point.

...

What were those suits that you gave them?