The Red Ring

The situation was quite frankly, something Irrako would consider "fucked" for lack of a better term.

Half the squad was "krangled". The official term is Aldrang Emission Overridden, but everyone just calls them krangled because that's what it does to them.

Vermeer often described krangling as "The rogue Aldrang in the mindstorm having fucked their shit up so bad their insides turned into outsides and those outsides both went supercritical and supermassive at the same time several times in a row before their electrons could decide how many of them wanted to be present for the school picture. And now they're reconstructed as brainless instinct-level killing machines with nukes for hearts and lightning for blood"

And now that half the team is essentially a bunch of walking and unfortunately talking group of cybernetically enhanced nuclear bombs that teleport, Irrako was understandably on edge.

'Why the FUCK did Istano have to go and make the 1st-Gen Kellslayers leave residual Aldrang on exit?'

Irrako thought to himself, pissed that remnants of the Corporate Wars are the reason he's in this situation in the first place.

The whole team, or what's left of it, is taking shelter in an Aldrang Diffusion Field, or ADF. It's the only thing that keeps cities relatively safe from all of the rogue Aldrang in the atmosphere that makes up the mindstorms. They're in a large building surrounded by computers.

Irrako looks around and checks on the team. Everyone's visibly exhausted; they've been in the field for six days being chased around by the mindstorm, slowly being picked off one-by-one.

'If only we never put on these fucking red rings in the first place!'

Irrako clenches his fist, remembering what happened.

It all started when they first encountered the mindstorm. At first, the mindstorm was slightly manageable, they used the usual tactics: Bait out a pocket of Aldrang, get it to send in some krangled, use the ring's Aldrang to emit a stunning frequency, and kill the krangled and teleport the fuck out of there before it blows, rinse and repeat until the mindstorm dissipates.

Then it started to send more.

And more.

And more.

Vermeer authorized using the red rings, so the 8th put them on. At first, it didn't seem different than the normal ring. Same burning but this time the Aldrang was red, though. That was until they realized it disabled their normal Aldrang, their usual rings. It also knocked out their comms, preventing them from contacting Athrodo for backup or to even let them know what happened.

No access to teleportation, meant no fighting the krangled, no fighting the krangled meant no choice but to lure the mindstorm away from Athrodo. Luckily their guns, the Kellslayers, still worked so the problem was with the Aldrang inside the rings. What this also meant, though, was that they had to manually offset the Aldrang collection around them to prevent instantaneous teleportation of an object straight into their hearts or brains. Irrako and the rest of the ART were well trained in anti-Aldrang combat, so it was just an unfortunate extra condition.

Vermeer started them on run to the Mojave Desert, well enough away from Athrodo but also where Istano Group has a large solar facility they could take shelter in due to the ADF and contact Athrodo. If push came to shove, they could knock krangled into the ADF and disable them that way too.

After 4 days, the team lost their first member. The mindstorm called in a krangled group and one of them hit him with a tungsten rod, straight through his chest. With the Aldrang in their bodies seemingly disabled from the red rings, he was dead in an instant.

After 5 days, the team was reduced to 60%. Residual combat injuries lowered performance, no Aldrang also meant they had to resort to traditional recovery. Slower travel from exhaustion, and members bled out from injuries they couldn't treat.

Eventually, the mindstorm showed some signs of waning, but not before sending in another krangled group right outside the facility's ADF. Veon was hit with a rod in the side, but they managed to get her inside, but couldn't save the rest.

Vermeer taps Irrako on the shoulder, and he turns to face him.

"Commander! We have any luck with the comms?"

"None. I don't know what the fuck they put in these red rings but it looks like we're removed from the system."

"What?! So the system doesn't even recognize us?"

"Like we're fuckin civvies. It doesn't look good."

Vermeer turns around to look out of the window and sighs. His face is grim.

"So what's the plan? We just head out there and bait until we get the damn mindstorm and then head back to Athrodo?"

"Might have to. I don't have a much better idea either, if you're wondering. We can't hunker down here 'cause we'll run out of rations before the next maintenance crew gets out here."

"Not to mention that the mindstorm's gonna camp here and they'll rip that maintenance crew alive."

"Yeah."

Vermeer pauses for a second before turning around to face Irrako again.

"How's Veon holding up?"

Irrako's shakes his head and sighs before looking down.

"Not well. We can't afford to remove the rod otherwise she'll just bleed out."

"Shit."

Vermeer walks to the end of the room before coming back.

"Fuck it. Let's clear this fuckin mindstorm while we still got strength."

Irrako picked up his gun that was leaning against the wall and puts his helmet back on.

"Roger that. I'll signal the rest and leave two with Veon."

"Good. Let's get this done."

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

Irrako dodges to the left, narrowly avoiding a massive tungsten rod that collides with a rock past him. As it hits the rock, it makes a loud, deep hum from the impact.

He returns fire, pulling the trigger on his Kellslayer, sending one of his own rods out and impaling one of his former teammates to the ground, 20 feet away from where he was hit.

"ADF! Now!"

One of his teammates throws a portable ADF and it powers up, as it lands directly underneath the pinned krangled, draining the Aldren from inside as it falls out of their former teammate's body like sand. It's finished.

"Irrako! Watch your six!"

Vermeer fires at another krangled just as it teleports in behind Irrako with a high pitched ping, impaling it and sending the thing straight into the facility's ADF, draining it.

Irrako dashes towards another teammate, and slides before managing to get underneath another krangled and pulling the trigger, launching it up into the sky and back down into the portable ADF.

"We might actually have this under control!"

"I fuckin hope so. There doesn't seem to be an end to this!"

Suddenly, they hear a loud explosion. As they turn around, They see the visible barrier of the facility's ADF dissipate. Irrako and Vermeer look at each other with wide eyes.

"Shit! What the fuck happened?!"

"Like I fucking know-- your six!"

Vermeer pushes Irrako out of the way as he hears the ping of the teleport. Irrako hits the ground and looks up.

"Agh!"

Tungsten rod teleported straight into his chest. Irrako could hardly process what he was seeing. His commander, the infallible Vermeer, was impaled upon a massive tungsten rod.

And it was all his fault.

"VERMEER! NO!"

Irrako scrambles to get up, but spots two more small hazes of Aldrang and rolls to his right, narrowly missing another two rods. He readies his gun, and fires off two of his own, slamming two krangled and nailing them into the ground several meters behind.

The hiss of two more Aldrang portals are heard behind Irrako as he quickly spins around and kicks both hazes in a whirl, dispersing them briefly. A teleport ping rings out as Irrako dives to his left and fires straight up, sending the krangled into the air and out of the way.

As Irrako quickly looked around, he saw one after another of his teammates falling to the horde of krangled. Each of them, getting swarmed by incessant teleports and incoming rods, impaled by multiple, or just getting ripped apart.

Another ping-- Irrako dodges to the right but hears another just as he recovers. Two krangled on him and a third ping just behind him.

Wham! Irrako is sent flying as he's hit in the abdomen by a rod.

And another. And another. He struggles to process what's happened to him before he's impaled by rod after rod.

His team is dead. The ADF is down.

His vision fades.